chadwicke970
Junior Member
My home state: CO
State where I was ticketed: ID
As I was returning home to Colorado from Yellowstone National Park, I was pulled over for speeding in Rexburg, Idaho. The arresting officer questioned myself, followed by my passenger, before asking if there was anything illegal he should be aware of inside the vehicle. After a short period of denial, I made an admission of marijuana and paraphernalia possession. I was written a ticket for misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia and marijuana and released, as opposed to being taken to jail.
My ticket states that I must appear in court on August 10th. I called the county court clerk to see if this matter was something that could be dealt with over the telephone, considering I live over 500 miles away, and was informed that I would infact need to appear in court in order to have any chance of dealing with this.
Now, to my question. I'm 28 years old and have never been convicted (or even charged) of any criminal offenses, be it a felony or a misdemeanor. I had roughly 1/8th of 1 ounce of marijuana on me, which was deemed by the officer to be for personal use only. I'm a particularly thorough person and immediately began researching the possible outcomes and courses of action available to me, and I'm having difficulty recognizing what type of plea I should enter with the judge. They recovered the items from my car, so I'm certainly guilty. I understand that entering a "not guilty" plea despite incontrovertible evidence is not considered a lie, and might even be necessary, depending on my intentions.
My question is, how do I plea? My hope is, considering I'm a first time offender, that I can somehow get the misdemeanor dropped with little (or no) penalty...how do I go about achieving this goal? I want to take care of this matter all in the same trip - I have no plans to return to Idaho in an attempt to defend myself. I would like to just admit that I committed the crime and be done with it; HOWEVER, it is of utmost importance to me that the misdemeanor not make it to my permanent record, if that's even possible, so, while a bevy of trips to Idaho isn't exactly my best-case scenario, I will do whatever is necessary in order to minimize the damage of this violation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read through my bone-headed blunder.
Chad, sweating bullets in CO
State where I was ticketed: ID
As I was returning home to Colorado from Yellowstone National Park, I was pulled over for speeding in Rexburg, Idaho. The arresting officer questioned myself, followed by my passenger, before asking if there was anything illegal he should be aware of inside the vehicle. After a short period of denial, I made an admission of marijuana and paraphernalia possession. I was written a ticket for misdemeanor possession of paraphernalia and marijuana and released, as opposed to being taken to jail.
My ticket states that I must appear in court on August 10th. I called the county court clerk to see if this matter was something that could be dealt with over the telephone, considering I live over 500 miles away, and was informed that I would infact need to appear in court in order to have any chance of dealing with this.
Now, to my question. I'm 28 years old and have never been convicted (or even charged) of any criminal offenses, be it a felony or a misdemeanor. I had roughly 1/8th of 1 ounce of marijuana on me, which was deemed by the officer to be for personal use only. I'm a particularly thorough person and immediately began researching the possible outcomes and courses of action available to me, and I'm having difficulty recognizing what type of plea I should enter with the judge. They recovered the items from my car, so I'm certainly guilty. I understand that entering a "not guilty" plea despite incontrovertible evidence is not considered a lie, and might even be necessary, depending on my intentions.
My question is, how do I plea? My hope is, considering I'm a first time offender, that I can somehow get the misdemeanor dropped with little (or no) penalty...how do I go about achieving this goal? I want to take care of this matter all in the same trip - I have no plans to return to Idaho in an attempt to defend myself. I would like to just admit that I committed the crime and be done with it; HOWEVER, it is of utmost importance to me that the misdemeanor not make it to my permanent record, if that's even possible, so, while a bevy of trips to Idaho isn't exactly my best-case scenario, I will do whatever is necessary in order to minimize the damage of this violation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read through my bone-headed blunder.
Chad, sweating bullets in CO