The best way to beat drug charges in Utah is by having an experienced drug defense attorney by your side. After decades of defending clients against drug crimes, our defense attorney has put together the top 8 ways to beat your drug charge:

1) The police illegally stopped your vehicle.

This is only applicable if the police found the drugs or paraphernalia in your car. Oftentimes the police will do a “wall stop,” which is code for making up a reason to stop a vehicle by saying a traffic violation was seen, such as speeding or failure to turn on a signal. These are violations that are nearly impossible to contest because it is often your word versus the officer’s word. The police then start launching into questions unrelated to the purpose of the stop, such as inquiring whether you have drugs and/or alcohol in the car.

2) The police illegally exceeded the scope of the initial stop.

It’s unconstitutional for the police to start asking questions beyond the reason for the initial stop. Their hope is to get you to start talking so they can claim you were incoherent, nervous, giving inconsistent explanations, not making sense to them, etc. This helps them justify pulling you out of the vehicle so that they can search it.

3) The police extended the reason for the stop by waiting too long for drug dogs.

The police extended the reasonableness of the stop by waiting too long for the drug dogs to come sniff your vehicle out. Sometimes it takes several minutes for a drug dog to come out to the scene, which can be an unreasonable “seizure” of your person beyond what the constitution permits.

4) The police did not read you your Miranda rights.

The police must read your Miranda rights (i.e. the right to remain silent, right to have an attorney present, etc.) before arresting and detaining you. If the police have you detained outside of your vehicle, say you are not free to leave, and start asking incriminating questions — you may have evidence obtained thereafter suppressed or thrown out. This evidently throws out the state’s case against you.

5) The police did not have enough probable cause.

The police did not have enough probable cause to arrest you, making the search incident to your arrest illegal.

6) The drugs and/or paraphernalia were not in your immediate vicinity.

This means the drugs or paraphernalia could be attributed to another passenger in the vehicle. If other people are in the vehicle, then the evidence has to be linked to you. If another passenger is close to the drugs and/or paraphernalia, or if another passenger testifies that it is either his or another passenger’s and that that other person shifted the contraband from their vicinity to closer to your vicinity, then the case against you would be undermined. Likewise, if the contraband was found in another passenger’s backpack or duffle bag, then the state’s case against you is also undermined.

7) The drug dogs had a “false hit” or were cued to “alert”.

The drug-sniffing dogs either had a false hit or were cued by the handler to “alert” on your vehicle. Many times the dog handlers have trained the K-9s to “alert” upon seeing a certain mannerism the handler exhibits. Other times the dog just hits on a few areas of the vehicle, where no drugs are even located, creating reasonable doubt that the K-9 being used was really alerting due to the detection of drugs, or whether the handler was cuing it.

8) The chain of custody was broken.

The chain of custody was broken, rendering the lab results questionable. If the property custodian has not properly documented the chain of custody paperwork, then the drug evidence can be thrown out.

There are many other ways to win a possession of drug and/or paraphernalia case, such as inadequate and defective confidential informant tip, insufficient probable cause due to defective affidavit in support of search warrant (search of home), etc.