I was charged with trafficking in opium or heroin
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I was charged with trafficking in opium or heroin
I had 40 methadone pills and they were not for sale and I did not have any cash on me. It was a case of possession not trafficking. I am facing 80 months for this charge and I am an addict but since being arrested in October 08 I am now a full time student on the President’s List. I have been clean since then, and I work full time at Ruby Tuesdays. I am hoping to get any insight as to what I can do to make my charges less harsh.
Asked on June 17, 2009 under Criminal Law, North Carolina
Answers:
B. B., Member, New Jersey Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 14 years ago | Contributor
You really need to get an attorney to work on this for you. One place to find a qualified defense lawyer is our website, http://attorneypages.com
If you can show that you are being this successful, as a full-time student while holding down a full-time job, and even more so if you can document anything like a class or counselor or other treatment after the arrest that helped you get clean, if you have an NA sponsor since then, anything like that -- an attorney can often put this sort of thing to best use. It's possible that if your lawyer can show all this to the prosecutor, the prosecutor might be willing to downgrade the charge to simple possession. The ideal situation, the best you can probably hope for, and only if it's your first offense, they not only downgrade, but allow you into a pretrial diversion plan. The details differ from state to state, and all of the facts of your case are important, in this. But if you get all the way to pretrial diversion, you are essentially put on probation, typically 18-24 months, it would include drug testing, and if you finish that successfully, the charges go away.
No attorney can guarantee you this result, or any other -- but I believe that in your situation, you really need to find a way to have a lawyer give it her or his best shot for you, because this might be possible. And you sound smart enough to understand what that would mean -- and smart enough to make good use of the second chance. Best of luck with this!
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