It is absolutely legal for the police to lie to you in many circumstances, and it is common. For example, they may tell you that your co-conspirator has already confessed or that you’ll be better off if you tell the police your side of the story. There may be some local jurisdictions that have banned such actions, but not the state of Texas and not Waco.
— not a Texas lawyer, but this is basic stuff
A misdemeanor conviction for marijuana possession is not going to have much impact on employability. I’m not saying it won’t have any impact at all — but you are grossly magnifying the implications. And I can see why he is reluctant to listen to you he feels you are blowing things out of proportion. It undermines your credibility and creates unnecessary anxiety for him… because bottom line, what has happened has happened and no lawyer is going to work miracles.
So yes he should get legal advice and he should ask about diversion or deferred adjudication. So if you talk to him, you can ask him whether he has considered those options.
He has opted not to pursue diversion because he doesn’t want to incur the cost of repeated returns to the state.
His 26 year old sister was just notified she will not be paid for a coaching job she did this spring because of a DUI from 8 years ago that popped up in her background check which the employing entity neglected to execute prior to her beginning (or completing!) work. She was the sole, lead coach, responsible for a whole team of youth for a whole season. Coaches get paid in one lump sum after the season ends. She just graduated with from college with honors and is working on a masters. Regardless of whether she “deserves” to be employed, they did employ her and she did fully serve for the season. I come by my concern for him honestly.
(and should you want to point at me, I don’t happen to think the two olders are hugely flawed but my younger two are well adjusted, highly independent, all stars, achieving multiple successes and not crossing paths with the law).
Leave it at it’s complicated.
@grandscheme, I understand your concerns. Job applications sometimes ask for disclosure of things that did not rise to the level of convictions and it can be hard to determine how much disclosure is required if the questions are poorly worded. On the other hand, if your daughter’s employer didn’t ask, I don’t think she had an obligation to tell, and she might have a legal claim to the pay regardless of the results of the belated background check.
Have your daughter call the state labor commission. She may have a wage hour claim to file.
If your son won’t consider diversion, then what do you think a lawyer can do for him?
@rosered55 @roycroftmom She does have legal claim but she does not want to make waves. She feels bad that she has that on her record.
@calmom I have no idea, which is why I would want to find out what the options are.
I hope both your son and your daughter can reach the mindset, “yes, I screwed up, but no, I don’t deserve to be shamed and punished for this for the rest of my life.” The legal system and employers don’t always make it easy to achieve this balance.
@grandscheme I don’t have much to offer but hugs. I will admit that I would be selling the kitchen stove if needed to keep it off his record. Regardless of age expectations and where people want to draw lines on what someone should or shouldn’t know, it seems he is clueless to the repurcussions of going to jail and other long term implications. Right or wrong, I would be swooping in with the helicopter.
I am sincerely wishing you a good outcome here.
If every interaction with the legal and judicial systems resulted in the same outcomes regardless of the lawyers one chooses, why do we have such disparities in sentencing between rich and poor? I know some here are lawyers but my life observations just aren’t allowing me to buy that argument. If that were the case, everyone would be totally happy with the free public defenders. I think it does pay to lawyer up with the best legal aid one can find and afford. As someone stated, it is not just knowing the laws in state, it is knowing the local players in terms of DAs and judges as well. Humans run the legal system therefore there is a lot of room for negotiation, interpretation, and persuasion. Things aren’t cut and dry, black and white.
As a mother, my goal would be not only minimizing what went on his record, but making sure he doesn’t spend more time in some jail or prison. Nothing good will come of that. He doesn’t need that experience to learn lessons.
For some purposes, ex. federal contractors, there’s no such thing as an expunged record.
weird ways this could come back to haunt: Soph in college had a transgression (a minor); parents helicoptered in and lawyered up to make sure it did not appear on kid’s record. Supposed to be expunged. Kid graduated, got hired by financial firm. Said kid later applied for Global Entry. Denied at interview. Reason: that alcohol offense that was supposed to have been expunged, got lost in some law change (had it happened later, it would have been automatic fixed) and was never officially expunged. Still amazed that the financial firm didn’t flag it like TSA did. Ask me how I know :-w
A relative of mine spent the night in jail during college for alcohol/possession (on New Years Eve, for crying out loud!). . I don’t know all the details but they’re now a high ranking official to a US congressman. Didn’t seem to affect them too much during the security clearance process. Pot may be different, I don’t know (I don’t think it should be but that’s another matter).
The only thing to do in a legal matter is to find an excellent, experienced attorney in the field and let them do their thing. Something that seem trivial to you and me may be the most important thing from a legal standpoint. I learned this the hard way, as usual, in minor issues like excessive speeding tickets all the way through patent infringement cases. Legal world != common sense!
If every intfraction led to the same outcomes… But dos, this case is mechanically simpler than, say a felony with a complex defense.
Sorry, OP, bit your kiddo isn’t listening. You can’t make him listen. It’s hard to imagine he won’t even accept diversion to clear his record. If he does do time in jail, he won’t be working, either. Possibly, nor attending school.
I suspect it’s time to back off and salvage the relationship going forward.
Some of us do know how very hard that is.
“If every intfraction led to the same outcomes… But dos, this case is mechanically simpler than, say a felony with a complex defense.”
Of course, but a spectrum of outcomes still exist for pot charges in the same jurisdictions. You really think there aren’t and it is all uniform across socioeconomic and racial classes? Regardless of the lawyer chosen? Regardless of the judge one happens to get? Call me a cynic and a skeptic but I really doubt it. Even speeding tickets and such can have different outcomes when challenged in a courtroom.
“Even speeding tickets and such can have different outcomes when challenged in a courtroom”
@doschicos – I think I went through four speeding tickets with an attorney within a month or two after getting a sports car in WA state. It was very illuminating sitting with him in the courtroom (at hundreds of $$$ per hour) listening to his comments on the other cases while waiting for my turn. In one case a guy was defending himself in a rubber-necking accident. The EMT at the scene testified that he didn’t see who was driving the car in the secondary accident. My lawyer whispered, the guy wasn’t placed at the accident, he’s free. The judge asked the guy if he wanted to testify in his defense. My attorney said to me, “NO!!!”. Unfortunately, the guy said “yes” and got up on the stand. The first question the prosecutor asked was, “were you driving this car on that date”. The guy said, “yes”, and then blathered on for several minutes about what happened (costing me $$$). None of that mattered. All the judge needed to hear was that he was driving the car at the time. Instant verdict against him.
One time the radar expert in my case didn’t show up in court. My attorney said to the judge, when the prosecutor asked for an extension, since this delay is due to the prosecution side being unprepared, I request that they pay my client’s exorbitant legal fees for the remainder of this case. After some arguing between the judge and proc, case dismissed!
Anyway, after seeing the games being played in court I started defending myself in later speeding tickets (yes, I was an idiot as a client!). One time I noticed that there was no guy sitting in the front with a pocket protector and a briefcase, so I assumed the state’s radar expert wasn’t present. When the judge asked each defendant whether they asked for the radar expert, I said, “yes I did”. Instant dismissal of my case! The others got nuked in court.
There’s no way in hell that I would go into a courtroom without a top notch attorney if I was in a serious situation. They’re worth every exorbitant penny in that situation!
The issue isn’t whether or not a different outcome is possible; it’s that the adult son has made a choice as to how to proceed that his mother disagrees with. So nothing is going to change unless the son changes his mind. The parent can talk to a lawyer, but the lawyer can’t do anything with an uncooperative client.
My read on this is that the son just wants to get it over with, whatever that means. My guess —and this is only a guess-- is that if he won’t take diversion, he’ll probably be offered some kind of deal to plead guilty and pay a fine, along with some sort of summary probation. Because that solves his immediate problem of not having to come back to Waco again.
Any other alternative to fight the case requires coming back to Waco — if he doesn’t resolve the case at the upcoming court date, then anything else is going to require at least one more trip back and maybe more. Plus a period of uncertainty while the case is unresolved.
So yes, it’s better if he has an attorney and if he follows the advice of that attorney … but that is not something his parents can force.
@calmom I do not really think it is worth taking the risk and if it were my child I would get the attorney and have the attorney speak with the son about what might happen in the future. Not sure about your kids but mine and many I have seen tend to listen to others instead of me, even when we are saying the exact same thing.
This is not an issue to play around with and it is worth the money to keep it off the record.
The daughter has a very legitimate claim. 8 years is very arguably an unreasonable length of time for a DUI to matter to this position. Our very large company only goes back 7 years, and even the conviction has to be relevant to the job.