Have you been arrested for possessing or trafficking drugs? Were the drugs found in a home or other place you do not own? If so, you may not be criminally liable for those drugs, as discussed in a recent court decision. In Dion Johnson v. State of Florida, Mr. Johnson…
Did the police justify their search of your vehicle by claiming they detected the odor of marijuana? If they did and there was in fact no marijuana smoked or recently in your car, your lawyer may be able to question their credibility based on a New York judge’s recent comments…
On June 25, 2019 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida Senate Bill 1020, regulating the production and distribution of hemp and hemp extracts in Florida, including the increasingly popular hemp derivative, cannabidiol (CBD). The bill makes Florida the latest state to enact legislation to legalize and regulate its hemp industry. …
To date, the following eleven states have legalized recreational use of marijuana: Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts. As those and other states and cities relax their drug laws, the highly trained dogs used by their police departments to sniff out narcotics can’t be…
A 2016, report by ProPublica and the New York Times found frequent false positives and user errors by law enforcement administering the most popular drug field tests. Precise error rates are difficult to ascertain, as some test results can be affected by variables such as the weather, user error and lighting…
Imagine that while driving your car, you are stopped by the police for having an expired tag or for speeding. The officer approaches and tells you the reason for your stop. He / she then asks for your license, registration and insurance card. The officer then asks you to step…
The First District Court of Appeal recently issued an opinion concerning whether merely being around drugs is sufficient to convict someone for possession. Based on the facts in that case, the answer is “no.” In that case officers found illegal drugs while investigating a shootout between two cars that had…
Did you know there is a law in Florida that requires your drug possession / possession of controlled substances case to be dropped under certain circumstances, even if it is undisputed you possessed the drugs? Well, there is. In 2012, the Florida Legislature determined it was in the interest of…
There is good news if you desire to serve in the military, but you have a previous arrest for marijuana possession. The United States Army is issuing an increasing number of enlistment waivers to those who have smoked pot and also want to serve their country. These waivers allow previously…
Most criminal cases, including drug cases, are resolved without a trial via a process known as plea bargaining. In that process, both the government and the defense negotiate an agreement as to the outcome of a case, such as the length of any incarceration and/or probation and the requirement of…