Teens and Legal Mistakes: What to Do When Your Teen Ends Up In Trouble With the Law
If your teenager decided to go out with friends, he or she may have accepted a ride home from a friend at the end of the night thinking it would be more convenient to get a ride than to walk or take public transportation. If the friend wasn’t following the speed limit and was going over the speed limit, an officer who was driving past may have decided to stop the vehicle to find out why the driver was speeding down the street in the first place. It may have initially started with a speeding citation, but the traffic stop could have quickly escalated and spiraled out of control for everyone in the vehicle.
Your teenager’s friend may have been acting a bit strange, giving the officer a reason to believe he or she is hiding something or even about something. As a result, the officer may begin asking all kinds of questions to everyone inside the vehicle, which may include asking to look through the vehicle and belongings of those riding inside of it. While people have a right to say no to a vehicle search without probable cause, most teens don’t realize this and they are often willing to allow the officers to search everything after being pulled over.
If everyone in the vehicle agreed to have their belongings searched, the officer may have quickly found drugs inside the car. Now, the person who offered to drive your friend home may deny being the owner of the drug paraphernalia in the first place. The person might even be trying to blame your teenager for bringing the drugs into the vehicle, causing everyone to end up at the police station.
The Trouble With This Situation
Although your teen may be innocent and might not have known there were any drugs in the car in the first place, the situation is far more complex than just explaining the situation to the arresting officer. Even after going down to the police station to defend your teenager, he or she will still likely end up dealing with some legal woes. There is a chance your teen will be charged with joint possession under the belief that he or she may not have necessarily been the owner of the drugs but was aware the drugs were in the vehicle at the time.
When drugs are obtained and found on one person, it’s that individual who typically gets charged with possession. However, when the drugs are found inside of a vehicle and no one wants to fess up to being the actual owner of the drugs, everyone could receive joint possession charges. There are situations that happen like this all the time. It’s an unfortunate situation to be in but that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to help your teenager fight any of the potential charges that have been made against him or her.
The DUI attorney in Houston TX may take on this type of case, representing your teenager in the courtroom while attempting to prove his or her innocence. Sometimes people make mistakes and getting into the vehicle with someone who possessed drugs was a huge mistake, but it’s something your teen may not have known anything about, which is the reason he or she should not be punished for what someone else has done. There are a few different things that the attorney may bring up in the courtroom while defending your teen.
For example, your teenager may not have been under the influence of any alcohol or drugs when the car was pulled over and searched. Your teenager may have told the truth when being questioned by the police, stating that he or she knew nothing about the drugs or how they got into the vehicle. If your teen didn’t make incriminating statements during the interview process, the situation may work out a bit better for him or her at the end of the day.
Despite receiving some frightening charges, there is a way to fight hard in an attempt to win the battle. Each person in the United States is considered innocent until they’ve been proven guilty. If there isn’t much evidence that your teen was involved in this whole drug situation, it’s going to be hard to convict him or her of such a crime. Of course, it’s not a good idea to try to go at this type of situation alone, which is why you’ll benefit from hiring an attorney to work with your child and get to the bottom of this issue. The attorney you hire may be able to prove your teen’s innocence and get him or her out of this unfortunate legal situation.
Call us or contact Butler Law Firm if your teenager is in any potential trouble. To read more on possible outcomes or similar issues, visit our blog.