One example is the case of Jessica Carothers from Washington state. In 2004, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents came into her house looking for her boyfriend. He wasn’t there, and he never came back. Ms. Carothers' name wasn’t on the arrest warrant, but DEA agents found meth and a scale in the house and arrested her. Ms. Carothers claimed innocence, but initially pled guilty because her attorney encouraged her to do so by telling her the punishment was house arrest. When she found out that pleading guilty meant several years in prison away from her four year old son, she had a new lawyer who withdrew the plea. The case went to trial, and she was acquitted.
For more, check out this article from The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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3 comments:
I wholeheartedly agree, men do suck in the sense that these patriarchal lawmaker types who are putting innocent women in prison are insensitive, unrealistic, and clueless. And drug dealers who don't tell their girlfriends exactly what's up with them so said girlfriends are left in the dark about how to protect themselves when the cops come knocking down their doors - they suck, too.
Georgiana
Yes, but the law functions to put innocent souls in prison. Perhaps if the law would focus on requiring real evidence of criminality before locking someone away, then not so many innocent women would go to jail. That's the point.
Based on the facts listed in the post, the scales and meth were found in her house, plain sight if the arrest warrant did not allow a substantial search of the home. As such, there was probable cause for her arrest. She was not found guilty of the offense because she successfully, and rightly, defended that the stuff wasn't hers. Seems like the legal system worked. Police officers can't go to a house, whose owner answers the door, see meth, and not arrest the owner because it is a woman, or she claims at the time that the stuff isn't hers. The police officers did what they are trained to do--arrest people who are violating the law.
Drug laws are not gender specific. Prosecutors must prove that the wives and girlfriends violated the drug crime laws, just like they must prove that the husbands and boyfriends violated the drug crime laws.
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