You were charged with pl221.10 01 but the bag of marijuana was in your shoe when you were arrested is this the right charge?

Answer 1

From the New York code of law: NY PL221.10 Criminal possession of marihuana in the fifth degree (MPV)

A person is guilty of criminal possession of marihuana in the fifth degree when he knowingly and unlawfully possesses:

• marihuana in a public place, as defined in section 240.00 of this chapter, and such marihuana is burning or open to public view; or
• one or more preparations, compounds, mixtures or substances containing marihuana and the preparations, compounds, mixtures or substances are of an aggregate weight of more than twenty-five grams.

Criminal possession of marihuana in the fifth degree is a class B misdemeanor.

Yes, you were arrested under the charge of possession of marijuana. That is the correct charge, no matter where on your person you were hiding it.

Incorrect; whoever wrote the above answer has no idea what they are talking about and appears to not have read the text of 221.10.

The statute clearly reads that there are two ways to be convicted of this crime: (1) possess marijuana in a public place where it is open to public view/burning; or (2) possess more than 25 grams. If the weed is in your shoe, it is not open to public view, unless you take it out. Therefore, unless you had more than 25 grams in your shoe (seemingly impossible), you should not be charged with this crime. BUT--and this is a big but--the NYPD frequently "testilies" (lies under oath) in order to sustain the conviction and cover up illegal searches. This is well documented. They do this by claiming you "dropped" the weed as they approached; an event with legal significance because it means you relinquished property rights to the item and thus your privacy rights along with it. This effectively clears up any Fourth Amendment violation, which makes the search illegal and would require the marijuana NOT be used as evidence against you (hence, you'd win). NYPD might also just lie and say they saw you handling it to cover the "open view" requirement of PL 221.10.

WHY does the NYPD go to all this trouble? Because simple possession under PL 221.05--possession of less than 25 grams not open to public view--is not a crime, its a violation (like a traffic ticket). Arresting marijuana offenders provides NYPD with easy overtime; they get to process the least dangerous and least dirty offenders and collect their overtime doing paper work. In 1992 there were 900 PL 221.10 arrests in NYC; 2000 over 51,000; 2008 almost 40,000. Essentially, its a cash cow to support our oversized police force.

Bear in mind, however, that if you choose to fight your 221.10 charge on grounds that the search was illegal or that the weed was not open to public view, prosecutors will delay several times. This will require you to waste several days in court-- its the prosecutor'e way of convincing you to settle. And by the way, you can do three months for a 221.10 violation and potentially more if you are detained pretrial.

Note that issues might also arise as to whether you are in a public place. See PL 240.00 for a definition.