When you are arrested on a narcotics charge, you might face a lengthy prison sentence and expensive civil fines. You want to avoid going to prison at all costs. You also want to avoid being hit with fines that can take you the rest of your life to pay off in full.

You do not have to accept whatever punishment the prosecutor chooses to levy at you, however. You can fight the charge against you and may avoid prison time and fines by hiring one of the assertive local drug crimes attorneys to represent you.

Making the Argument for Innocence

One of the most important tasks drug crimes attorneys can help clients with involves proving their innocence. Even if you were found to be in possession of illegal substances at the time of your arrest, you may not have known they were in your car or planted on your person. Someone else might have used you to hide their own illegal drug activities.

Drug crimes attorneys can use evidence in your case to argue for your innocence. Your own lawyer might show the court that you have prior drug history and have never before used such substances. He or she can also present your clean criminal and driving records to the court and ask the judge to believe your claims of innocence. Your attorney may be able to get the charges against you dropped based on the evidence in the case.

Pleading Down Your Charges

If the evidence against you is too overwhelming to secure an innocent verdict, it may still be used to plead down the charges. Drug crimes attorneys may be able to bargain down charges based on facts, like no prior criminal history or the amount of drugs found in a person's possession at the time of the arrest. Based on such facts, you may be able to get the charges against you lowered. 

With that, you might walk away with a lesser punishment, such as community service, probation or court-ordered drug rehabilitation. You may also be eligible to have the conviction expunged from your record after you satisfy your sentence or complete a diversion program.

Assertive local drug crimes attorneys from a firm like Epstein & Robbins offer a number of important services to clients. They might focus primarily on proving your innocence and use facts in the case to get the charges against you dropped. Your lawyer may also bargain down the charges and help you secure a lesser punishment than prison time and expensive fines.