Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: ''possession is not sales''

Had you had your 4th Amendment rights restored? If so then may be illegal search and evidence excluded. Call me directly at 16192223504.

Re: ''possession is not sales''

Assuming the police actually made an honest mistake there is no constitutional problem with your arrest. Evidence found by police who were acting in the genuine but mistaken belief that you were the person they wanted is admissible against you.

Your prior convictions may not be admissible, though, and if the jury never hears about them it may have a hard time convicting you as charged.

The prosecution does not have to prove you were actually in the act of selling the drugs. It is enough to prove that you possessed them with the intent to sell them. In other words, the combination of possession and intending to sell them later is enough regardless of whether you had done anything toward making a sale.

This intent can be proven by circumstantial evidence, and the most common such evidence is the quantity of the drug in the defendant's possession. You say you only had a "half ounce" but you don't say of what. What matters isn't how much the drugs weighed but rather how many doses it could be used for. Some drugs, including methamphetamine, are taken in such small quantities that a half ounce is enough to make many doses. If you had a half ounce of meth or some other very concentrated drug a jury can properly infer that you intended to sell it.