Defending Yourself Against Charges Of Drug Possession With Intent To Deliver

It is impossible to know what someone else is thinking, even when the person speaks at length and there is an abundance of nonverbal context clues. You are acutely aware of this when you reread the text messages your crush has sent you in recent weeks, and with every reading, you become less certain of whether your crush reciprocates your feelings. Middle schoolers who attempt to deny having feelings for their alleged crush are even more aware of it. In the worst cases, your inquisitors say, “You’re in love with Jayden, but you just don’t know it!”  How do you, with your sixth-grade command of rhetoric, prove that your actions indicate certainty that you are not in love with Jayden as opposed to simply being unsure of how you feel about him?  How does anyone measure this? It is bad enough to be tried in the court of schoolyard opinion, but what if the state is accusing you or thinking something or wanting something? The criminal charge of drug possession with intent to deliver is not just about whether the drugs that the police found truly belonged to you; it is also about what you planned to do with them. If you are under investigation for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, contact a Tampa drug crime lawyer.

What Does Intent to Deliver Look Like?

The court can only convict you of drug possession with intent to deliver if they can prove that the illegal drugs belonged to you and that you had plans to sell them. If police find more drugs in your possession than you could reasonably consume, they might charge you with possession with intent to deliver, but if that is all the evidence they have, you have a good chance of a plea deal where the court downgrades your charges to simple possession.

Evidence of intent to deliver usually takes two forms. One is the presence of other items commonly associated with drug distribution. This includes digital sales, pill presses, thousands of dollars’ worth of cash, and firearms. The other is communications between the defendant and other parties, which the prosecution interprets to be evidence of completed or planned drug transactions. These communications might be text messages, or they might be phone conversations recorded by confidential informants.

Casting Doubt on the Prosecution’s Interpretation of Your Intentions

You might be able to argue that there is another plausible interpretation for the presence of the items. Maybe you have so much cash because you work at a food truck on the beach or because you cash your paychecks because you are too poor to open a bank account. Likewise, text message conversations are notoriously incomprehensible to everyone except to the participants, especially when they are full of emojis and inside jokes. Maybe you and your sister were texting about your futile attempts to avoid junk food, and you referred to your favorite candies and fast food items by emojis commonly associated with illegal drugs.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you get justice if you are facing criminal charges for drug possession with intent to deliver.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0800-0899/0893/Sections/0893.13.html