Drug Trafficking

Discovery practice

If you were to sit down to play a game of chess with the knowledge that your opponent will decide how many chess pieces you are allowed to play the game with, you might conclude that the game is rigged against you.  You might not want to play such a game. In criminal cases, the prosecutor is the one who decides what evidence to disclose to the defense. The prosecutor decides whether to share evidence showing the defendant’s innocence.  The prosecutor decides whether to share documents that show that the governments’ witnesses have lied to the police in the past.

Attorney Adam Sherman is an expert in the law of criminal case discovery.  Our firm will use our superior knowledge of Brady v. Maryland, related Supreme Court rules, and the Maine Criminal Discovery Rules to ensure that we have all of the evidence that is favorable to your defense before the trial begins.  

Illegal searches and seizures  

One of the most important parts of a drug trafficking case is to challenge any possible illegal searches or seizures by the police or drug agents.  Whether it is the illegal stop and frisk of a citizen; the illegal stop of a car; the illegal location of a target by using cell phone location data; the illegal use of a K-9 by police; the illegal search of an apartment or a house; or the misuse of bail conditions by police, our attorneys have filed countless motions to suppress evidence that the police obtained through searches or seizures.  

Fair jury trials

Voir dire (the selection of jurors during jury selection) takes on added importance in many drug trafficking cases.  We stand prepared to make Batson challenges to the government’s improper exclusion of minority jurors. In certain cases we will challenge the racial composition of the jury pool.  For example, in Androscoggin County, where our office is located, statistical sources indicate that 5-7% of the population is non-white. In our legal careers, we have never seen 5-7% of the jury pool in Androscoggin County composed of non-white members.  Many times the jury pool is composed of all white jurors.

Preventing fraud at the drug testing laboratory

Some states have experienced cases of fraud at the drug identification testing laboratory.  Massachusetts has experienced two cases of drug lab workers faking the results of drug identification analyses (sometimes called “dry-labbing”).  This problem is avoided by employing defense attorneys who demand that the state drug testing lab (in Maine this lab is called the Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory, “H.E.T.L.”) provide the supporting reports and notes that the chemist produced in analyzing alleged scheduled drugs.  In certain cases, we employ our own chemists to check the government’s work.

Confidential informants

The government’s case often depends on confidential informants.  In most cases involving confidential informants the government never reveals the identity of the confidential informant(s).  In many cases, we can determine with identity of the confidential informant with the goal of determining if the report of the informant to law enforcement agents is true.  

Most cases involving confidential informants have a similar pattern.  The informant tells the police what the informant may know about drug trafficking.  The police later equip the informant with a recording device and purchase money, the serial numbers of which have been recorded by the police, and then the drug agents send the informant to meet with the target of the drug trafficking case to audio record the purchase of scheduled drugs.  Sometimes, before the so-called “controlled buy,” the informant has spoken with the target on the telephone while drug agents secretly record the telephone call. And sometimes the informant is able to share with the agents seemingly incriminating text messages with the target. Once the drug agents have two purported controlled buys on a target, the agents apply for a search warrant on the target’s residence or business location.  If the agents discover scheduled drugs when executing the search warrant, then the government usually relies on this drug evidence to make its case. If the confidential informant is not needed to make the government’s case at trial, meaning that the informant will not be a witness at trial, then the government can keep the informant’s identity hidden from the defense. The government can then try to use the informant to target a new citizen.

One way to discover the truth about an informant in a case is to file a motion for a Franks hearing to challenge the truthfulness of the information provided to the police by the informant that the police then use in their application for the search warrant.