Drug Crime Enhancements in Virginia

Prosecutors in Northern Virginia are very aggressive. They usually bring the most serious charges the facts could possibly support. So, if there’s any possibility a drug crime enhancement may apply, the charging documents almost always reflect that possibility. Usually, prosecutors bring aggressive charges to trigger a shock and awe effect. This technique often works. Scared defendants often accept unfavorable plea bargain deals in these situations.

A good Leesburg criminal defense lawyer is not easily intimidated. Instead, a lawyer breaks down a drug or other criminal case, looking for potential defenses and weaknesses in the state’s evidence. Then, an attorney leverages these defenses and weaknesses during plea bargain negotiations, to obtain the best possible result under the circumstances. Additionally, if a favorable plea bargain agreement is unavailable, a Leesburg criminal defense lawyer is ready, willing, and able to go to the mat for defendants.

Possession to Trafficking

This upgrade may be one of the most common ones. As mentioned, most prosecutors work exclusively with the facts of a case when they file formal charges. If the police report mentions any additional circumstantial evidence, enhanced charges are almost inevitable. This circumstantial evidence includes:

• Baggies,
• Weapons,
• Cash,
• Scales, and
• Suspicious text message conversations.

This evidence looks good on paper. But it’s often either inadmissible or unpersuasive in court, especially if a Leesburg criminal defense lawyer has anything to say about it.

Circumstantial evidence often involves search warrant issues. Warrants are usually very specific. For example, officers may have legal permission to search a garage for drugs. If they find guns in the living room, a judge may exclude the guns, as they exceeded the scope of the search warrant.

Cell phone conversations are another illustration. Usually, defendants have protected privacy interests in all content past the home screen. Officers cannot search text messages or other content unless they have search warrants or a narrow search warrant exception, like owner consent, applies.

This evidence is often unpersuasive as well. For example, the connection between drugs in the garage and a pair of pistols in a bedroom is tenuous, at best.

Drug-Free Zone

Under Section 18.2-255.2, all of Northern Virginia is basically one big drug-free zone. Any spot within 1,000 feet of a “any public or private elementary or secondary school, any institution of higher education, or any clearly marked licensed child day center,” is a drug-free zone.

1,000 feet is about the length of three football fields. Almost every street corner in Loudoun County is within 1,000 feet of at least one school or daycare, if not two or maybe three.

The drug free zone enhancement in Virginia isn’t technically an enhancement. Instead, manufacturing, selling, distributing, or possessing with the intent to sell “any controlled substance, imitation controlled substance, or marijuana” in a drug-free zone is a separate felony punishable by up to five years in prison and/or a $100,000 fine.

A geographical add-on, such as a drug-free zone enhancement, is very difficult to beat in court. However, a Leesburg criminal defense lawyer can still attack the evidence in the drug trafficking portion of that charge, as outlined above.

Count on a Diligent Loudoun County Lawyer

There’s a big difference between an arrest and a conviction in criminal law. For a confidential consultation with an experienced criminal defense attorney in Leesburg, contact Simms Showers, LLP, Attorneys at Law. Convenient payment plans are available.