Legal Question in Criminal Law in Pennsylvania

Criminal Law/ Drug Liability

A family member of mine was just charged with possesion of 1 gram of cocaine and 20 grams of hash and a marijuana pipe in a car with his friend. What can i expected him to be sentenced too? considering that the car was his friends and the search happened in the friends driveway of his house and the police where there on completely different circumstances. The police came because they thought my son and his friend where out prowling around a warehouse, but the warehouse was owned by his friend so it was his property, the police wanted to verify this by asking his friends father, my son and his friend had the police follow them back to the friends house to verify it with his father, his friends father said that they had permission to be there, the police were getting ready to leave then out of no where they started asking if my sons friend(the driver), was high, the friend said no but the police still searched his car, in his driveway of his own home. my son admited that the pipe was his but denied knowing about the cocaine, so the police charged them both. please tell me my son has hope =[


Asked on 7/20/09, 5:32 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Gibson John W. Gibson, Esquire

Re: Criminal Law/ Drug Liability

It is not possible to say what a sentence will be before the Judge imposes the sentence unless there is a plea agreement and, even then, the Judge can reject the plea agreement.

There appear to be some issues here with respect to probable cause for the search. Frequently clients would rather plead than defend charges like possession for financial reasons but it sounds to me that, absent consent to the search, the police and ADA will have some problems prosecuting the case.

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Answered on 7/20/09, 2:01 pm


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