If you were arrested or charged with a drug crime, you should hire an experienced attorney from Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian to represent you in your case. You’re facing an uphill battle and probably don’t know the steps you need to take to defend yourself in court. The penalties for a conviction could significantly impact your life, job, and family. You need a dedicated legal team on your side to advocate for your rights and fight for your freedom.
Even the most average drug offense involves a multitude of constitutional and state protections. Whether the crime is Misdemeanor Possession of Marijuana, Felony Manufacturing, or Federal Drug Trafficking, law enforcement agents must carefully adhere to the laws related to search and seizure, confessions, right to counsel, as well as the scientific methods of identifying illegal substances.
Even if the state can prove they conducted their investigation without infringing on the rights of the accused, they still must prove their case factually. In a possession case, this means that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a Defendant had actual care, custody, control, or management of an illegal substance. Both legal and factual hurdles in a drug case can be difficult for the prosecutor to overcome.
Call Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian for a free consultation with one of our Collin County drug offense lawyers today to learn more about how we can help following your arrest or charge.
Why Choose Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian?
If your felony charge hasn’t dramatically altered your life enough, a felony conviction will affect your future in ways you can only imagine. A felony conviction in Collin County carries stiff fines and lengthy prison sentences. Your career, reputation, and even your relationships may not be waiting for you after you have paid your “debt” to society.
Our Collin County drug offense lawyers often work together on cases to provide our clients with effective and thorough representation. We come up with defense strategies that can get charges dropped and cases dismissed. You shouldn’t leave your fate in the hands of an inexperienced legal team or overworked public defender. When you hire us, you’ll receive the personalized attention and services you need to secure your freedom and future.
AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY
Since any piece of evidence or minor detail could be the key to your acquittal, we use every legal means to obtain all evidence from the prosecution, police, any witnesses, and every other involved party. Our detailed approach to evidence allows us to create an effective strategy for your defense. We don’t accept conviction as an option, and our defense of you reflects that.
If you have been arrested on a felony charge, you owe it to your future to give Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian a call today. As one of the largest criminal defense firms in Collin County, we have the knowledge, experience, and resources to fight your charge effectively.
Types of Drug Offenses In Texas
Law enforcement aggressively pursues individuals who participate in drug-related crimes. In their pursuit of ensuring offenders end up behind bars, they often arrest innocent people simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Additionally, they might fail to follow protocols, violating the person’s rights in the process.
Texas punishes those convicted of drug offenses harshly. There are various crimes that could lead to a misdemeanor or felony charge, depending on specific circumstances. The main types of drug offenses in Texas are:
- Possession
- Possession with intent to distribute or sell
- Sale or Distribution
- Manufacturing
- Trafficking
- Cultivation of marijuana
- Conspiracy to commit a drug-related crime
- Juvenile drug crimes
State and federal laws prohibit anyone from manufacturing, possessing, using, distributing, or selling various types of drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) defined these categories in the most recently published National Drug Threat Assessment:
- Heroin
- Controlled prescription drugs
- Methamphetamine
- Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids
- Cocaine
- New psychoactive substances
The DEA also determined specific drugs are illegal and placed them into different schedules based on the risk of dependency and abuse.
Schedule I chemicals, drugs, or substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Examples include:
Schedule II drugs, substances, or chemicals with a potential for physical or psychological dependence and a high potential for abuse. Examples include:
- Dilaudid
- Fentanyl
- Methamphetamine
- Cocaine
Schedule III substances, chemicals, or drugs with a potential for abuse less than Schedule I and II and a moderate to low potential for psychological or physical dependence. Examples include:
- Testosterone
- Anabolic steroids
- Ketamine
- Tylenol with codeine and other drugs having under 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit
Schedule IV drugs, chemicals, or substances with a low potential for dependence and abuse. Examples include:
- Ambien
- Valium
- Xanax
- Tramadol
Schedule V chemicals, substances, or drugs with a lower potential for abuse than Schedule IV drugs. They could also consist of preparations using limited quantities of certain narcotics. Examples include:
- Lomotil
- Parepectolin
- Motofen
- Robitussin AC and other preparations using less than 200 milligrams of codeine per 100 milliliters
Delivery of a Controlled Substance
Delivery of a controlled substance acts to increase or enhance the charge of drug possession. It elevates the charges by one degree. For example, possession of less than 1 gram of cocaine would typically be a state Jail Felony. If it were shown at trial there was intent to deliver or manufacture the cocaine possessed, the charge would be raised to a 3rd Degree Felony.
Surrounding circumstances generally dictate whether police attempt to add a “manufacturing or delivery” allegation to a drug charge. That would normally be the presence of scales, baggies, large amounts of cash or equipment, or ingredients commonly known to create such drugs.
Frequently police overreach on delivery of a controlled substance, and it’s important to have an experienced defense lawyer who knows how to negate these charges.
Drug Trafficking & Manufacturing
You can transform nearly everything under your kitchen sink and in your bathroom medicine cabinet into a highly addictive narcotic. Law enforcement sees any home as a potential lab for manufacturing and distributing drugs. It’s hard to see your neighbors as drug dealers, and they probably aren’t, but police are constantly on the lookout for suspicious behavior, even in your neighborhood.
Many of the laws and mandatory sentences that exist today were passed and created at the beginning of the drug war when the manufacture and distribution of drugs were carried out on a large scale only. Capturing and convicting drug lords and kingpins, then putting them out of business for good, was the goal of these draconian measures. These same Federal laws apply to individuals who make and sell blue-collar drugs such as Methamphetamine just to feed their own addiction.
Money Laundering in Connection with Drug Trade
Money Laundering under Texas law is codified by Texas Penal Code 34.02 and says,
(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly:
(1) acquires or maintains an interest in, conceals, possesses, transfers, or transports the proceeds of criminal activity;
(2) conducts, supervises, or facilitates a transaction involving the proceeds of criminal activity;
(3) invests, expends, or receives, or offers to invest, expend, or receive, the proceeds of criminal activity or funds that the person believes are the proceeds of criminal activity; or
(4) finances or invests or intends to finance or invest funds that the person believes are intended to further the commission of criminal activity.
As you can see, this statute is extremely broad and can be construed to hold if a person possesses even $1 of drug money, they are guilty of money laundering.
Despite the breadth of this law, it is typically seen in conjunction with other marijuana and drug offenses, such as possession with intent to distribute or manufacture and deliver a controlled substance. It’s also not uncommon to see law enforcement seek a money laundering conviction where the evidence of possession or sale of drugs is weak and can’t be linked to a specific person.
Under Texas law, knowledge of the specific criminal enterprise is not required to show a culpable mental state. However, this does not mean that a juror deciding a money laundering case cannot disagree and think the nexus between the person in possession of the money and the criminal activity are so remote as to cause an injustice by rendering a conviction.
Contact Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian today if you have been involved in any kind of money laundering dispute and seek counsel from experienced attorneys.
Possession of a Controlled Substance
Possession of illegal drugs and controlled substances is an extremely complex area of the law.
Illegal drugs fall into three main categories:
- Prescription pills possessed without a valid prescription
- Drugs made, manufactured, or processed by unlicensed individuals
- Marijuana
Possession in Texas is legally defined as “actual care, custody, control or management”, so to be in “possession” of anything illegal, there must be evidence actually linking the accused to the contraband. Being with someone in possession or merely being in a place where drugs may be (and knowing drugs are present) is not sufficient to sustain charges.
The level of offense is dictated by certain factors in the Health and Safety Code Chapter 481.
Those factors are:
- The type of drug
- The amount possessed
- And aggravating factors such as whether drugs were possessed in a drug-free zone or possessed with intent to distribute
Search and seizure law is a critical component of defending drug cases. This is because the way law enforcement attains the evidence in question is subject to a 4th Amendment analysis.
Your lawyer should be an expert in probable cause, reasonable suspicion, and up to date on the constantly evolving current case law on the topic. At Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian, we pride ourselves in our experiences with search and seizure issues and forcing the state to prove affirmative links to the drugs in question.
Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
Drug Paraphernalia is broadly defined in Texas as “equipment, a product, or material that is used or intended for use in planting, propagating, cultivating, growing, harvesting, manufacturing, compounding, converting, producing, processing, preparing, testing, analyzing, packaging, repackaging, storing, containing, or concealing a controlled substance in violation of this chapter or in injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance…”
Possession is the actual care, custody, or control of any such contraband.
Possession of drug paraphernalia is a Class C Misdemeanor that is punishable by a fine of up to $500 only. This charge is often one where the police tack it on in addition to another arrest such as possession of Marijuana or Cocaine, or it is a charge where the police feel you were probably up to no good and they just can’t prove it. Handling a paraphernalia charge done in conjunction with another arrest is very important because doing so improperly could affect your right to have the entire arrest expunged under Texas law. The attorneys at Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian have the experience and tenacity to help you defend your case.
Possession/Delivery in a Drug-Free Zone
Drug-free zones are areas designated by law to increase punishments for drug offenses. The law was designed to prevent drugs from being possessed, bought, or sold in places like schools or playgrounds. Sometimes, though, law enforcement selectively abuses the spirit of this enhancement by alleging drug-free zone violations for arrests where being in the drug-free zone is coincidental. Examples are arrests in school parking lots during the summer when school isn’t in session or an arrest that occurred in a park at 3 a.m. when no children could possibly be around.
Drug-free zone violations result in punishment being enhanced by one level. For example, possession of a usable quantity of marijuana under two ounces is normally a Class B Misdemeanor. If the offense occurs in a drug-free zone, then it’s increased to a Class A Misdemeanor.
Just because the police allege something occurred in a drug-free zone doesn’t automatically make it so. A criminal defense attorney with knowledge of the law can fight and win against these charges.
Prescription Drug Arrests/Possession
It’s illegal to possess prescription drugs without a prescription. Prescription drug arrests range from cases where someone has hundreds of pills down to where a juvenile brings a few of their parents’ pills to school.
Possession is legally defined in Texas as actual care, custody, control, or management of the contraband in question. This means it may be legally insufficient to show a person had knowledge of prescription drugs or was merely close to someone in possession.
As with other narcotics, the degree of offense of the possession of a prescription drug is controlled by the type of drug possessed, the amount possessed, and the circumstances surrounding it (whether it was in a drug-free zone or done with intent to distribute).
Defending prescription drug cases requires a multi-faceted approach involving legal analysis of the search and seizure, possession of the drugs, and rehabilitation or drug treatment if necessary. It is important to have experienced counsel. Call Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian today to help you defend your case.
Federal Drug Offenses
The Feds mean business.
Federal drug laws and drug conspiracy laws are broad and sweeping and carry stiff penalties in the Federal system. Unlike state cases involving local police agencies, the FBI, DEA, and ATF have virtually unlimited amounts of time, patience, and resources to compile mountains of evidence against whole groups of people. Even the people on the periphery of a drug ring face serious consequences as if they were in the center. The Federal sentencing guidelines are unforgiving and commonly utilized by the Courts and prosecutors to assess stiff punishment.
If you get a target letter from federal authorities or you are (or have a loved one) arrested for involvement in a federal drug offense, it is crucial to contact an experienced lawyer immediately. While everyone arrested in a drug conspiracy is in deep trouble, some who act fast have a much better chance of weathering the storm.
We have experience in handling complex drug federal drug conspiracy cases and know how to deal with the federal authorities.
Felony Arrests
Felony records destroy dreams, careers, and lives and are the legal version of cancer.
You can realize the seriousness of a felony arrest from the amount of your bond or the treatment you received while you were being processed. It doesn’t matter if you are innocent or a respected businessperson with a family that loves you. Your felony charge becomes your new identity.
At Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian, we feel differently. We know that an arrest and charge don’t always add up to a conviction. Despite how you feel about it, the law is on your side. The burden of proof is on the prosecution. Our meticulous approach to your defense makes the prosecution’s ability to show you as guilty very difficult.
Penalties You Could Face for A Drug-Related Conviction
Texas has minimum and maximum sentencing guidelines for all crimes involving controlled substances, including a mixture, compound, materials, or preparation containing a controlled substance. They fall under four different penalty groups depending on the type of drug and amount used to commit the offense.
Penalty Group 1
Substances deemed as addictive and extremely dangerous, such as cocaine and heroin, fall under this group. Penalties vary based on the amount in possession:
| Amount | Penalty | Imprisonment | Fine |
| Under 1 gram | State jail felony | 6 months to 2 years | $10,000 |
| 1 to 4 grams | Third-degree felony | 2 to 10 years | $10,000 |
| 4 to 200 grams | Second-degree felony | 2 to 20 years | $10,000 |
| 200 to 400 grams | First-degree felony | 5 to 99 years | $10,000 |
| Over 400 grams | Enhanced felony 1 | 10 to 99 years | $300,000 |
Penalty Group 2
Hallucinogens, such as amphetamines, PCP, and ecstasy, belong to this group. The minimum and maximum sentencing based on the amount of drugs in possession are:
| Amount | Penalty | Imprisonment | Fine |
| Less than 1 gram | State jail felony | 6 months to 2 years | $10,000 |
| 1 to 4 grams | Third-degree felony | 2 to 10 years | $10,000 |
| 4 to 400 grams | Second-degree felony | 2 to 20 years | $10,000 |
| Over 400 grams | First-degree felony | 5 to 99 years | $50,000 |
Penalty Group 3
Certain substances like diazepam, Ritalin, benzodiazepines, and other stimulants belong to group 3. Penalties could include:
| Amount | Penalty | Imprisonment | Fines |
| Less than 28 grams | Class A misdemeanor | Maximum of 1 year | $4,000 |
| 28 to 200 grams | Third-degree felony | 2 to 10 years | $10,000 |
| 200 to 400 grams | Second-degree felony | 2 to 20 years | $10,000 |
| More than 400 grams | First-degree felony | 5 to 99 years | $50,000 |
Penalty Group 4
This group includes various chemical compounds classified as controlled substances and prescription medications. Sentencing based on the amount of the drug involved is:
| Amount | Penalty | Imprisonment | Fines |
| Under 28 grams | Class B misdemeanor | Maximum of 6 months | $2,000 |
| 28 to 200 grams | Third-degree felony | 2 to 10 years | $10,000 |
| 200 to 400 grams | Second-degree felony | 2 to 20 years | $10,000 |
| Over 400 grams | First-degree felony | 5 to 99 years | $50,000 |
Possession of Marijuana
Marijuana is in a category of its own when it comes to possession. The penalty and subsequent sentencing depend on the amount the offender possesses:
| Amount | Penalty | Imprisonment | Fines |
| No more than 2 ounces | Class B misdemeanor | Up to 180 days | $2,000 |
| 2 to 4 ounces | Class A misdemeanor | Maximum of 1 year | $4,000 |
| 4 ounces to 5 pounds | State jail felony | 180 days to 2 years | $10,000 |
| 5 to 50 pounds | Third-degree felony | 2 to 10 years | $10,000 |
| 50 to 2,000 pounds | Second-degree felony | 2 to 20 years | $10,000 |
| Over 2,000 pounds | First-degree felony | 5 to 99 years | $50,000 |
Other drug offenses, such as trafficking or manufacturing, come with minimum and mandatory sentencing guidelines based on the type of substance, the amount in possession, and the category that the drug falls under. For example, manufacturing a controlled substance could increase to a third-degree felony, resulting in up to 99 years in prison.
Enhanced Penalties for Repeat Offenders
Habitual and repeat offenders convicted of a drug-related crime could face enhanced sentencing under Texas Penal Code 12.42. For example, if you’re facing a third conviction for possession of cocaine, instead of receiving a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison, the enhanced penalty could increase to a minimum of 15 years.
Class A misdemeanor
Penalties for a Class A misdemeanor with a prior conviction of a Class A misdemeanor or felony are:
- 90 days to one year in jail
- Maximum of a $4,000 fine
Class B misdemeanor
Penalties for a Class B misdemeanor with a prior Class A or Class B misdemeanor or felony are:
- 30 to 180 days in jail
- No more than a $2,000 fine
Class C misdemeanor
Penalties for a Class C misdemeanor with three convictions under Texas Penal Code 42.01 or 49.02 or a combination of three offenses are:
- Maximum of 180 days in jail
- Up to a $2,000 fine
State Jail felony
Two prior state jail felony convictions under Texas Penal Code 12.35(a) would result in a third-degree felony conviction and penalty.
Convictions for two prior felonies except one punishable as a state jail felony under section 12.35(a) with the second felony offense occurring before a conviction for the first prior felony can lead to a second-degree felony.
A prior felony conviction other than a state jail felony under section 12.35(a) would result in a second-degree felony conviction.
Third-degree felony
The penalty for a third-degree felony when there’s a prior felony other than a state jail felony under section 12.35(a) would become a second-degree felony conviction and penalty.
Second-degree felony
A second-degree felony offense with a prior felony conviction, except a state jail felony under section 12.35(a), could result in a conviction of a first-degree penalty.
First-degree felony
The penalty for a first-degree felony with a previous conviction for a felony other than a state jail felony under section 12.35(a) would be a 15- to 99-year prison sentence in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Most people don’t know how severe the penalties are for drug trafficking and manufacturing. They erroneously believe that if it is for their own use, it isn’t trafficking. However, it isn’t your intent that matters. The possession quantities set up by both Texas and the Federal government determine your intent.
If you have been arrested for any trafficking or distribution charge, an experienced attorney must immediately begin working on your defense. The prosecution has a lot to prove. Finding the evidence to fight your charge will be our priority. Any piece of evidence could hold the key to your acquittal.
At Rosenthal Kalabus & Therrian, we are experienced Collin County criminal defense attorneys. Our detailed approach to the case against you is your best defense against a conviction. Give us a call today for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.
If You Are Suffering From Drug Addiction
Nobody plans on drug addiction. Most people start taking drugs to solve pain, anxiety, depression, or just plain boredom. The enticement of drugs is that they work well, temporarily. Pain medication addiction usually begins as a legitimate prescription from your doctor after a traumatic injury or invasive surgery. Other addictions started as self-medication, where the drug either eased emotional pain or enhanced performance. Whatever reason you started taking drugs, the solution has become the problem.
A BAD SOLUTION TO YOUR ADDICTION
Sometimes your addiction gets so out of control that you or people who care about you start to think that your arrest and conviction is the surest road to recovery. This isn’t the case. The war on drugs ironically includes targeting its victims, the addicts. The system punishes you in ways that take away your future. Lengthy prison sentences and a criminal record make it difficult to return to your life even when you are sober. It also makes returning to drugs seem like a good option.