Case Success: Kidnapping and Drugs

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I’m Burges McCowan, criminal defense attorney here in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. I want to talk to you about a recent case I had involving kidnapping. ARS 13-1304.
Steven was my client. He was charged with kidnapping and possible drug sales. This case involved the SWAT team in fact. They really came after Steven hard. It’s because they thought he was a gang member, and probably because it was on September 11th that the call came in. But he wasn’t a gang member. It was really just a dispute with his roommate where Steven used some intimidating language.
The prosecutor still had a case where they charged him with kidnapping and being a gang member. They were considering drug charges as well. When they first got this case, Steven was looking at three to five years prison. The prosecutor was really serious about this case. He wanted him to go to prison, even though he had never had an criminal history at all.
Steven and his parents came to me. I went to work seeing what I could do. I talked to the prosecutor about the case. I explained to him that he wasn’t a gang member, and that they really didn’t have any evidence for that. He gave in on the drug charge, and that was never brought against Steve. He did still go forward with the kidnapping charge, but I was able to get him to go down to probation with no jail. Steven was able to go on with his life without any prison or jail time.
This case was really just a dispute between roommates. His roommate owed him money and called the police and claimed he was being kidnapped. Unfortunately, under Arizona law it doesn’t take a lot to prove kidnapping. In this case I was able to show the prosecutor what really happened. He eventually agreed that he didn’t have the evidence to prove that Steven was some sort of notorious gang member and gave him probation without jail. Now Steven is back to work moving on with his life.
If you or someone you love have ever been faced with something like this, give me a call. I give free consultations and I can help.
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Case Success: Marijuana DUI

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I’m Burges McCowan, criminal defense attorney in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. Today I’m going to talk about a DUI with drugs case that I recently handled.

The client, Amy, was pulled over because she had a marijuana bumper sticker on her vehicle. The officer, knowing that she probably smoked marijuana, went ahead and charged her with DUI. Until recently, here in Arizona, if you had marijuana in your system, they could charge you with a DUI. Didn’t matter if you were actually high or not. That’s what happened to Amy.

Unfortunately, until recently, that was happening to a lot of people, but fortunately for Amy, when she gave me a call, I knew about the recent Arizona Supreme Court case that changed all of that. Now they have to prove that it’s active THC. That only stays in your system for a number of hours instead of weeks.

After reviewing her case and making sure that it applied to her, I took that to the prosecutor and got her case dismissed. I also told her to stop driving around with bumper sticker of marijuana on her car if she doesn’t want to get pulled over again.

If you or someone you know have had this problem before, give me a call. I do free consultations, and I can help.
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Case Success: Posession of Narcotic Drugs for Sale

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This is Burges McCowan, criminal defense attorney here in the Phoenix, Arizona area. I want to talk to you about a case I recently had involving possession of narcotic drugs for sale, ARS13-3408. George is a client of mine that has this case. Unfortunately for him, he was on probation at the time this occurred. He had recently started selling cocaine to try and make extra money, not a very good decision that was about to put him in prison for three to five years. Fortunately, he had been pretty good on probation and it was almost over for him.
When I got the case, I looked through it and realized that if he had successfully completed his probation, it would be turned into a misdemeanor, which means the government wouldn’t have that prior to use against him and they wouldn’t be able to force prison in this case. Usually once a case is already started, it’s pretty hard to get this accomplished, but in this case, I was able to get this probation officer to successfully finish his probation and then got the court to designate it a misdemeanor so that now the government didn’t have any leverage against him.
After all this was done, I called up the prosecutor on the case who just happened to be a former supervisor of mine and let her know that she no longer had this prior available to her. She laughed and said she’d get me next time and gave my client probation. Now he’s back on his way and he knows now that selling cocaine is not a good way to make extra money. If you or a family member you know has had any kind of situation like this, give me a call. I do free consultations and I can help.
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ARS 13-3407 Transportation of Dangerous Drugs – Probation with time served

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Tony got caught up in a drug trafficking ring. He helped a dealer by providing him transportation and picking up a package without asking questions. He knew what he was doing was probably not on the up and up but he was young (barely 18) and not thinking about the consequences at the time. He was caught with over $90k worth of drugs. Under AZ law, that’s enough to get mandatory prison up to 12.5 years. Burges negotiated with the prosecutor and got Tony probation with credit for the time he already served in jail.

ARS 28-1381(A3) DUI drugs – Not Guilty

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Jim was waiting to turn left when he was struck by a truck.  Jim was a bit dazed from the accident when the police arrived.  The Scottsdale officer decided Jim was impaired but Jim didn’t have any alcohol in his system.  So Scottsdale charged Jim with being impaired by his prescription drugs.  At trial Burges got the State’s lab expert to admit that the levels of the prescription drugs in Jim’s system were probably not enough to impair him. The jury acquitted Jim in a matter of minutes.

ARS 13-3407 Possession for Sale of Dangerous Drugs – Dismissed

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Matt was a passenger in a car that was stopped and searched by police. The police found a backpack with ecstasy inside and packaged for individual sales. Matt exercised his right to remain silent. The driver of the vehicle, however, told police the backpack was Matt’s and he was charged with possession for sale. Matt was on probation for marijuana possession the year prior.  The prosecutor wanted to send Matt to prison for 5 years. Matt’s father hired Burges and he got to work investigating the case.  He showed the prosecutor the weaknesses in the case and the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the charge. Matt doesn’t hang out with that other guy anymore.