When Does the Criminal Justice System Give You a Chance to Learn From Your Mistakes?

Everyone makes mistakes, but how closely your mistakes follow you around, and for how long depends on who you are.  The consequences of an arrest or a criminal case are one of the many ways that it is expensive to be poor.  If you belong to the 99 percent and cannot afford to hire a criminal defense lawyer, the court will appoint one to your case.  You will probably plead guilty, and even if the charge is a misdemeanor, the stakes will be higher for any subsequent run ins with the law.  Your chances of getting a felony conviction in the future, and thereby losing the right to vote, will increase.  On the other hand, if you are wealthy, you can hire a criminal defense lawyer with more resources to get you into a pretrial diversion program, and if you are truly rich, then it might even be possible to make the charges go away with minimal effort on your part.  If you are a young adult facing charges for a minor offense, it is in your interest to fight your charges or seek out a pretrial diversion program.  Here, our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains how a charge for illegal possession of marijuana can upend your life or how you can breeze through it with minimal consequences.

The Court Can Try a Minor as an Adult, but Can It Try a Young Adult as a Good Kid Who Made a Mistake?

If you have a driver’s license, it means that you can drive well enough to pass the road test at the DMV and maintain your level of vigilance long enough to persuade the examiner that you deserve a license, but in the grand scheme of things, the bar for getting a driver’s license is low, and not only because Florida, the land of endless parking lots, does not require you to parallel park.  Almost all newly licensed drivers make some rookie mistakes.  They back into mailboxes and get into fender benders in parking lots.  Usually, the mistakes are minor and the consequences are minor.  You pay a traffic ticket, or you drive around for the next few years with a dent in your bumper, because you cannot afford to get it fixed.

In 2021, a 16-year-old from Boca Raton got a traffic ticket for driving on the wrong side of the road, but he pleaded no contest in traffic court, and the court withheld adjudication.  The following year, when he was 17, he got another ticket for driving with fake police cruiser lights on his car.  He pleaded guilty and paid a $116 fine.  At 18, he got a speeding ticket and pleaded no contest.  In the summer of 2024, the young man, now 19, got another speeding ticket when he was pulled over on 441 for driving 75 miles per hour, whereas the speed limit is 50.  As of November 2024, that case is pending.

In August 2024, the young man was pulled over again on suspicion of DUI.  Police officers searched his car and found drug paraphernalia, less than 20 grams of cannabis, and a fake ID.  Even in Palm Beach County, where local ordinances have decriminalized possession of small quantities of cannabis, it is still against the law for people under the age of 21 to possess any amount of cannabis.  He secured his release from jail by posting an $8,000 bond.

The young man’s defense lawyers seem to have secured a sweet deal.  The defendant could have faced several felony charges.  Prosecutors “no filed” the charges for drug paraphernalia and cannabis possession, meaning that they declined to prosecute them.  They downgraded the DUI charge and the fraud charge for the possession of fake ID to misdemeanors.

If Not Pretrial Diversion, Then What?

It is hard to imagine such a long list of criminal charges coming so close to magically disappearing, except for people who are wealthier and better connected than you are.  You might not have enough money to make a magic wand that turns felony charges into no big deal, but if you are a young adult with no prior criminal convictions, you may be eligible to participate in pretrial diversion.  In pretrial diversion programs, which most often apply to DUI and misdemeanor drug possession cases, you enter a no contest plea and complete a probation sentence.  If you do this successfully, the state drops the charges against you.

Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys

A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are new to adulthood and to the criminal justice system.  Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a confidential consultation about your case.

Source:

bocanewsnow.com/2024/08/10/boca-raton-teen-arrested-for-drugs-dui-notable-previous-history/