Drug charges can quickly threaten to derail your future. After all, a felony conviction of this sort can hit you with significant jail or prison time, financially ruinous fines, and a criminal record that may haunt you for years or even decades to come. As frightening as that may sound, though, you should recognize that you might have strong criminal defense options readily available to you that can help you avoid the harshest of penalties, or maybe beat the prosecution altogether. One of the best ways to do this is through evidence suppression.
The Basics of Evidence Suppression
Evidence suppression is the process by which you successfully argue that evidence in tainted in some fashion to the extent that the prosecution shouldn’t be allowed to use it against you. In many instances, suppression arguments arise when the police have conducted an illegal search and seizure, such as when they find narcotics in a vehicle only after conducting an illegal traffic stop. Here, the illegality of the stop itself is usually considered to have tainted the subsequently gathered evidence, which is therefore deemed inadmissible at trial. This is known as the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
But there are other ways that evidence can be suppressed. There may be chain of custody errors in the collection and storage of evidence that jeopardize its reliability. Sometime witnesses who are subpoenaed to depositions fail to show up on multiple occasions. In all of these instances, you might have a strong argument for evidence suppression, which may utterly devastate the prosecution’s case.
Aggressively Pursue Your Criminal Defense Options
Evidence suppression, while a powerful tool, should just be part of your criminal defense strategy. To maximize your chances of success, you need to take a holistic approach that attacks as many aspects of the prosecution’s case as possible. If you’d like to learn more about how to go about doing that, then consider reaching out to an experienced criminal defense firm like ours.
