Here, the Sheriff who declined to charge Michael Phelps said
Would a confession have been enough? How about if I confess to selling marijuana? Wouldn’t there have to be some proof that the product I sold actually was marijuana. Is a confession without physical evidence enough to support a charge?
Over here, probably not. Technically it’s illegal, but smoking pot is only prosecuted in certain non-pot-smoking areas. I’m fairly sure nobody’s going to make a big deal about just a verbal confession.
I’m assuming that it is a serious crime, and wondering if a confession is sufficient to be charged/tried/convicted.
I don’t think an uncorroborated admission is ever enough for a conviction. I’m not saying that there needs to be enough evidence to prove the case independently, but if I walk into the police station and confess that I’ve just murdered my husband, they won’t charge me until they find out at least that my husband has indeed been murdered.
Generally, at least in state’s I’m familiar with, you cannot convict on a confession alone. See *Corpus Delicti * rule. Corpus delicti - Wikipedia
However, in this case we have more than a confession (and less too, since he didn’t confess to smoking pot) we have a photo. Might technically enough to get you by corpus delicti. In most places you need a drug test to prove a drug conviction. He might have thought he was smoking pot, but it might not actually have been pot. There’s a lot of fake stuff out there.
It is not illegal to smoke marijuana. In most cases they’ll try to charge you with possession, but even that is a minor offense in most states. In South Carolina, possession of one ounce or less is punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a fine of $100 - $200 for a first offense. Convictions for a first offense are eligible for conditional discharges.
That’s a lot of hoopla for, at most, giving Phelps a $200 fine.
While the photo could be considered proof that he smoked marijuana, wouldn’t they at least need to prove that he smoked the pot in South Carolina in order to prosecute him in South Carolina?
Furthermore, barring a time/date stamp on the photo (which I didn’t see), wouldn’t they need some sort of proof that the smoking took place within the statute of limitations?
It generally isn’t illegal to smoke pot, instead most laws say it is illegal to possess pot. This is because the cops aren’t generally able to bust into someone’s house and catch them in the act of smoking up, instead they catch a guy who has a bag of weed who is on his way home to smoke up.
And so the cops have to prove, not that you smoked pot, but that you possessed pot at a particular time and place. Generally the only way the cops can do this is when they stop you and search you and find a baggie of pot.
Many states, including my current home state of Arizona, have phrased their marijuana criminal statutes to prohibit both the possession and use of marijuana. Otherwise you would get the bizarre result of someone who is pulled over while smoking marijuana and driving and all they would have to do is simply put the remainder in their mouth and eat it in order to get away scot-free.
Did anyone perform a chemical test on the substance in the pipe?:dubious:
You’re not in a head shop, you can call it a bong.
How can they test a photograph of a bong to see what’s in it?
Assuming they recovered a similar looking bong from somebody who was at the party, they still wouldn’t really be able to prove it was the same bong Phelps was hitting in the photo.
Even if they could prove it was the same bong, they wouldn’t be able to prove that the resin in the bowl or the stem didn’t get there after Phelps smoked harmless tobacco at the party.
I heard that they couldn’t account for the bong’s whereabouts (chain of custody) so they don’t know who may have tampered with it after he was photographed holding a thing that looks like a marijuana smoking receptacle. There’s no way anyone should have been busted simply for being in a picture of a pot party.
People can’t confess to murder without some solid evidence to back it up. I don’t see why pot smoking would be any different.
Exactly my point.
They use a photograph of a mass spectrophotometer.
And then Phelps can pay the fine with a picture of some money.
Help me here. If you confess to smoking dope, doesn’t that imply you possessed it?
But did he “confess”? I mean if the police brought him in, and read him his rights or he was under oath or something, then maybe. But here he could just say he was acting or it was a publicity stunt.