Drug charges are taken incredibly seriously in Fairfax and are associated with heavy penalties that can negatively affect both an individuals’ personal and professional lives in the long-term. However, an individual does not have to face the prosecution’s allegations alone.
If you are facing drug charges in Fairfax, it is critical that you consult with an experienced drug attorney to craft a strong Fairfax drug defense strategy to help lessen or dismiss any consequences associated with your charge.
A drug charge is rarely dropped right away. Once a charge is pending against a person and has been filed with the court, the only way it can go away is when the judge or prosecutor takes an immediate action on it. It is very rare that once a charge is pending there is anything that could happen that causes a prosecutor or judge to get rid of it immediately.
If the charge were to be dropped, the person must be arraigned and a court date must be set. Once a person is charged and arrested for something, it has to be set on the court’s docket before anything else can happen.
The big constitutional issue that often arises in drug cases in Fairfax is search and seizure under which often occur during traffic stops. Whether or not the officer had reasonable, articulable suspicion to search the car, or whether or not they had probable cause to conduct a search, that is the biggest constitutional issue, or in the case of a house search, whether or not they had grounds for a warrant to search the house.
Law enforcement officers can make many mistakes in their investigation or issuance of a charge. They can charge somebody with the wrong thing, take the appropriate legal steps to investigate correctly, and then fail to follow the constitution. They can do illegal searches or illegal seizures, they can package the evidence wrong, and they can damage the evidence so it is not usable at trial for the prosecutor.
However, these mistakes can all help the defense in a Fairfax drug case by allowing them to contest the evidence collected. Law enforcement can mix up the drugs, and sometimes charge individuals who are not involved in the case. There are many ways that the officer can make mistakes when bringing forward a drug charge.
All of this helps the defense build a strong drug defense strategy in Fairfax because an attorney who knows the laws will know to look for these types of things. The lawyer takes steps to make sure that the officer is doing their job, and points out all of the individuals who are not doing their job to levy that against the prosecutor as they attempt to build their case.
It is very important that somebody contacts an attorney at the very first moment they are interacting with law enforcement. If a person is being investigated or thinks they will be investigated because they heard or observed something to that effect, they should contact an attorney right away. A lawyer can immediately begin building a Fairfax drug defense strategy to help combat the prosecution’s allegations.
The person can tell the attorney that they saw or heard something that makes them believe they are going to be contacted by law enforcement, and need to know how to handle that. This can help the lawyer prevent the person from initially being stopped at all. It can actually help them find out how they have already incriminated themselves and identify potential protections against the prosecution moving forward.
If the person has already contacted a law enforcement officer, they should contact an attorney right away. The more interactions someone has with the police officer or with any other kind of law enforcement without having an attorney to advise and protect that person, the more vulnerable they are to some kind of significant problems. An experienced lawyer will be able to handle all the necessary elements of the case and mount a strong drug defense strategy in Fairfax to benefit their client.
A stigma follows an individual who is charged with a drug crime. Someone facing charges should contact an attorney immediately. In Fairfax, they are typically felonies and they can have serious ramifications on an individual’s future. These offenses could also lead to jail time and license suspensions. A judge, under most of these statutes, is required to suspend an individual’s driver’s license for a minimum of six months.
Contact a lawyer early and get them involved. Give the lawyer time to investigate and mount a defense and if necessary, line up possible drug treatments which can make the difference between spending time in jail and possibly getting the case dismissed under a good behavior setup.