Mistake in Drug Law Stalls Cocaine Case
<i> Associated Press</i>
NEW ORLEANS — A judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a man facing cocaine charges and could throw out the charges altogether because the Legislature forgot to set a penalty for possessing the drug.
Hundreds of people have been arrested under the revised law since it went into effect Sept. 7. Lawmakers omitted the penalty for possessing certain narcotics when they amended the statute last summer to include steroids as an illicit drug.
“If there is no sentence, there is no crime,†the defendant’s lawyer said.
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