Did the cops find drugs on you? In your car? In your trunk? In your glovebox? In a locked container in your car? Did you know someone in your car was holding and unloaded their stash when you got pulled over for not using your turn signal? Did the police serve a search warrant on your house? Did they find a grow op? A lab? Money? Crib notes? Scales? Packaging material and drug paraphernalia? Did the cops ask for your consent to search? What kind of consent did you give? What were the circumstances surrounding your “consent”? Did you place restrictions on your consent? Was your consent scrupulously honored? Did the police announce their presence? Did somebody narc on you? Did law enforcement use a confidential informant? Was the informant “reliable”? What information was divulged in the search warrant affidavit? Did the warrant specify places to be searched and items to be seized? Were you Mirandized? Did you make any statements? Were you denied access to an attorney?
Frankly, I could go on and on and on. Bottom line — do think your case is “unwinnable” because the cops found dope and they’re pinning it on you? Think again, the law may be on your side.
Experienced Washington Drug Charge Lawyer
I have over 10 years of experience defending clients facing drug charges in Washington. My advocacy resulted in criminal charges being dismissed in both Superior Court and District Court. I also shepherded the reduction of felony charges to misdemeanor charges. And misdemeanor charges to civil infractions. The facts were on our side. But good facts are useless, if left in the hands of the uninitiated. Experience when experience matters most, right? No doubt about it. You need a criminal defense attorney with experience and knowledge defending drug cases.
Expectation of Privacy & Due Process
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects a person’s justifiable expectation of privacy by prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures.
Article 1, Section 7 of the Washington State Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and guarantees that “[n]o person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law.”
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents any state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
Article 1, Section 3 of the Washington State Constitution provides: “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”
Deconstructing the Government’s Case
You have guaranteed rights under the law. Those rights are shaped and interpreted by statutes, codes and decisional case law. Knowing the law is your best defense. Did you know the Washington Constitution affords you greater expectations of privacy than its Federal counterpart under the Fourth Amendment? Depending on the specific facts of the case, we need to look at the lawfulness of the following:
- Probable Cause including probable cause to Arrest and Search
- Reasonable Suspicion including reasonable suspicion to stop, detain, question and frisk
- Warrantless Searches and Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement (Consent, Plain View, Incident to Arrest, Abandoned property, Exigent Circumstances, Jailhouse and Parolee Exception, Plain Feel, Open Fields, Prevent Destruction of Evidence, Save Life Exception, School Search)
- Vehicle Searches & Seizures (Basis for stop, Basis for extracting driver and occupants from the car, Impoundment and Inventory)
- Search Warrants (Probable cause, SW Affidavit, Places to be Searched, Things to be Seized, Timeliness, Knock and Announce, etc.)
- Arrests with and without warrants (Felonies, Misdemeanors, Fresh Pursuit & Hot Pursuit
- Confessions (Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment & Sixth Amendment considerations)
There are treatises in volumes on your rights. The above is not meant to be an exhaustive list of the diagnostic tools I use when we analyze your case. The above is merely my way of letting you know where my head is at when it comes to representing clients facing misdemeanor and felony drug charges.
