What Do I Need to Know About Drug Charges in Illinois?
By Dan Noll on August 12th, 2015 in
The first question, of course, is whether it’s State charges or Federal charges. Those differ greatly in terms of how they’re handled by our office and by the prosecution. The Federal Court grand jury will bring charges. State court generally with drug charges, a grand jury will listen too and bring charges because the prosecutors want to protect a confidential informant.
Often times with drug charges the DEA or the Illinois State Police or the county authorities, whoever arrested the individual, want that individual to cooperate because drug charges are like dominoes lining up. I can’t get person C unless I get person A. Once I got person A then I can get person B. Then I get person C. Informants are extremely important to them and cooperation is always an option.
We tend to shy away from cooperation, unless we can really have a good evaluation of case because quite often the authorities are not fair with the people who cooperate. They use them like a prostitute and throw them away in the garbage. However, at the same time cooperation can be extremely helpful if handled correctly. Our offices have excellent experience in handling people who cooperate. We’ve gotten people who’ve been charged with drug offenses, or were to be charged with drug offenses, who cooperate and get substantially less sentences or no charges at all.
Understand this in terms of representation, generally the longer drug cases go on in terms of continuances and time frames, the better the case can be. Quite often we’ll continue a case for six months, a year, because much can happen during that time frame to readjust the case. Drug cases tend to be like fine wine, they tend to improve with age.