Acquaintance busted with nearly a lb of pot

[TrueFaith]

This is in Texas. He's driving to work and just happens to get caught with 1lb of grass. It's all in one bag. Police pull him over, arrest him for previous violations and then he confesses up to the weed. The worst news is he also had another small portion with him in another baggy.

He has no prior felonies, (to the best of my knowledge) just some traffic violations.

Any thoughts?

 

[The Occultist]

See what, exactly, he's been charged with. Advising him to get a lawyer wouldn't be the worse thing in the world.

 

[TrueFaith]

Yes, I did already (via his girlfriend). Strongly advised that any amount of money spent on a good lawyer would be worth it. According to NORML's website it's a state jail felony. Up to 2 years and $10k in fines.

http://norml.org/pdf_files/state_penalties/NORML_TX_State_Penalties.pdf

He's a nice kid, all in all. I've known him about 2 years. I am unsure about his/family etc ability to pull together the money needed to make it happen though.

 

[The Occultist]

Odds are he's not gonna see any jail time for a first time conviction. I don't know how Texas handles these things, but hopefully there's some sort of deferment program that is offered.

 

[CavemanLawyer]

First time State Jail felony drug charges are very often reduced to a class A misdemeanor, especially just for marijuana. If not than there is a good chance that he'd get deferred on the state jail felony. A first offense state jail felony plea usually will be deferred, but in any case you've got to really screw up probation, multiple times, to do any jail time on first offense SJF. But with that said, different counties do very different things. If he pleads to the case he can certainly expect to be on probation though.