Four legal defenses for marijuana possession

Speaker 1
00;00;00;11 – 00;00;01;06
Hey, everyone. Today we’re going to talk about four legal defenses to possessing marijuana in Wyoming. This is Christina Williams with Just Criminal Law.
Speaker 2
00;00;10;07 – 00;00;11;14
And David Mann, legal storytelling specialist. All right Christina, so before we started this video here, we talked a little bit about what these are and I’m curious as to hearing more about them. So someone gets arrested for possession of marijuana. They don’t have to just say, “Okay, well, I’m guilty.” So there are ways to defend against that. And we talked about these four. So the first one was that the marijuana is not yours. So tell us about that one.
Speaker 1
00;00;40;11 – 00;00;43;27
Right. So say that you are in a house whedre you share roommates, adult roommates, and for some reason, law enforcement ends up in your home and finds marijuana in your home. And say you’re the only one there. And they charge you with possession of marijuana. Now, tehre is a valid defense, and that is that that marijuana in your home was, in fact, someone else’s. Specifically, your roommate. And they’re going to have a hard time getting around that if you don’t talk to them and explain maybe too much. So again, it’s always important to exercise that right to remain silent. And then they’re going to have a really had time proving it was yours.
Speaker 2
00;01;28;24 – 00;01;31;24
And you found that that that defense does work out for defendants often.
Speaker 1
00;01;34;14 – 00;01;35;20
Absolutely. They’re going to have to prove that you had access to or control over the marijuana. And if it’s your roommate and you know it’s not yours, then you’re certainly not the person that has access or control of the controlled substance.
Speaker 2
00;01;53;00 – 00;01;54;04
That’s good to know because it might seem like you did, but it’s easy to prove or it’s possible to prove that you didn’t. So another one would be unlawful search and seizure.
Speaker 1
00;02;02;24 – 00;02;05;05
Yes. And this is probably the most common one that we’re able to get charges reduced or dismissed under. And that is, everybody has that Fourth Amendment right and law enforcement has to play by the rules. And so if they obtain marijuana that is yours, but they’ve violated your Fourth Amendment right to privacy. That is, they’ve illegally searched your car, your home, your person. That is, they’ve patted you down and they weren’t supposed to. Then we can potentially get that evidence suppressed and then the charge goes away for the person who is in possession of marijuana.
Speaker 2
00;02;42;20 – 00;02;44;05
Hmm. That is interesting. That’s good. And so the next one would be to challenge the results of a drug lab analysis.
Speaker 1
00;02;50;07 – 00;02;52;18
Yes. And that’s going to require an expert. So if the person has the means to hire an expert, we might need to go to say, a motion hearing, or actually go to a jury trial an dprove that the state is not able to determine what that substance is. And maybe it’s a green, leafy plant substance. But the science in proving that it is, in fact, marijuana and not some other substance that has the same molecular makeup is a valid defense. And it can work, if you want to take it to trial and cause the jury to have doubt about what the substance really is.
Speaker 2
00;03;40;01 – 00;03;40;15
That’s right. It can’t be marijuana possession if it’s actually not marijuana. The next one is unwitting possession, or not knowing that you have possession of it.
Speaker 1
00;03;48;27 – 00;03;52;15
So, you know, sometimes you’ll be driving somebody else’s car. Perhaps they’ve let you borrow their car for some reason, and you end up getting pulled over. And for some reason, maybe they run a drug dog around the car, or you give them consent to search and they find marijuana that you had no idea was there. And it’s obviously not your car. Then there’s a real issue proving that you intentionally and knowingly were possessing that marijuana.
Speaker 2
00;04;22;16 – 00;04;23;07
Hmm okay. So in a way, it’s really getting down to things like, if it’s a charge of marijuana possession, we have to know that you possessed it and that you possessed it knowingly and that it’s actually marijuana. So it gets very specific and, again, sounds very difficult for a person on their own to defened themselves in this way.
Speaker 1
00;04;39;22 – 00;04;42;21
Right. Yeah. And, you know, probably the most popular one that we’re able to help people with is that violation of your constitutional right.
Speaker 2
00;04;50;28 – 00;04;52;06
So those are all great ways to defend our rights. So if someone finds themselves in this corner, they need to get in touch with you. And how do they do that?
Speaker 1
00;05;00;06 – 00;05;00;26
Sure. We’ll include a link in the description where they can call, text, or chat with a member of my team, any time, day or night. Here at Just Criminal Law, we know you only get one shot at justice. So make yours count!