Client was charged with Possession of Controlled Substance.
Result: Dismissed
Details: Client was a passenger in a car that was pulled over and searched. Law enforcement discovered cocaine in the car and the Client admitted that it was his and the driver’s cocaine and they were both charged with possession cocaine. Upon doing some legal research and realizing that law enforcement illegally stopped the car, we were able to have the case thrown out and the charges dismissed as a result of the illegal stop.
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Client was charged with Possession of 525.5 kilograms (1,156.2 lbs) of marijuana with the intent to distribute.
Result: Dismissed
Details: Client was arrested after police found large bundles of marijuana in her garage. According to the police, they had waited until client had returned home and then obtained her written consent to search her house. However, there were four wittnesses we found that indicated they had watched the police search the home without a warrant and prior to receiving written consent from our client. We raised the issue of an illegal search in violation of the 4th Ammendment and filed a motion to suppress the illegally obtained evidence and requested a hearing. Two weeks before the hearing, the federal prosecutor decided to dismiss all charges against our client.
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Charges: Possession with intent to distribute marijuana
Result: Dismissed
Details: Client was a truck driver from Mexico and was arrested at an international bridge along the border after federal agents found 4.5 tons of marijuana in the back of his tractor-trailer. This was a relatively high profile case because it was one of the largest loads to be confiscated at a land point-of-entry. Immediately, we began work on trying to create a paper trail to show the prosecutor that the driver thought he was delivering a legitimate load of merchandise to the U.S. Through our investigation, we were able to show that the driver had picked up the load in Mexico and had all the necessary paperwork to cross into the U.S. and deliver it to a legitimate location. We were able to get his case dismissed pre-indictment and the client was able to go back to Mexico and keep his work permit.
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Charges: Possession with intent to distribute marijuana
Result: Dismissed
Details: Client was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Client was an 18-year old passenger in a car with two older friends. They were stopped at an immigration checkpoint when a dog alerted to their car. Upon inspection, it was discovered that there were 50 kilograms of marijuana contained in a hidden gas compartment of the car. Immediately, federal agents separated the three boys and began to interrogate them. Our client was interrogated in a very threatening and intimidating manner. During the interrogation, the agent yelled and swore at him and continued to tell him the drugs must belong to him because the car was registered under his name (which was a lie). Ultimately, after hours of this type of interrogation, our client broke down and confessed ownership of the drugs so he was arrested and the other two were released. We filed a Motion to Suppress his confession stating that it was illegally given because it had been coerced. The day before the hearing, the government dismissed the case and he was able to go home to his parents.
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Client charged with Possession of Marijuana while on Felony probation in another county.
Result: DISMISSED.
Details: Client is a young man with only one prior criminal arrest: a felony possession of a controlled substance in Caldwell County. We were not his lawyer for that charge (he was already on probation when he became our client) and while on felony probation, he was arrested for Possession of Marijuana. Before we represented this young man, he had spent five (5) months in jail waiting on the Caldwell County court’s decision whether or not to revoke his probation due to the subsequent offense. The case originated out of Travis County, and he was shipped from the Caldwell Jail to the Travis County Jail to take care of the Possession of Marijuana charge.
After meeting with the client and reviewing the police report, we were fortunate to find a prosecutor that was sympathetic to his plight. The underlying search of our client was incredibly suspect; he was leaving his car and heading back to his girlfriend’s apartment. The only reason the police officer stopped him was because “this was a high crime area” and he wanted to investigate whether or not our client was possibly burglarizing his own car. The police officer then looked inside the car and said that he saw a marijuana cigar in plain view, and then arrested our client for POM. The problem with his search was twofold: first, it would be impossible to determine whether a cigar contained marijuana by sight alone. Second, considering that our client had car keys, no shoes, no burgarly tools, wasn’t running or hiding from the police, and was outside apartments, there was no reasonable suspcision to believe that he was engaged in criminal activity. The search was not reasonable.
Finally, we were able to contact the client’s probation officer to confirm that he was schedule to attend drug treatment in the coming weeks. We put the probation officer on the phone with the prosecutor who confirmed his treatment. The case was dismissed.
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Client with previous felony convictions charged with Constructive Delivery of a Controlled Substance, which charge was enhanced to 2nd Degree Felony. Client pleaded to Possession of Controlled Substance, no enhancement and 6 months State Jail.
Details: Client was charged with constructive delivery of a controlled substance and had previous prior felony convictions which enhanced this charge to a second degree felony. The initial offer was five (5) years in prison.
We advised our client against this offer and prepared for a pretrial hearing. Before setting the matter for pretrial, the offer was reduced to one (1) year in the state jail facility and waiving the felony enhancements. The client was extraordinarily pleased with this offer, but again, we discouraged him from accepting the offer because there were problems with the case. Specifically, the client was accused of ‘constructive’ delivery because he told an uncover officer where he could buy narcotics. He did not sell narcotics, he did not buy narcotics, he wasn’t caught with pre-recorded buy money, he didn’t profit in the sale—nothing. After further argument with the ADA, the offer was reduced to possession of a controlled substance for the minimum time of six (6) months state jail. Although there were still problems with this case, the client did not want to risk being enhanced and immediately accepted the offer.
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Client charged with Felony Possession of Controlled Substance and Misdemeanor POCS.
Result: Felony was DISMISSED prior to trial and Misdemeanor reduced to Class C ticket and $200 fine.
Details: Client was accused of 2 Drug charges – POCS (felony) and a POCS (misdemeanor). Client was facing convictions on both counts and he had a criminal history that caused concern. The Client was seen with a friend in a parking lot at night with a backpack in a high crime neighborhood. The Client had an empty backpack when the officer saw him initially, but later came out with a full backpack. The policeman thought this was suspicious, thinking that he was burglarizing cars. The officer detained him in his car and said he saw an open beer in his car. Upon search, they found drugs in his backpack. We immediately contested this case and argued that it was completely unconstitutional to search someone who had done nothing wrong. Every single activity that our Client had done was consistent with someone who lived in an apartment complex. There was no indication that he was burglarizing, no tools, and no evidence was ever found. No one complained. It was basically a police officer trying to make connections in a parking lot.
The felony prosecutor dismissed the case outright in the interest of justice after we prepared our case and arguments. The misdemeanor prosecutor had argued back and forth about whether the search was valid. We ultimately resolved the case with a ticket. He had faced a State Jail Felony for 2 years and up to a $10,000.00 fine as well as a misdemeanor up to a $4,000.00 fine. Client ended up with a $200.00 traffic ticket for possession of drug paraphernalia and avoided a conviction as a felon.
As is often the case, it’s sometimes easier to get felonies dismissed that misdemeanors. The misdemeanor prosecutor disagreed with this assessment, but offered to dismiss the case only if client paid a small fine and took a drug class. We advised client to take the case to trial, but client preferred the bird in the hand and entered the agreement for dismissal.
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Client charged with Possession of Marijuana and failed to appear in court for about a year.
Result: Case DISMISSED and client released immediately from jail.
Details: Client accused of POM and unfortunately he failed to appear in court and was classified as a fugitive for about a year. When we met with the prosecution after being involved with the case, we reviewed the police report and were able to show a number of defects which made the search and arrest of our client illegal. Although the County Attorney (CA) was upset that the client had absconded for that length of time, without filing any motions, we were able to show the CA the flaws in the case and thankfully she had also agreed and was aware of the caselaw indicating that the search was illegal. The case was dismissed and client was released from jail immediately.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance – Cocaine, which was enhanced due to client’s history.
Result: Client pleaded to the minimum, two years.
Details: Client was accused of the offense of Possession of a Controlled Substance – Cocaine. Furthermore it was enhanced by his lengthy criminal record. Upon receipt of the case, the first recommendation of the DA was to have him serve five years in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Corrections. After reviewing the case and police reports, we also did some work investigating and began to find the people involved in the case. The client had a significant amount of cocaine under the seat of the car he was driving, and the police saw the passenger of the car throwing bags of drugs out of the window while the police were following them. Because of our Client’s criminal history, the passenger and other witnesses said that all of the drugs belonged to our client. The car our client was driving belonged to someone else, which complicated matters for the State. The client faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, and before the pre-trial hearing we were offered a 2 year prison term for our Client, which was the minimum sentence he might have received if found guilty in trial.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance – Methamphetamines, a Felony and Possession of Marijuana.
Result: All charges DISMISSED.
Details: Client was charged with second degree felonies of possession of a controlled substance –methamphetamines, and was in jail on a $30,000.00 bond. She was accused of having two bags of marijuana and a significant amount of meth in her purse. Although client was being held in jail, we were able to convince the District Attorney that this was an illegal search case right from the get-go and the case at the felony level was dismissed, even though the defendant’s driver’s license and other identification was found in the purse with the drugs. So after getting that dismissed and the defendant out of jail, the County Attorney wanted to press charges on the possession of marijuana. After about five hours of arguing, trying to resolve the case, eventually that charge was dismissed as well.
--------Details: Client was charged with 5 felonies – 3 for possessions and 2 for delivery of cocaine and methamphetamines. Initially, we were retained by Client through a court appointment. After a meeting with her and with our social worker, she asserted her innocence. Although a tremendous amount of drugs were found in her house with a search warrant, she claimed that she had nothing to do with it. Her relatives were actively involved in the presence of the drugs, but not her. Considering the large amount of drugs present, it was a challenge proving that she was not connected with them. Isabel was being detained on close to $100,000.00 for a bond, meaning she had no chance for a PR Bond. The only way for her to get out would be to bond out on her own. Within the first month, the DA had made offers to all the people who were arrested under terrible terms – 10 years in prison with 10 years Probation and Community Service fines. We had recommended against this because our Client claimed she was totally innocent and that it wasn’t hers. We had to work quite hard to convince the Client not to take the deal because she was eager to get out of jail. After we started investigating the case, we were able to prove more and more that she was telling the truth.
With the information we were uncovering, we had some pre-trial hearings to suppress the evidence. Through our research and investigation, we also found out that although the police had a search warrant, they executed it incorrectly. Instead of announcing their presence by knocking, they failed to do this as required in the warrant and there are no legal or factual exceptions regarding circumstances that would justify their immediate intrusion into her home. Armed with this information and the case law, we proceeded to a pre-trial hearing and suffice it to say, our arguments were persuasive enough during the hearing that when the Judge recessed the hearing, we approached the bench about letting our Client out on a PR bond with an electronic monitor. The Judge agreed and put her on house arrest without our Client paying a dime.
Meanwhile, our Client was living a good life – she had a regular job, no criminal record, etc. She was elated at the possibility of getting all of these charges dismissed. Unfortunately, about a month later the police got another search warrant for her home, kicked down the door again, and sure enough, found more drugs. This jeopardized all of our work to this point and seriously threw her innocence into doubt. After a very lengthy conversation with her in jail, we came to believe in her innocence again. Within 12 hours we were able to speak to witnesses to find out what happened during the second arrest. Again, this was all for nothing because once the DA found out, he was livid and said that our Client was clearly involved in the drug ring.
Once again, we spoke with the Judge, who was very uneasy about the situation. However, I was able to negotiate with the Judge to agree to keep our Client on the electronic monitor with a cash deposit bond.
On the day that the case was resolved, I met with detectives, case workers, etc. Afterwards, we were able to provide enough convincing evidence to show that she was not a part of any dealing, selling, or using of drugs. Despite facing five felony charges, the case was resolved with all charges dismissed and her pleading guilty to 2 possessions of marijuana counts and getting a sentence of 2 days in jail and 30 days in jail (which she had already served in the early stages of the case). The Client was incredibly appreciative that we stuck with her when nobody else believed in her innocence. We were able to get an outstanding outcome.
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Client charged with two Felony and two Misdemeanor Possession charges. Result: After thorough investigation, all cases DISMISSED. Client’s record expunged.
Details: Client was accused of 2 felonies and 2 misdemeanors and a search warrant drug raid in his home. Client was charged with possession of a number of drugs. We were able to show how the client was not involved in any of the drug dealing or drug possession whatsoever based on the schematics of the apartment and photographs of where he was, where the trash can was, and where the drug residue was found. It was a trash can that he did not have access to. All cases were dismissed. This was basically a case decided by investigation. His record was also expunged and no record will ever appear of this arrest.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance.
Result: Case DISMISSED.
Details: Client was a passenger in a car that was pulled over and searched. Law enforcement discovered cocaine in the car and the client admitted that it was his and the driver’s cocaine and they were both charged with possession of cocaine. Upon doing some legal research and realizing that law enforcement illegally stopped the car, we were able to have the case thrown out and the charges dismissed as a result of the illegal stop.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance and Criminal Trespass.
Result: Trespass charge DISMISSED and client pleaded to 6 months for POCS.
Details: Client was inside the fenced yard of a vacant duplex when approached by police. Signs were up warning persons not to trespass and when arrested for this he was subsequently searched and cocaine was found in his pocket. Initially, this was filed as a 3rd Degree Felony and the state’s offer was 3 years TDC. Lab results showed the amount of cocaine to be less that one gram resulting in the charge being reduced to a State Jail Felony. Regarding the criminal trespass charge, we went to the location to inspect and take photos. The fact that client was in fact, on fenced private property was not in question. Client has extensive criminal history in another state and is currently on probation for another offense. Client indicated he wanted to plead to charges as long as he could get a reasonable amount of jail time. He did not want probation under any circumstances. We negotiated a 6-month state jail recommendation on the possession charge and got the criminal trespass charge 12:45’d into that charge.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance, a 2nd Degree Felony.
Result: Client pleaded to 10 years, probated for 6.
Details: Police had a warrant to enter and search client’s home. Client had been under surveillance for some time. They found large quantities of several types of drugs in his room. Client had several prior convictions for DWI and POM. State’s recommendation was 7 years deferred adjudication which client wanted to take. This rather lenient recommendation was made due to information client provided regarding his supplier. The problem was, in our opinion, that should client not complete probation successfully, he would be facing a possible 20 year prison sentence. For this reason we convinced the prosecutor to offer regular probation. To offset this seemingly harsh change, the prosecutor was willing to reduce the amount of years on probation to 6 and set the prison sentence at 10 years. This meant that if our client had problems with probation the worst prison sentence he was exposed to would be 10 years, not 20.
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Client charged with Delivery of a Controlled Substance in a Drug Free Zone and was facing being classified as a habitual offender.
Result: Charges reduced to State Jail Felony and client pleaded to 11 months.
Details: Client was arrested during a police buy/bust operation when he gave crack cocaine to a person that subsequently delivered the drug to police. Because of client’s criminal history the charges could be habitualized resulting in the possibility of client being sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison should he go to trial and be found guilty. The assistant district attorney offered a plea bargain of 10 years in prison. Our investigation of the facts revealed legal issues concerning police procedures that could weaken the state’s case and make trial result uncertain. Using this information as a bargaining tool we set the case for trial and continued to meet with the prosecutor. This tactic resulted in the original offer of 10 years prison being reduced to a state jail term of 11 months. Client chose to accept this offer rather than continue to trial.
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Client charged with Delivery of a Controlled Substance and Failure to Identify Fugutive.
Result: Misdemeanor DISMISSED and client pleaded to Felony for 6 months to avoid probation.
Details: Client was arrested during a police buy/bust operation after selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer. The bust was videotaped and facts were undisputable. Client had a criminal history and did not want to be placed on probation. We negotiated the minimum sentence possible for his felony charge and convinced the county attorney to dismiss the misdemeanor charge.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance and Credit Card Abuse.
Result: Felony reduced to Class A Misdemeanor Theft and client pleaded to 45 days for both, to run concurrent.
Details: Client stole a credit card from her mother while visiting with her in Oklahoma. She was caught in San Antonio, Texas when she used the card to get a motel room. When she was arrested police officers found prescription drugs that were not prescribed to her. After obtaining a statement and affidavit of non-prosecution from her mother we were able to convince the prosecutor to reduce her felony charge to a Class A Misdemeanor theft charge. Prosecutor also agreed to time served as punishment so that client could get out of jail immediately. We obtained a similar offer on the misdemeanor charge.
Results: Felony Credit Card Abuse charge reduced to Class A Misdemeanor theft – sentenced to 45 days county jail (time served), POCS Misdemeanor charge sentence was also 45 days county jail to run concurrently with felony.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance and Tampering with Evidence.
Result: POCS DISMISSED and client pleaded to Attempted Tampering for 12 months State Jail.
Details: Client was pulled over by police while driving his brother’s car. His brother had a warrant for his arrest and the officer that filed the warrant was the officer that pulled client over. When police approached client they saw him chewing something and trying to swallow. He was unable to speak to police. Police forced him to spit on the windshield and the dried residue was taken as evidence. The residue tested positive for cocaine, we however, argued that it was not a usable amount, convincing the prosecutor to drop the possession charge. The prosecutor also agreed to go with the lessor included attempted tampering charge, a state jail felony, instead of the enhanced 3rd degree felony charge. The initial offer of 18 months was reduced to 12 months
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Client charged with Delivery of a Controlled Substance and facing probation revocation for Assault Bodily Injury charge.
Result: Client pleaded to time served on Assault and 4 years probation for Delivery.
Details: Client was arrested during a police buy/bust operation when he was seen handing some rock cocaine to another person. Client made it very clear when meeting with us that he did not want to go to trial, but rather, wanted to work a deal with his main concern being to get out of jail. Meetings with prosecutors resulted in an offer of 4 year probation on the delivery charge and 100 days in jail (time served) on the assault charge.
Results: Client pled to time served (100 days) on the assault charge and 4 years probation on the delivery charge.
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Client charged with Possession of Marijuana and Driving While License Suspended.
Result: Client pleaded to time served on both charges.
Details: Client was stopped by police and found to have a suspended driver’s license. Marijuana was found when the car was searched subsequent to arrest. Client had extensive criminal history and wanted only to get the best deal and get out of jail.
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Client charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance, Felony – Enhanced and client habitualized, facing 25-life.
Result: Client accepted into the SHORT program and upon successful completion all charges will be DISMISSED.
Details: Our client was charged with possession of cocaine. Although this would normally be a state jail felony, because our client had two prior felony convictions, he was “habitualized” and was facing 25-life if he was convicted. Because our client had a substance abuse problem, we immediately tried to get him into the SHORT program, which is a drug diversion program in Travis County. The SHORT program initially denied him based on some mental health issues, as well as the fact that our client was homeless. In order to address those issues, we had our client evaluated by a MHMR liaison to see if he needed any medication to stabilize him. We also coordinated with a half-way house and were able to find him placement there. With that information, we then re-approached the SHORT program and wrote a letter on his behalf to re-consider him. The SHORT program did decide to reconsider him and ultimately accepted him into the program.
Result: Client got into the SHORT program and with successful completion, all charges would be dismissed.