An Illinois drug possession conviction will have lifetime consequences. Illinois courts are known for being tough on people arrested for drug possession charges. If you have been arrested for these charges contact Illinois criminal lawyer Brian Roberts for a confidential case review.
It is illegal to possess any amount of many drugs in Illinois, including heroin, cocaine, morphine, LSD, and many others. All drug possession charges in Illinois are a felony with the exception of less than 30 grams of marijuana, and possession of anabolic steroids.
Building a defense to an Illinois drug possession charge requires a careful review of all of the evidence against you, as well as evaluating your actions and the actions and words of the police officer who arrested or investigated you. Whether you gave consent is a common defense to these charges. The police are required to either have your consent or have some other legal justification for searching you, your vehicle, or other belongings. Whether the police had legal justification is a determination that must be made by the court, but your attorney must identify and raise the issue with the court before they will consider this defense.
Another common defense is to question whether you actually possessed the drug in question. If drugs are located in the vehicle you are driving the law will assume the drugs belong to you. This is a rebuttable presumption, but can be a difficult defense. This is usually a defense that will have to be argued to a judge or jury at trial, but may be used, along with other evidence, to convince a prosecutor to either reduce or drop the charges against you.
The penalty for an Illinois drug possession charge depends largely on the type and the amount of the drug involved. The penalties for possession of the most drugs range from four to fifty years, plus fines up to $200,000.
If you have been arrested for an Illinois drug possession charge, then contact Illinois criminal lawyer Brian Roberts right now for a confidential case evaluation. The sooner you have an attorney working on your defense the better your chances of avoiding the harshest penalties of an Illinois drug possession charge.