Tag: Colin Murphy

THC Vape Charges Dismissed After Search of Mail Suppressed

It goes without saying that postal service investigations rarely turn out well for those who receive marijuana products by mail.  Drug dogs and search warrants will conspire to reveal the contents of suspicious packages before they reach the mailbox.  At that point, the recipients face a Hobson’s choice: either snitch on friends or cop to a felony. What can you do when neither is an option? You guessed it. You get the drug crime lawyers at GRL Law involved. Here’s an example of how we can flip the script on these mailed drug cases that don’t involve the odor of […]

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Drug Charge Dismissed After GRL Challenges Marijuana Identification

GRL recently put its knowledge of drug identification procedures to the test in a case involving alleged THC vape liquid. Police seized a vape cart during a traffic stop.  Field testing of the liquid extract showed a positive color change indicating the possible presence of marijuana. Frequent readers of the GRL Law blog know that field testing can mistake CBD for marijuana.  We’ve discussed this phenomenon here. This is where things get interesting. Police didn’t send the cart to the state crime lab.  Instead, they sent it to a local department that employs an officer with training in marijuana identification.  […]

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Felony OWI Amended to Public Intoxication

The impaired driving defense attorneys at GRL get results.  A recent case in Mitchell County demonstrates how effective we can be when the stakes are highest. We recently took over a case from another attorney after the State refused to budge on a felony OWI and trial looked inevitable.  After unpacking it, we discovered several important facts that completely changed the dynamic of the case.  We went to work limiting the State’s evidence.  We requested the DataMaster DMT breath test data and noticed the State’s expert witness to appear on our behalf at trial. The result? On the eve of […]

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Warning! Warrantless Searches of Curbside Garbage Resume July 1, 2022

Readers of the GRL Law blog are no doubt familiar with the firm’s efforts to protect the privacy rights of Iowans in State v. Wright.  That’s the 2021 ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court that banned police from trespassing on your curbside garbage and searching it without a warrant. Predictably, the law enforcement community threw a tantrum after the ruling.  And they ran kicking and screaming to some legislators at the statehouse who obviously can’t appreciate the difference between the Iowa Bill of Rights and the Communist Manifesto. The result? Effective tomorrow, July 1, 2022, anyone can scavenge your garbage.  […]

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Do Marijuana Seeds Still Provide PC to Search?

There was a time when the observation of marijuana seeds on the floorboard of a vehicle provided probable cause to search. Why? Because the definition of “marijuana” under Iowa law includes cannabis seeds. However, with the passage of the Iowa Hemp Act, Iowa Code chapter 204, that may no longer be the case. “Hemp” in Iowa is any part of the cannabis plant with a delta-9 THC concentration of up to 0.3 percent on a dry weight basis.  The definition of hemp also includes seeds.  Hemp is legal to possess in the state of Iowa. Both marijuana and hemp seeds […]

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State Amends OWI to Public Intoxication on Eve of Trial

The state recently moved to amend a charge to public intoxication from OWI in a North Iowa case involving a test refusal. Why the amendment?  The drunk driving attorneys at GRL Law were prepared to show that our client, a lifetime smoker, never refused testing.   Instead, the officer deemed her to have refused after a third incomplete DataMaster DMT test.  The multiple incomplete tests were due to our client’s inability to provide an acceptable breath sample meeting all of the test parameters.  Nothing more. The officer could have instead requested that she submit a sample of blood or urine.  Those […]

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NFG for CDL Driver Charged with Following Too Closely

On February 3, 2022, the Worth County Magistrate found our client not guilty of the charge of Following Too Closely. An Iowa State Trooper testified that two semi-trucks passed him in the left lane.  The rear truck, which was operated by our client, was within five feet of the other. However, the trooper had not observed that the lead truck was actually right behind him and pulled into the left lane at 60 mph, cutting off our client.  The trooper was traveling 52 mph in the right lane. Our client was traveling 65 miles per hour pulling a fully loaded […]

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Reciprocity Defense for Medical Marijuana Results in Two Dismissals

Frequent visitors to the GRL Law Blog are no doubt familiar with our approach to defending medical marijuana charges. The drug defense lawyers recently raised this reciprocity defense in two separate cases.  The first dealt with raw cannabis flower purchased in another state with a valid medical card.  The other concerned edibles. In both cases, the court entered an order granting the defense and dismissing the charge at the state’s cost. We believe these are the first rulings of their kind in the state on the issue of reciprocity. Charged with possession of marijuana for out-of-state medical marijuana?  GRL knows […]

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