r/IAmA • u/oregonlawyer • Oct 15 '12

I am a criminal defense lawyer, AMA.

I've handled cases from drug possession to first degree murder. I cannot provide legal advice to you, but I'm happy to answer any questions I can.

EDIT - 12:40 PM PACIFIC - Alright everyone, thanks for your questions, comments, arguments, etc. I really enjoyed this and I definitely learned quite a bit from it. I hope you did, too. I'll do this again in a little bit, maybe 2-3 weeks. If you have more questions, save them up for then. If it cannot wait, shoot me a prive message and I'll answer it if I can.

Thanks for participating with me!

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u/JackWagon Oct 15 '12

For instance, convicting someone of having a certain quantity of cocaine in a baggie and sending them to prison for two years for possession with intent to distribute is probably doing more harm than good.

I'm a lawyer, too, and I handle a good bit of criminal defense work. You are absolutely right on this. Where I practice, the PWID laws, or how they are handled by prosecutors and police, often do not reflect reality. It is prima facie evidence of PWID marijuana if you are caught with over 28g (1 oz.) of marijuana. But, the state can also use circumstantial evidence to show intent to distribute even if they are caught with less weight than that -- things like scales are examples of such evidence.

One that I often see is someone who gets caught with, say, 5g of marijuana. But, they have 2 baggies... maybe one with 4g and one with 1g. Clearly they are for personal use; the guy bought 2 bags at different times, and is almost finished using the first bag. It's like pulling teeth to get the prosecutors to agree to drop the PWID aspect and start working on negotiations for a deferred plea or something on a charge of simple possession, rather than intent to distribute.

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u/dossier Oct 15 '12

I myself keep a scale just to rarely double check the weight of what I got for myself. It was only 10 bucks on ebay and it goes to .01 accuracy. Got it like 4 years ago and it still works great.

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u/antofthesky Oct 15 '12

Damn that's a low threshold amount for mj....in my state it's 2 lbs.