Can I be charged for drugs someone else left in my car?

00:00 Can you be charged for drugs that somebody else left in your car?

00:05 The answer is yes, you could be because California law doesn't require that the drugs are actually

00:12 yours. It requires possession and possession can be proven by having dominion or control of the

00:19 vehicle in question. So if it's your car and someone else put drugs in a place that you had

00:26 access to like the center console, the glove box under your seat, the prosecutor often is going to

00:31 argue that you knew it was there and you had the ability to control it and that's enough for them

00:36 to charge a case against you. So if you knew about it and you had access to it, that's enough for

00:42 them to charge you. But the prosecutor has to prove that you knew the drugs were there. So

00:47 that's often where these cases have that argument between prosecution and defense is whether or not

00:54 you knew that those drugs were there. So if it can be proven that you didn't know that someone left

00:59 drugs in your car, it's potential for the case to get dismissed. So if it happens that you get pulled

01:05 over and you didn't know that the drugs were there, you say nothing except that you want an attorney

01:09 and then you let your attorney handle the rest. Trying to explain yourself out of a situation

01:13 often is going to put you in a worse situation than it would have been if you had just stayed

01:18 quiet. So don't give them any more ammunition if something like this happens. I want my attorney

01:24 exercising my right to remain silent and then the attorney will take care of the rest.