North Carolina's Drug crimes are harsh, and defense of these crimes requires a Raleigh, Apex, or Cary criminal lawyer customary not only with the law, but with how the Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby and his staff inflict the law. The Wake County District Attorney has discrete office "policies" which govern how the discrete assistant district attorneys - the men and women who for real prosecute cases - can deal with cases. Those policies change from time to time, but basically they govern either the Raleigh prosecutor in your case has any discretion in how to deal with your case.
North Carolina's drug crimes are all statutory crimes in lesson 90, article 5, of the North Carolina general Statutes. North Carolina's drug crimes can either be misdemeanors or felonies. Straightforward rights of less than a half ounce of marijuana is a class 3 misdemeanor, which is the least serious level crime in North Carolina.
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Trafficking in 28 grams or more of heroin, which requires proof that the someone "knowingly", "sold, manufactured, delivered, transported, or possessed Or conspired to sell manufacture, deliver transport or possess" opium, together with heroin, and the quantity is 28 grams or more, the defendant is eligible for a Class C felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of 225 months in prison. That's nearly 19 years in prison for about 1 pound of heroin.
Given the stiff penalties for trafficking - and trafficking doesn't mean you have to be flying colse to in a Colombian - and the fact that those penalties have mandatory minimums, it's easy to see how defendants can for real get broad sentences for drug charges in Wake County, North Carolina.
In fact, these penalties are shocking to many population who come from New York. As I understand it, New York City prosecutors can give defendants 30 or 60 days of jail time for charges that in North Carolina will mean years and years in prison. Naturally saying, "But in New York they do it differently," won't help. You're in North Carolina, where the drug laws are very strict.
The more common drug charges in North Carolina impart to obtaining prescription medication through forgery or fraud. That crime can be charged as a misdemeanor, or, if the prosecutor can prove "intent," as a felony. Often the defendant will take a misdemeanor plea to such charges, because the Wake County prosecutor will otherwise say she will prosecute the crime as a felony. And since "intent" is not difficult to show in many cases, the defendant may lose at trial and be convicted of the Class I felony.
Another common drug fee is rights with intent to sell or deliver. In order to convict on this crime, the Wake County District Attorney must prove that the defendant possessed the controlled substance and intended to sell, manufacture, or deliver it. The prosecutor doesn't have to prove that the someone ever sold anything. Just that the someone intended to sell, form or deliver it.
"Intent" can be proven by showing that number was too much for one person's personal use, or that it was packaged in some baggies. Naturally seeing 10 rocks of crack cocaine was not sufficient to find intent to sell or deliver. However, having 10 rocks in 10 cut off baggies may be sufficient to convict.
I've seen many cases where the someone had recently bought a few baggies of drugs, maybe some pot or crack, and where the police stopped him immediately after, and found a few baggies of pot on him, and charged Him with rights with intent to sell or deliver (Pwisd). Those cases can be defended, so it's not hopeless. But it's important to remember that the more baggies the drugs are in, the more likely the police will accuse the defendant of Pwisd and not a Straightforward rights charge.
Finally, the most bizarre crime in North Carolina is the rights of counterfeit controlled substance with intent to sell or deliver. Here's what happens. A snitch, Ci, or "confidential informant" working for the Raleigh Police agency (Rpd) or the Wake County Sheriff's Office (Wcso) or some other police agency goes up to some guy on the street and asks him for a integrate of rocks. The guy (who becomes my client!) has nothing on him, but he wants to make a quick . So he tells the someone that he'll go "around the corner" to his stash to get some. He goes colse to the corner, picks up a few white/yellowish tiny stones, and comes back. The snitch (Ci) gives him in exchange for the "rocks" which are for real stones picked up off the ground, not drugs at all.
Rpd swoops in, arresting the guy for either "sale or delivery of a counterfeit controlled substance" or "possession with intent to sell or deliver a counterfeit substance." Obviously this is a nonsense crime. This is a crime where one guy has perhaps, at most, cheated the other guy out of in exchange for some pebbles. Maybe it's a kind of fraud. But it is not a drug crime.
But in Wake County, North Carolina, it may be charged as at least a Class I felony.
Nc Drug Laws Explained