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Wed 10 Jan, 2018 07:12 am
So before I start, I know what I did was wrong and dumb. It was a thoughtless act in a desperate situation that I'm sure as heck not gonna do again, ha.
So anyway, I was driving behind a cop and he turned off into some place and then came back out and followed me for 10 min. and pulled me over, claiming the light on the license plate was out (upon inspection when I got home, it wasn’t). He didn't give me a ticket for that so no biggie, but he did give me two other tickets: one for violation of license restrictions (because I only have a permit and not a license - dumb of me to drive, I know. Like I said, desperate times and the lesson is learned.) another for marijuana paraphernalia. I told him no I don't have a license but I have an ID, went to grab it out of my bag and he saw ziplock baggies and asked to search the car and my dumba** said yes thinking it was fine. The baggies in my bag were just holding my birth control, inhaler, cold medicine. But it's not my car, it's my mom's. She had an old bowl with crumbles of weed under the seat that I obviously didn’t know about or I wouldn’t have been so gung-ho to let them search the car. I obviously could've just been like "yo that's not mine" but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter and he wouldn't believe me. Also I'm not trying to snitch on my mom. So I dunno how severe the violation of restrictions is but from what he said it's not a big deal. The big one is the paraphernalia, which is a minor misdemeanor.
So my question is, when I go to court next week, what do I do? I’ve never been in any kind of trouble. Ever. I don’t know how to handle this at all. What do I say to the judge? What should I do to prepare? And realistically what kind of punishment can I be expecting? On a scale of 1-10 how much deep sh** am I in?
Also, to clarify, I was alone. And the fact that he was incorrect about the license plate light seems irrelevant because I didn't get a ticket for it, there's really no way to prove it, and he didn't the give reason for stopping me on the tickets he issued. So I probably won't bring that up in court. In all honesty, even though I feel like he was kinda reaching for stuff just to get me rather than protecting anyone, I was breaking the law and I accept full responsibility of that, even the paraphernalia, so I'm not out to get him in any way or anything like that. Also, he was nice to my dog and tried to make it easier with him, even though my dog is a huge overprotective and (at the time because he was a little freaked) noisy fella.
@hoiley,
Find a legal aid group in your town. Many such are free. If no such service is available, call law offices and briefly explain your situation. Do this until you find one that will offer you a half hour or so at low cost.