ericvervalin
New Member
This is a long story, and i'm thinkin I may have screwed myself here in the long run. About 3 1/2 years ago I was on my way to work early in the morning hours, on state road 331 northbound. My truck was set on cruise at 55 mph, as i wasnt in any hurry, and was getting paid for my drive time. The road is perfectly straight, clear morning, and I see a single car coming my way. As i get close to this car, he slides off to the edge of the road and when i pass, he turns around. No suprise this is a state cop, he pulls me over with the usual, do you know what i pulled you over for, and obviously I have no clue, figure he's just harassing me or maybe my truck looks like someone elses he's dealt with in the past. He tells me i was speeding, and i kind of laughed at him, and handed him my information, think nothing of it, and he goes back to his car.
When he comes back to the truck, he asks me if I've had anything to drink.. once again I chuckled and said no, of course not, maybe its my attitude or something else, but he asks to look in my truck. I have nothing to hide, so like a moron, i let him look. In my cup holder in plain view the entire time, I have a tobacco pipe, that is a lot of times used for smoking marijuana. But there is clearly tobacco in it at the time, so when he finds it, i'm not concerned in the least. I explain to him what it is, and he's not listening to me already. He has me come back to his car with him, and he tries to give me a verbal feild sobrity test, nothing along the lines of walking a line or anything, but writes in his report that I passed his tests fine, but he thinks I did them a little too fast, and this is even in the court documents.
He tells me he thinks i'm intoxicated, then tells me I have to go with him for a urine test, and if i refuse my liscence is instantly suspsended reguardless of anything. At this point I'm becoming a little upset with the entire thing after all, if i do take the extra hour or two to go with him, I'm late for work, and since i'm a new employee, i'm going to get fired for sure. I explain to him again, that its tobacco he's holding, but he does nothing to try to investigate, just tells me to go with him or i'm under arrest. So eventually I do go with him, and to be completely honest, I cant say I have never smoked marijuana, but never during the week, and for sure never before I go to work. By definition his 'evidence' is strictly a tobacco pipe, as there is no residue from anything except tobacco in his possession, to define it as paraphanelia.
I failed his urine screen, therefore causing me to get arrested, and all the nifty things that go along with that. Lost my job, and got in to a neat mess in court. At first the court wouldnt let me have a court appointed attorney, and told me to get my own. With no income, and a child I had a hard time trying to figure out what his definition of 'indigent' was. So I never pled, just kept asking for more time. After my 4th or 5th trip, he realized I couldnt afford it, and set a hearing to determine if I could get a pub attorney. I talk to him and he tells me more or less, just to plea, working with this judge on anything is pointless, and not worth his time, just sign this, and if i'm not the person they say I am I'll be fine, and the per se laws arent like A DUI. I didnt like his answers or advice, so i told him I needed to think about it. But without a liscence to drive, and the internet at the time to research, my options were pretty limited. After 7 or 8 months of back and forth, I get tired of them not listening to me when I say he had no right to search my person, because he has no evidence. The judge wont entertain the idea of testing the pipe, so my only proof that I know of that i have is not going to get a second look at all.
Disgusted, and annoyed I pled guilty, and took some class, and put me on probation for a year. Now the time comes when I've had 3 $35,000 - $45,000 dollar jobs fall right thru my fingers due to this crap on my driving record. All in all, the meat of this is truly that I had my civil rights violated by a cop who abused his powers, and a small corrupt town who cares nothing about the law, just their tax money, and 'income' from out of towners. I
Is this completely set in stone? Do i need to write a congressman? Or a state representative or what? The public defneder said that a dui / dwi dosent make it to a higher court so I felt stuck, and trapped into a web of crap that I never did. I'm not a perfect person, and have made mistakes in the past, but I've also been on 2 different fire departments, and a first responder, and do a lot of things to help my local community out in general. I have never had an OWI or anything of the sort, and just find it funny they were so adamit about prosecuting me. This just cost me another job as of yesterday when they pulled my driving record, and took my new work van, laptop, plane tickets and all that away. Now i've gone from upset to pissed off. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Eric
When he comes back to the truck, he asks me if I've had anything to drink.. once again I chuckled and said no, of course not, maybe its my attitude or something else, but he asks to look in my truck. I have nothing to hide, so like a moron, i let him look. In my cup holder in plain view the entire time, I have a tobacco pipe, that is a lot of times used for smoking marijuana. But there is clearly tobacco in it at the time, so when he finds it, i'm not concerned in the least. I explain to him what it is, and he's not listening to me already. He has me come back to his car with him, and he tries to give me a verbal feild sobrity test, nothing along the lines of walking a line or anything, but writes in his report that I passed his tests fine, but he thinks I did them a little too fast, and this is even in the court documents.
He tells me he thinks i'm intoxicated, then tells me I have to go with him for a urine test, and if i refuse my liscence is instantly suspsended reguardless of anything. At this point I'm becoming a little upset with the entire thing after all, if i do take the extra hour or two to go with him, I'm late for work, and since i'm a new employee, i'm going to get fired for sure. I explain to him again, that its tobacco he's holding, but he does nothing to try to investigate, just tells me to go with him or i'm under arrest. So eventually I do go with him, and to be completely honest, I cant say I have never smoked marijuana, but never during the week, and for sure never before I go to work. By definition his 'evidence' is strictly a tobacco pipe, as there is no residue from anything except tobacco in his possession, to define it as paraphanelia.
I failed his urine screen, therefore causing me to get arrested, and all the nifty things that go along with that. Lost my job, and got in to a neat mess in court. At first the court wouldnt let me have a court appointed attorney, and told me to get my own. With no income, and a child I had a hard time trying to figure out what his definition of 'indigent' was. So I never pled, just kept asking for more time. After my 4th or 5th trip, he realized I couldnt afford it, and set a hearing to determine if I could get a pub attorney. I talk to him and he tells me more or less, just to plea, working with this judge on anything is pointless, and not worth his time, just sign this, and if i'm not the person they say I am I'll be fine, and the per se laws arent like A DUI. I didnt like his answers or advice, so i told him I needed to think about it. But without a liscence to drive, and the internet at the time to research, my options were pretty limited. After 7 or 8 months of back and forth, I get tired of them not listening to me when I say he had no right to search my person, because he has no evidence. The judge wont entertain the idea of testing the pipe, so my only proof that I know of that i have is not going to get a second look at all.
Disgusted, and annoyed I pled guilty, and took some class, and put me on probation for a year. Now the time comes when I've had 3 $35,000 - $45,000 dollar jobs fall right thru my fingers due to this crap on my driving record. All in all, the meat of this is truly that I had my civil rights violated by a cop who abused his powers, and a small corrupt town who cares nothing about the law, just their tax money, and 'income' from out of towners. I
Is this completely set in stone? Do i need to write a congressman? Or a state representative or what? The public defneder said that a dui / dwi dosent make it to a higher court so I felt stuck, and trapped into a web of crap that I never did. I'm not a perfect person, and have made mistakes in the past, but I've also been on 2 different fire departments, and a first responder, and do a lot of things to help my local community out in general. I have never had an OWI or anything of the sort, and just find it funny they were so adamit about prosecuting me. This just cost me another job as of yesterday when they pulled my driving record, and took my new work van, laptop, plane tickets and all that away. Now i've gone from upset to pissed off. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
Eric
