Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

Drug dogs (also referred to as canines or K-9’s) are used in Jacksonville by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department and all over Florida. They are commonly used to walk around a vehicle that has been stopped by police to determine if the odor of marijuana, cocaine or other drugs is present. If the drug dog alerts to the odor of drugs in the vehicle (or some other container), the police will typically take that as a legal basis to conduct a search of the vehicle that complies with the Fourth Amendment search and seizure requirements.

However, the drug dog’s signal alone may not be a sufficient basis to search a vehicle. Take for example a situation where the police stopped a vehicle and asked the occupants some basic questions to which the police officer felt he received suspicious responses. The police officer then walked his drug dog around the vehicle, and the drug dog alerted to the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle. The police officer then searched the vehicle. He did not find drugs, but he found evidence related to a recent armed robbery and both occupants of the vehicle were arrested. Was this proper?

The Florida court deciding the case said no. At the motion to suppress hearing, the police officer testified that he and the drug dog were certified and well-trained and the drug dog had been very reliable in detecting drugs in the past. However, the police officer testified that he did keep specific records as to the drug dog’s reliability and denied that the drug dog ever gave a false alert explaining that if the drug dog alerted and no drugs were found, that must mean that drugs had recently been present and the odor remained.

Two nurses at Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center in Duval County, Florida were arrested for allegedly using their position at the hospital to acquire prescription drugs to be sold illegally on the street, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. One of the nurses was charged with multiple counts of fraudulently obtaining a controlled substance and one count of trafficking hydromorphine. The other nurse was charged with two counts of fraudulently obtaining controlled substances.

Apparently, Shands-Jacksonville, like other hospitals has a mechanism in place whereby the medical staff must provide a thumbprint before he or she dispenses prescription drugs. Shands-Jacksonville monitors the frequency with which the medical staff acquires those drugs. according to the JSO arrest report, one of the nurses was dispensing 30% more of the drugs than the average nurse.

Of course, dispensing certain prescription drugs raises more suspicion than others. Certain drugs like Hydrocodone, Oxycontin, Xanax, Vicodin, Percocet and Morphine are more commonly obtained illegally as they have become more popular among drug users, particularly kids, and can be highly addictive. According to a report from The Council of State Governments, over 6 million people aged 12 and older used prescription drugs illegally as of 2002. A more recent report cited by the American Medical News indicated that as of 2005, nearly 7 million Americans abused prescription drugs. Common ways for the prescription drugs to be obtained were: going to different doctors for multiple prescriptions (which got Rush Limbaugh into trouble), ordering drugs through internet pharmacies, theft, forging prescriptions and medical professional illegally prescribing the drugs.

At the University of North Florida (UNF) in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, five students were arrested for possessing and selling illegal drugs, including marijuana and LSD. Like many arrests on drug crimes, these arrests were the result of an investigation that started with a tip that students at the UNF were selling drugs and then undercover agents going onto the campus and buying drugs from the suspects. Police will then use the evidence of the undercover drug purchases to obtain a search warrant to search a residence or place where the drugs are suspected of being kept and/or to obtain an arrest warrant for anyone involved in selling the drugs. In this case, the undercover officers were apparently UNF campus police, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office police and Jacksonville Beach Police Department police. In addition to the serious penalties associated with drug possession and sales charges, if convicted these students also face the potential of separate penalties from UNF that could affect their abilities to further their educations.

Another recent article noted an increase in using websites popular with high school and college students as a way to promote drug sales in Florida. Myspace.com is a very popular, high-traffic website that is being used as a conduit for drug sales. It is estimated that there are over 100 million people with a Myspace account. Many of these users are kids and young adults. According to the article referenced above, in the two months before the article was written, the police in Punta Gorda, Florida made nine arrests of people using or trying to use Myspace to sell drugs like, marijuana, crack, cocaine and illegally obtained pills like Oxycontin. While preparing to write the article, the author typed “marijuana” into the search field on Myspace.com and came back with 212,000 results. This, of course, does not mean that there are 212,000 people selling marijuana on Myspace, but it does give an indication of how often marijuana is being mentioned or discussed on the website. Myspace representatives said they try to monitor the website for illegal activity, like drug selling and solicitation of minors, but they are unable to effectively monitor 100 million plus accounts.

Finally, according to recent reports, a new substance with effects similar to illegal drugs is becoming more popular among students. Salvia is a hallucinogenic herb that is smoked and has hallucinogenic effects similar to LSD, a very dangerous and illegal drug. It is currently legal, but Florida lawmakers have proposed a bill that would make possession of Salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

In a recent possession of marijuana and possession of cocaine case in Florida, the convictions of the defendant on those drug charges were reversed because the state prosecutor was unable to prove that the defendant was in either actual or constructive possession of the drugs.

What constitutes actual possession of drugs in Florida is usually simple. If a person is holding a bag of marijuana in his or her hand or if a person has cocaine in his or her pocket, they are in actual possession of those drugs. However, police often arrest people, and the state often charges people, when drugs are found near a person or in a house or car owned or occupied by a person. In those cases, the police and prosecutors rely on the concept of constructive possession of drugs.

A recent Florida criminal case explains what this means and explains a situation where such charges are improper. In this case, Mr. Robinson lived in a house with three other people. The police searched the house pursuant to a search warrant and found marijuana and cocaine inside a ceramic decoration in the kitchen that had been hollowed out. No fingerprints were taken from the decoration. The police arrested Mr. Robinson, the owner of the house.