{"id":397,"date":"2018-09-26T12:50:24","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T16:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=397"},"modified":"2026-01-08T03:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T08:18:38","slug":"florida-appeals-court-throws-out-drug-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-throws-out-drug-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Appeals Court Throws Out Drug Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that makes the law so complicated is that words need to be specifically defined. For example, the word \u201cpossession.\u201d Outside of the legal context, it\u2019s usually clear when someone is in possession of something and when they are not. However, when jail time and other serious penalties are on the line, the law needs to specifically define all the language that makes up the elements of a crime.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How Are the Definitions Developed?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When the Florida state legislature passes a new law, usually included in the law is a section where specific words are defined. Of course the definition cannot possibly contemplate all the situations that may come up. That is where case law comes into play. Throughout time as the courts handle each individual case, their decisions clarify what counts as (in this case) possession and what doesn\u2019t. Over time more and more situations are clarified and that\u2019s how the definition is developed. One of the important things that your skilled Florida drug crimes criminal defense attorney can do for you is to use the case law to argue that your actions do not fit the specific definition of the crime.<\/p>\n<p>That is what happened here. After a shootout between cars leaving a gas station, police found a cup filled with marijuana. The cup was lying on the ground next to the fence that marked the property line of the gas station. The police also found cocaine in one of the cars involved in the shootout, along with the defendant who was bleeding from a gunshot wound. The defendant was arrested for drug crimes related to both the cocaine and marijuana.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-throws-out-drug-charge\/#more-397\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the things that makes the law so complicated is that words need to be specifically defined. For example, the word \u201cpossession.\u201d Outside of the legal context, it\u2019s usually clear when someone is in possession of something and when they are not. However, when jail time and other serious penalties are on the line, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drug-crimes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Appeal Throws Out a Drug Charge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read why a drug charge was tossed on appeal and what common case errors can help a defense.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/florida-appeals-court-throws-out-drug-charge\/\" \/>\n<meta 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