Modern drug cases are a whole new beast. The Government has sophisticated techniques to watch and follow suspects; to obtain wiretaps that allow them to listen and record every telephone conversation, or conversation occurring near a cell phone; they can obtain video surveillance from a plethora of every-day sources; and they utilize an alphabet soup of paid snitches: confidential reliable informants (CRI), human sources (HS), source of information (SOI), and paid reliable informants. Each of these tools of law enforcement must be subjected to the experienced eye of a dedicated defense attorney to ensure the Government has stayed within their Constitutionally mandated parameters. They can catch drug dealers, but they can’t cheat to do so, and they cannot arrest and convict innocent people who are merely in the cross-hairs of a junkie working for the Government’s money.
Unfortunately, conspiracy charges are the darling of the modern prosecutor’s office and the scope reaches far and deep: a person who agrees with another to commit any criminal act, even if petty or small, may be held responsible for the actions of the partner, even if the partner’s actions were beyond what the defendant thought they agreed to — if it is a legally foreseeable consequence, the two become co-defendants, and likely facing charges of exponential seriousness.
As soon as you suspect the police are interested in you, you must immediately contact an experienced defense counsel who can preserve your rights.