Las Vegas Drug Crimes Lawyer
Both federal and state prosecutors take drug crimes very seriously. Penalties for drug trafficking crimes carry mandatory minimum sentences. This means that if you are convicted of a drug trafficking crime, you face a mandatory prison sentence of 1, 5, or 10 years. With federal enhancement for prior convictions, you can receive a mandatory prison sentence of 20 years or a mandatory life sentence depending on the type of enhancement the U.S. Attorney decides to file against you. Within federal law, there is a “safety-valve” provision which allows you to receive less than the mandatory 5 or 10 year sentence if you provide a truthful statement of your involvement and are in Criminal History Category I. Under Nevada state law, there is no state equivalent of safety valve meaning that there is no escaping the mandatory minimum unless you are able to receive a plea agreement for a less serious offense.
There are interesting developments with medical marijuana defenses since Nevada recognizes medical marijuana as a legal defense to a charge of possession of marijuana. If you have a medical marijuana card, the police cannot search you solely on the basis that you have a medical marijuana card. ThatI am challenging all prosecutions of my clients who have been charged with trafficking and transporting marijuana with motions to dismiss for vagueness, equal protection violations, violations of the commerce clause, and violations of due process. For instance, take this hypothetical example: You get a call from your sick brother is dying of leukemia, is bedridden, and who has a medical marijuana card. He asks you to go to the place which dispenses medical marijuana to medical marijuana card holders and pick up his medical marijuana. You pick up the marijuana and attempt to deliver it to your brother. You are stopped by police officers who search your car and find the marijuana. You are arrested and charged for transporting marijuana. Under Nevada law, this would be a lawful prosecution! My argument that I am raising for all my clients charged with transporting or trafficking marijuana is that this arrest and charge are unconstitutional because the purpose of you getting the marijuana to give to your brother should not be illegal since you were transporting it for your sick bedridden brother and not for yourself. Yet the statute does not make this distinguishment since it allows prosecution for your innocent actions in getting the marijuana from the authorized marijuana dispenser for your brother.
It’s important to understand that even a misdemeanor conviction for any type of drug possession should not be taken lightly. An employer or potential employer who runs a “rapsheet” on you through a law enforcement agency or from an online website will find out about it and make unfair judgments about you which could result in you not getting the job you seek or getting turned down for the job you want.
Before you even think of pleading guilty to any type of drug offense, contact me first. I have over 10 years of experience as a criminal defense lawyer and have represented over 100 people in drug trafficking offenses and drug possession offenses. I even got a federal drug trafficking case dismissed in which my client was a truck driver who was caught with over 9,000 pounds of marijuana in his cargo.
