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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2017
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    Question How Can a Driver Prove He Wasn't Aware of Drugs Inside of the Car

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: SC

    My husband and I live in SC with our daughter who will be 2 in March, and my disabled daughter from a previous relationship who is 19, and has several disorders, including a form of autism, that makes it impossible for her to care for herself as an average person of that age. My husband, we'll call him Mo to protect his identity, is 48 years old. He's a friendly, good guy all around and a very hard worker. He met a young woman at his former place of employment last year who he has tried to take under his wing, so to speak, and help her "get her life together". She had recently moved to the area after being released from prison and placed on probation in GA. I'm only giving this back information because it became a big part of everything later on....and this has been the most difficult situation for my family, so I apologize if I sound as scattered as I feel....

    She started to back pedal and despite efforts from us, her other friends, and her family, she began to spiral back into the drug use that led her to prison in the first place, resulting in her serving 2 weeks for violating probation, and an order from the PO to immediately return to GA, no longer having permission to live in SC. While helping her to move her furniture and belongings from her apartment, she disappeared with someone else. We found her the next day in jail, along with the friend. She had only just been released from jail in GA on Friday before, and this was Wed night. Thursday she got out of jail and agreed that she needed help, needed rehab and needed to talk to her PO to tell him etc. My husband made arrangements to drive her the next morning to a treatment center. I spoke with her mother and she was relieved that we could do that since she was raising the girl's daughter, who is a minor and unaware of all of this.

    Friday morning, Jo and "Jane" (we'll call her) left for a women's center near Atlanta that would provide her services that she needed. She did not decide to stay there. She told Jo to take her to her hometown, but her mom had already expressed that she would not give her shelter or have her around the child. She decided to go just north to another town where she'd stayed with friends after completing a rehab program before moving to OUR town. Long story short, she had Jo take her several places, and was unable to find a place to stay (or so she said) and she finally ended up speaking to the person she'd just been arrested with Wed night. So Jo had to turn around and make an almost 6 hour drive back home, and it was getting late, after not really accomplishing anything. About 2 hours from home, and close to 2 am(14hrs on the road at this point), he was pulled over for speeding.

    Jo figured "no big deal". He recognized that he was speeding, but was not concerned about a ticket. Jane was still in the car, and she called me saying they'd been stopped and that she'd call back. 3 hours later, I get a call from Jo at the jail, they've both been arrested and were held. Charges weren't filed until another 12-13 hours later. Jo said they'd found a bag of something under her seat along with a couple pipes, and that the officers tested it and it wasn't returning results as ANY of the drugs on the panel. Jo explained the situation and told officers he had no knowledge of any illicit drugs, but they were both arrested anyway and charged, finally, with "Trafficking crack/cocaine freebase", even though it was not cocaine/crack or any other known substance (meth, heroin, etc).
    Jo has a checkered past, from over 20 years ago when he was still in his early 20s and he got into some trouble. He served almost 14 yrs in prison for burglary and other related charges, and has been a model citizen since then. He has paid his debt for those mistakes, and even relocated to another state to ensure he didn't run into the same circles of friends that kept him in trouble as a teenager and into his young adult years.

    The "drugs" were found under her seat and the other stuff ON her persons.

    How likely is it that he can tell the truth in court and show that he had no idea about the substance under her seat? She had been in so much trouble already, and even her mother called the investigators of the case and spoke with them about the case, telling them that Jo was just doing a favor and she had no doubt her daughter was behind any fraud, drugs, or missing money. She even asked if they could consider pulling the charges from Jo and letting Jane be responsible & accept them.

    What would help him with this for court? Would statements from family/friends aware of her problem be of any help with a character witness type thing? We had been struggling financially just before this happened, and this is devastating any chance we MAY have had to get caught up and ahead after paying money for bail and impound/towing fees for the vehicle....My logic is, if he had over 2oz of ANYTHING on him, knowing my husband, I can't imagine he would have just kept going even a little over the speedometer if he'd known his precious freedom could have been at stake, much less end up going 93 in a 70. To me, no logical person would do that, so I felt like it aided his defense. Should he trust a public defender to handle this case or do we really need to find some way to come up with money for a hired lawyer? I'm freaking out because I don't want to see our family torn apart and forced to struggle while he has his freedom unfairly ripped away during his baby's formative years when she is much too young to understand why he just suddenly went away one day and didn't come home...what things do we need to do to prepare for court? And what do you think could happen during this trial? Does he have a leg to stand on at all or.....is this something that could take him away from us for a very long time?

    PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME! I NEED ANY INFORMATION YOU CAN GIVE ME!! I'm just praying that the truth can be seen by the judge, but I also realize that there's a possibility that he won't even look for it....Not to mention the unidentified substance that has been labeled as multiple different drugs but not actually named yet..

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