Often, the Government will make an offer of “time-served” to take care of the Accused’s possession of marijuana charge. Put simply, when the Government does this, it is offering to call it even, so to speak—the Accused has already spent some time in jail for the offense, and the Government proposes to “call it even” if the Accused will plead guilty to the charge. No more jail time. The Government gets its conviction, and the Accused no longer has to worry about facing any more jail time for the offense. Case closed.
But, this offer is often a trap.
Take, for example, the seemingly innocuous offer to allow the Accused’s punishment for possession of marijuana to be satisfied by the single night the Accused spent in county or city jail. The Government gets its conviction, and the Accused has the weight of possible jail time lifted from his shoulders.
Sounds fair enough, right?
Except that the Accused will have his license suspended for 180 days automatically upon conviction for possession of marijuana. TX TRANS CODE s521.372. If the Accused is a juvenile, then he faces an automatic One Year license suspension. TEX FAM CODE s54.042(a)(2). (Which begs the question: what does pot have to do with your driver’s license?)
Except that the Accused is disqualified from obtaining a concealed weapon license while charged with possession of marijuana, or if the Accused has been convicted of a possession of marijuana in the five years preceding the date of his CHL application. TEX GOVT CODE s411.172(4) & (8). (Again: what does this have to do with pot?)
Except that the Accused may be expelled from school if possesses, sells, is under the influence of, or delivers marijuana while on school property, at a school event, or is within 300 feet of school property. TEX EDUC CODE s37.007(b)(2)
Except that if the Accused is not a citizen, and is convicted of possessing more than 30 grams of marijuana, he may be deported. 8 UCS s1227(a)(2)(B)(i).
The above list is, by no means, exhaustive.
Simply pleading to time-served on a possession of marijuana charge is—in the overwhelming majority of cases—a bad idea. There are numerous consequences of pleading to a pot charge, and many of these consequences appear totally unrelated to being convicted of possessing pot—the Accused would have no way of knowing about them. The Court does not admonish or tell the Accused about these consequences, nor does the Government, of course—thus, the Accused had better have a studious criminal defense lawyer who can advise them of the implications of their plea.