When Illegal Search and Seizure Violates Your Rights
The vast majority of federal drug crime cases involve issues of illegal search and seizure of the primary evidence — the drugs themselves — that were allegedly used in a drug transaction.
At the Law Firm of Shein & Brandenburg, Federal Criminal Law Center, in the Atlanta area, our lawyers focus on aggressively challenging law enforcement's search and seizure conduct in cases of federal criminal charges under the Fourth Amendment. This is one of the most successful ways to mitigate the potential consequences of a conviction — by attacking the evidence the government obtained against you.
When an illegal search warrant or wiretap was used to acquire evidence against you— firearms, drugs, money or other elements of the offenses — proving the government's misconduct can lead to the suppression of this evidence. This means that it cannot be brought against you at trial. You may also be able to achieve the suppression of secondary evidence, like a witness's testimony.
Protecting Your Fourth Amendment Constitutional Rights
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects your rights by prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure of persons and places, as well in wiretaps. In many cases, especially federal drug cases, the pre-trial stage requires an attack on evidence seized by the government in violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.
These pretrial motions challenging evidence must be filed with the court before your trial. They attack the question of whether your person or a place was searched illegally. If evidence was obtained illegally in a criminal case it must be excluded from use against you at trial. Further, anything that led to more evidence against you coming from the illegally seized evidence cannot be used either. This is known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" effect.
Contact an Attorney
Whether your situation involved a traffic stop or the search of your home or place of business, contact our office in Decatur, Georgia (Atlanta area) by calling 404-633-3797 or by completing our online intake form.
