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 […]
In what may be the first ruling of its kind in Buchanan County, a GRL client is a free man today after the district court there suppressed the search of his semi truck and dismissed all charges. At issue was the Level II inspection criteria that many counties with weight stations impermissibly use to justify […]
In the process of saving a CDL from being disqualified, the impaired driving attorneys at GRL exposed a potential flaw in the implied consent advisory for commercial motor vehicles. The advisory provides that commercial driving privileges will be disqualified if the drivers tests over 0.04 for alcohol or refuses testing while operating a CMV. However, […]
When it comes to warrantless searches, the drug crime attorneys at GRL Law really know their stuff. A recent example from North Iowa shows just how they leverage their knowledge to secure a dismissal by shining a bright light on illegal police conduct. Our client was the passenger in a vehicle that was parked one […]
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 […]
In State v. Wright, the Iowa Supreme Court recently banned warrantless searches of curbside trash. This landmark ruling puts an end to an investigative technique used by police for decades. The issues before the Iowa Supreme Court were matters of first impression. The drug defense attorneys at GRL Law are the first to ever raise […]
Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa. A traffic stop on I-35 led to the discovery of marijuana in a car trunk. The trooper cited the driver for speeding, but charged the passenger with possession of marijuana. The drug defense attorneys at GRL Law have written before on the constructive possession defense. This case presented yet another […]
New Hampton, Chickasaw County, Iowa. A traffic stop for speeding by an out-of-state driver on Interstate 35 led to a warrantless probable cause search of the vehicle based on the odor of marijuana. Deputies located significant quantities of marijuana flower in a glass jar in the passenger compartment and charged our client with both felony […]
In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), the Supreme Court announced that any physical intrusion onto a personal “effect,” such as a vehicle parked on a public street, was a search under the Fourth Amendment when done for the purposes of gathering information. Most attorneys and judges understand Jones to be the “GPS […]
