Legal Question in Criminal Law in South Dakota
possesion with intent
My husband is charged with possesion (meth) with intent to distribute. During the search warrant they found in a locked safe 15 grams all in one bag the scale they found with it was tested and came back clean.They police never showed a search warrant or even left a copy also during the raid one of the officers guns went off in the house. Is the a chance of getting the charges reduced to just possession?He being charged federally so were they in the wrong not showing a serch warrant and did they need to have a seperste warrant to open the locked safe?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: possesion with intent
Many warrantless searches are proper, and I would need to know more about the circumstances before I could say whether a warrant was needed in this situation.
The fact that the scale tested clean does not bar the type of charges your husband is facing. He can argue at trial that this evidence supports his innocence but that argument is unlikely to get him very far. Intent to distribute refers to what the defendant planned to do in the future, so the fact that the scale might not have been used *yet* is perfectly consistent with the charges -- and with the fact that the meth was all still in one bag. Why else would the scale be locked up in a safe with the drugs? Keep in mind that 15 grams is a lot of meth.
The fact that an officer's gun went off during the search is irrelevant to the validity of the charges.
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