Tampa Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer

FL drug case dismissed after testing confirms defendant’s innocence

Feb 26, 2016 | Drug Charges

One of the goals of a criminal defense attorney is to make sure that a criminal case with inadequate evidence to support is dismissed either before it gets to trial or early on in the process. A doctor from Panama City who was arrested for possession of cocaine back in November was cleared of drug charges earlier this month, and his case provides a good example of how this kind of thing can play out.

The doctor had been pulled over by officers who saw him driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street in Panama City. Upon searching the vehicle—apparently because the police had reason to believe they evidence of intoxication or drugs—they found a substance on the floorboard of the vehicle they believed to be crack cocaine. At some point, a K9 alerted that the substance was cocaine. 

Throughout the law enforcement stop and afterward, the defendant maintained his innocence. At the request of his attorney, the defendant submitted to lab work, which found that there were no drugs whatsoever in his system. And, sure enough, the same result came back with respect to the suspicious substance officers were convinced was cocaine. Prosecutors dropped the case after a lab reported that no controlled substances were detected in the sample.

Without the details of the case, it is difficult to know exactly what took place and why officers acted as they did. It is the case, though, that police can sometimes become overzealous in their work and take action that isn’t warranted. When this occurs, it is particularly important to work with an experienced attorney to ensure one’s rights are protected.

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