No Criminal Conviction for 22 ‘Ecstacy’ Tablets

Our client is a 23-year-old university student from Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs.
He attended a music festival which is known for heavy drug use.
There was a heavy undercover Police presence at the festival. One of those Police officers sighted our client consuming a capsule.
Police approached our client and advised him that they intended to conduct a search.
Our client advised them that he had prohibited drugs on him and revealed 22 capsules of MDMA.
Police arrested our client and conducted an interview with him where he admitted to possessing the pills. He denied supplying drugs. He also denied intending to supply drugs.
Police charged our client with ‘deemed supply’ pursuant to Section 29 of the Drug (Misuse and Trafficking) Act 1986. Under this provision, if you are in possession of greater than 0.75 grams of MDMA, you can be charged with ‘drug supply’.
The onus then shifts to you to prove on the balance of probabilities you possessed the drugs for a purpose other than supply (most commonly for personal use).
The weight of the drugs in our client’s possession was 5.12 grams, well in excess of the ‘deemed’ quantity.
As such, he was charged with supplying a prohibited drug.
Our client had consulted other lawyers who had advised him that he could not avoid a conviction.
We disagreed.
Immediately, we began drafting ‘representations’ for the withdrawal of the drug supply charge. In exchange, our client offered to plead guilty to a drug possession charge.
After gruelling negotiations, the prosecution ultimately agreed to our request.
Our client pleaded guilty to drug possession in the Local Court and the drug supply charge was withdrawn.
We immediately began preparing our client for sentencing.
He was provided with our tailored Apology Letter and Character Reference Guides. We also arranged for him to see our specialist criminal law psychologist.
The psychologist diagnosed him with Depression and opined that this was the reason he was resorting to drug use. A detailed treatment plan was formulated, and the client began noticing improvements in his mental health.
We obtained his academic transcript as well as letters from lecturers and tutors at his University which confirmed the impact a criminal record would have on his career.
In Court we made lengthy oral submissions highlighting the strong subjective factors we had prepared.
We also brought the Court’s attention to the decision of R v Mauger [2012] NSWCCA 51 which confirmed that despite the number of pills, a ‘non-conviction’ order was appropriate.
The Magistrate agreed with our submissions, and despite objection from the prosecution, our client was granted a ‘non-conviction order’.