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Florida law on drug possession is on trial tomorrow at the Florida Supreme Court. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the case is on an extraordinarily fast track in the state judicial system and the outcome of dozens of cases is at stake.

21-year-old Luke Atkins was threatening suicide on June 11th of this year. His mother called police. Deputies disarmed the youth, then found a small amount of marijuana in his pocket. Adkins has become the unlikely poster child for a court case on the fast track.

At issue is a 2002 Florida law that says being in possession of drugs is a crime, whether you knew you had the drugs or not. Legal scholars say the law ignores basic constitutional rights.

“The person could be arrested, prosecuted, and put in jail for the rest of their life for believing they were doing a friend a favor,” Randal Marshall with the Florida ACLU said.

The legal term in the case is mens rea…or evil mind. The legal principle says you must have intended to violate the law. All 20 of the state’s prosecutors, including 26 year veteran Willie Meggs, are fighting to keep the law, less intent, on the books.

“Well certainly if you have in your sock or in your trouser pocket contraband, to wit, drugs, then you know you have those things there, so knowledge will be inferred,” Meggs said.

More than 40 criminal cases are gone if the Florida Supreme Court says the law is unconstitutional.

Meggs says in 26 years, he’s never prosecuted someone who lacked the intent to commit a crime. But lawyers fighting the law say depending on the government’s good will isn’t enough when basic constitutional rights are at stake.

The importance of the case is evident in the time line. Arrested in mid June, Adkins case was thrown out of court in September. Three months later it is before the states highest court.