they were passed around my high school like the anarchist cookbook. everyone read them
My former wife, a school teacher in Rockford, IL was arrested for possession of a small amount of weed. She has not gone to court yet, but the school district put here on paid leave until the outcome of the trial.
She has never been in trouble before, and has worked for the school district for over 20 years.
Can the school district fire her for this? Will they?
The D.A. wants her to plead guilty and serve probation, no jail time. I am worried that if she pleads guilty she will loose her job.
Why worry about the former wife? I have two kids (living with me in CA) that would be hurt if they found out, or she lost her job.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
most states offer pretrial intervention
if she has never been in legal trouble before, she goes through a 90 day program and this is wiped off her record so long as she doesn't repeat it
she can also fight this and use her clean record to state that it was placed on her and the DA may drop it due to the amount of time and money to spend on each case
I'm no expert on the intervention programs in various states, and wannarideher may be right about what most offer.
However, your ex is not likely to get anywhere by arguing that her clean record implies the police planted the marijuana on her. Everybody who has a record was once arrested for the first time, so a first arrest does not imply that the arrest is invalid. Besides, whether the evidence was planted is an issue about the officer's conduct and not your wife's, so an argument based on her past has nothing to do with whether the police acted illegally here.
Keep in mind too that if she tries to make an issue of her character, she will open the door for the prosecution to do likewise. Then a lot of her own history will be admissible to rebut her claim that she has a good character. Even legal actions will be admissible, so whatever the prosecution can find that makes her look bad stands a good chance of getting in - especially if it is recent or is somehow related to drug use. A good example is a history of alcohol abuse, which would probably be admissible even if it never led her to break any laws.
Then there's the issue of perjury, which is what she will be committing if she falsely claims under oath that the evidence was planted on her. Perjury is a much more serious charge than simple possession, so she may well make things a lot worse for herself if she actually makes this claim. I suppose she could have a lawyer argue it for her, but few would be willing to do this without evidence to back them up. At most they could argue that there's a reasonable doubt but, as I said before, the only way to do this is to argue that she has good character and that argument is very weak and very likely to cause more problems than it will solve.
And the idea that the D.A. might drop the case just because your wife tries to fight it borders on being absurd. If it worked that way then everyone charged with possession would just fight the charges and would never be convicted.
I agree with sidone, arguing the evindence was planted is extremely risky, and opens up a whole new set of problems. I'm sure wannarider was speaking tongue in cheek when he made that suggestion, conspiracy (a felony) to commit perjury (another felony) is a problem far worse than the one your ex is currently facing.
One possibility that may exist, is to have her lawyer(I certainly hope she has a lawyer) work out a plea agreememt that will withhold ejudication, and after her finishing a probationary period will allow her to have the entire incident expunged from her record. The DA usually has a lot of latitude in minor cases such as this and this may allow her to keep her job.
Keep in mind, any advice you recieve on this board, or anywhere else for that matter is worth what you pay for it. Hire a good lawyer and listen to him/her. For most of us, a little pot is no big deal. For her, as you stated. her job could be at stake.
I was thinking more along the way that another regular person may have tossed it to her
for example, if I give several people a ride in my car and I get pulled over and the police find a joint in my car--I could argue that it was someone else's and if I have a cleaner record that Cheech and Chung and I was giving them a ride, it may raise reasonable doubt for my trial if I have a clean record...
also if someone found a joint in my purse and I left my purse in an open area like a party and the party got raided and there was someone at that party who was known to be someone who goes through purses, I could raise doubt that they had to discard it when they saw the blue lights while stealing my money
or if I was going through a nasty divorce and my inlaws hated me....(I had a relative plant something on his exwife before calling police to tip them off) that could raise issues
I wasn't even thinking of accusing the police although there has been trials where police were caught doing that
You're right that you hadn't said *who* placed the marijuana on the suspect. I inferred that you meant the police but it is possible for someone else to do this sort of thing.
If you are giving a ride to people in your car and one of them has a joint, you could be legally in possession of it. Possession is not the same thing as ownership, and if you are wilfully in a position to exercise control over something then you possess it in the legal sense even if it belongs to someone else. A conviction would also require proof that you knew what it was, but just saying someone else owned it would not be enough.
The scenario involving "someone . . . who was known to be someone who goes through purses" is a bit far-fetched, but you might be able to make a decent argument that there was a reasonable doubt in such a case. But if no one else at the party found anything added to or taken from a purse, a jury might not have a reasonable doubt. If the purse-snooper testifies that she didn't place the marijuana there and if her fingerprints don't show up on the purse, the argument will be even weaker. And if the person "known" for going through purses doesn't smoke pot, then the argument would almost certainly fail. After all, the fact that someone goes through purses doesn't imply that she places anything in them or that she smokes pot. You also would not persuade many people unless you could show a motive for placing it there. This leads to your next theory.
The "my in-laws planted it" argument only works if your in-laws knew you were going to be stopped by the police. After all, planting evidence on someone doesn't do any good unless you know someone else - preferrably a cop - will see it before your target does. If the police were acting on a tip you can try to find out who the tip came from, but unless you have some actual evidence that your in-laws planted the marijuana on you the judge probably will not allow you to make the argument at all. (You could argue that that the evidence had been planted, but you could not point to specific people unless you had some evidence to support the claim.) An argument you can't make will not win.
scary thing is a lot of revenge books I read as a teenager that were "novelty" involved planting drugs on people you didn't like by waiting until summer when their windows were cracked or going into their car while they were at church
I don't smoke anything so I would ask if I could pass a drug test since I am told it stays in your system for weeks but since I haven't ever taken one or smoked this stuff I wouldn't know how long it lasts
I have to say one thing. You do have a vivid imagination. Your anecdotes are really quite amusing. Just, please don't try stretch a case of a friend of friend told me soemthing once upon a time, into legal advice that might be relied upon by someone, to their detriment.
There is something you have to keep in mind about those books. They were FICTION. What happens in books, movies and TV shows does not represent how things happen in the real world. The legal profession in particular is often portrayed very differently from the way it is in the real world, since watching what lawyers really do would bore most people to tears.
And I'm a bit concerned that you read "a lot of revenge books" when you were a teenager. Are you by nature a vengeful person? Such a person who mistakenly believes she understands the law can cause a world of trouble.
they were passed around my high school like the anarchist cookbook. everyone read them
Even if the books were widely read, they did not accurately portray the law or the majority of cops. You should not rely on them as sources of information about the law or about police procedure, especially when several people who obviously know a lot more about the subject than you keep telling you you're wrong.
If your knowledge of the world comes from books like these then you need to re-educate yourself.
The Anarchist Cookbook is simply a book that explains how to do things such as building bombs, etc. It doesn't mean that the cops will fall into your revenge trap and pin the blame on someone. So you leave a joint in someone's home while they're in church? So what? How do you get from that to getting the police to find it and if they find it to have it be accepted as evidence in a court? The more likely scenario is that the person's parents will find it and knock him/her upside their head. So what have you accomplished? Do you feel really good about it?
I see that you have received other good answers but I have one more thing to add. If it does come down to a plea agreement your ex should please no contest (Nolo Contendere) instead of guilty. Her attorney should be able to get the DA to agree to that.
"NOLO CONTENDERE - No contest-has the same effect as a plea of guilty, as far as the criminal sentence is concerned, but may not be considered as an admission of guilt for any other purpose."
There are two issues here:
1. What's going to happen in the criminal case? Most states have a program wherein a first-time, personal-use possession is coiunted as an infraction (like a speeding ticket), or is scrubbed off the record after copmpleting probation, or something similar.
2. What's going to happen to her teaching credential? Credentialing authorities make their decisions independent of what happens in court. It's possible that even a no-contest plea may affect her credential adversely. I have no idea what the specific Illinois law on this topic is, BUT SHE SHOULD BE REPRESENTED BY A QUALIFIED DEFENSE ATTORNEY.