The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said it was a $35 million international drug ring that produced 9.5 tons of synthetic marijuana. Fourteen individuals were arrested last month in Houston in connection with the narcotics trafficking conspiracy, including a finance…
Category: Drug Crime
2016
Category: Appeals | Drug Crime
The nation’s police seem to feel uncomfortable with the fact that they are now under constant scrutiny. The scrutiny they are under is not by their internal investigations departments or by their supervisory agencies, but by the public. We do…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Drug Trafficking
With many Texas towns located close to the Mexico border, drug trafficking is a recurring problem for state and federal law enforcement.
Last year the federal government charged Juan Pablo Contresas with being one of two leaders of a…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Drug Trafficking | Federal Criminal Law
U.S. Sentencing Guideline § 2D1.1(a)(2) applies a base “base offense level” of 38 in certain drug cases when “the offense of conviction establishes that death or serious bodily injury resulted from the use of the substance …”
On March…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Federal Criminal Law | Methamphetamines
Ralph Gene Carloss lived in Tahlequah, Oklahoma—a city in Cherokee County located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. He is an ex-felon who lived in a single-family dwelling located in what was described as a “pretty old area” in…
2016
Category: Appeals | Drug Crime
Known as the “Gateway to North Louisiana,” the town of Haynesville is located in the northern part of Claiborne Parish just south of the Arkansas state line. It is best known for its high school football team, the Golden Tornadoes,…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Federal Criminal Law | Guns
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court in Riley v. California held that the police, acting without a warrant, generally may not examine digital information stored on a cell phone seized during an arrest.
When a defendant is released on…
2016
Category: Drug Crime | Methamphetamines
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently released their 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment, and it confirms that the seizure of cocaine is dropping while the seizure of methamphetamine is increasing. Methamphetamine production and smuggling has increased because Mexican drug…
2016
Category: Appeals | Criminal Law | Drug Crime
In May 2013, Marguita Wills lived Charleston, West Virginia. She had a male companion named Kenneth Rush living with her in her apartment. He had been there for two nights.
For some reason, Wills came to suspect that Rush…
2015
Category: Appeals | Drug Crime
One thing should now be clear to Texas law enforcement, as well as to law enforcement officials across the country: the area immediately surrounding the front door of a home is part of the residence, curtilage, requiring a search warrant…