Lisa Pelosi: It depends. If it’s a misdemeanor which in New York is a lesser offense or a felony which is a more serious offense. However, the felonies are in Supreme Court, your case could last as short as a month, and it could go on for as long as a couple of years. It also depends upon whether or not someone decides to exercise his or her right to go to trial. It varies on the case and it varies on what the attorneys trying to do. For example, with a case where you want to get your client into treatment, the quicker you get the client into treatment, the better it is getting them to get help quickly.
The Individual Must Complete the Treatment In Order to Get the Charges Dismissed
But those cases, even though we know what we are doing with them, meaning the individual has to participate in the drug program and come back to check in with the drugs. Sometimes the programs could go up to 6 months, a year, a year in half, so initially we know what we are doing, with the case but to have the result, be that the case gets dismissed, we have to go through all the months of the treatments. We keep going back to court before we can get the case dismissed, or get it seriously reduced, severely reduced for the client, for violation for example.
The Typical Scenario Associated with Drug Related Offenses in New York
Interviewer: Is there a typical scenario, that you always hear about, on a frequent basis from you clients.
Lisa Pelosi: People who are addicts either don’t admit that they’re addicts and they say they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, or people that are selling will say that they weren’t selling, but that’s just standard for the type of work I do. Mostly, what I am more concerned about is what the prosecutor says the evidence is. To kind of view it in a very broad way, to see if the police that are involved are the police who have had complaints against them. Because often times your client will tell you. “Hey, I was just walking down the street, and for no reason the cops came up to me and searched me”.
The Police Officers Cannot Search an Individual Without Probable Cause
It doesn’t matter what the person had on their person. The cops had no right, the police officers had no right to search my client. So you hear a lot of that, and that I take very seriously, the police brutality against my client, where they’re searched without any right or for the officers to search and it’s something that, I think any good criminal defense attorney is very cautious about. We have to listen very carefully to our clients to hear what they are saying. Because if you are involved in a location where you’re defending people and you start to see a pattern where individuals are just stopped for no reason or cars are searched for no reason, we look for profiling.
Juries Are Not Always Biased Against the Defendant in a Drug Related Case
Interviewer: Are Juries always biased against drug cases, and is it always like an uphill battle?
Lisa Pelosi: Every time you go to trial with a case, you’re dealing with so many different emotions of people on the jury. People could have family members who have struggled with addictions and maybe if you’re going to trial with people. They might be biased against an alleged drug dealer, so you always go to be careful, but that’s not just something that’s to drug cases. That’s really for any case that you’re dealing with. You have to be careful with that. Most people today have had a family member or friends who are known as people who have addictions. In general people don’t want drugs being sold in their communities.
Some People May Get Embroiled in Drugs Because of Financial Constraints
On the other hand, I think you also have people that are aware that, sometimes people do things that they would prefer not to do because they are trying to support families, and take measures, that they deem to be a drastic, in order to put food on the table. So, I think juries have a lot of preconceived notions and life experiences, and you just have to. I’m always very careful on which cases I would take to trial. With that sentiment in mind, I think people, who live in certain areas are well aware that police officers can illegally, and improperly search people, and arrest people. You have a whole gambit of emotions, when in the pool of people that you are to pick to hear a case when you go to trial.
