As a criminal defense attorney one of the most important types of cases that come my way are felony charges with damning facts. Here’s a story of a real case that I had, with identifying characteristics changed to protect the client’s confidentiality: Police discovered in excess of two hundred marijuana plants, with the dry weight of twenty (20) pounds, in my client’s second home. Such amounted to felony possession of a controlled substance.
There were several issues for my client including the overriding concern that he knew nothing about the marijuana plants that were in this rental property. There is always the question in any criminal defense case where illegal possessions are found within one’s property of whether the law enforcement had the legal grounds to enter the property. Such facts bring about the constitutional issues under the Fourth and Fifth Amendment’s for the search and seizure of one’s personal property. For this type of law enforcement conduct there must be probable cause and usually a search warrant. Such was not much of an issue in this particular case as it was my client who consented to the initial search. The background is that he was called to the property as the power company had identified that his property had been illegally wired and was drawing more electricity than was being registered by the power meter. It was a concern between the public utility and law enforcement that such an illegal wiring may cause a fire hazard and they requested entry into the property to determine the level of risk. As such my client (not knowing what was in the property), allowed law enforcement into the property where the marijuana growing operation was identified by the plants, grow lights, and fertilizers. The property was sealed and promptly thereafter a search warrant was solicited from the signing judge and law enforcement re-entered the property.
The next issue was a question of possession. Clearly my client owned the property but he was unaware of it’s contents. The fact that there was another legitimate owner it can arguably be said that he did not possess the marijuana. In this particular case, proving that the marijuana was possession of another was major difficulty. The client had rented the property based on an oral lease and it was clear from the search of the property that the renter was not using the property for any other purposes other than growing the marijuana as such the renter was never seen again as he never returned to the property. The skepticism of the law enforcement immediately assumed that there was no renter and my client was the owner of the growing operation. In conjunction with a number of other allegations by third parties, the County Attorney’s office decided to charge my client with the possession of the marijuana.
After exhaustive work with the file and much dialogue with the client and the County Attorney’s office, my client wasn’t willing to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit. But I was able to secure for him the opportunity to resolve the matter without trial. We estimated that my client would have been at risk of being found guilty at a jury trial. As such my client was able to enter a plea of guilty based on not an admission of guilt but rather acknowledgement of likelihood that he would be found guilty at trial and his desire to take advantage of the State’s offer that would keep the felony off of his record after a period of probation and assured him no jail time. Thus upon negotiating that resolution, my client avoided the felony charges without the risk of conviction at trial, without any jail time, and without admitting to a crime he did not commit.
