A Georgia woman is suing after spending months in jail for just this set of circumstances.
Dasha Fincher was pulled over on New Year’s Eve 2016 for her tinted windows — which the officers later admitted were perfectly legal. Fincher said Monroe deputies Cody Maples and Allen Henderson noticed an open plastic bag in her car and assumed the worst, even though she told them it was just blue cotton candy.
But having a blue substance in a clear plastic bag still gave off alarm bells, so the deputies tested the bag with a roadside field test. They claimed the bag tested positive for methamphetamine, and Fincher was “arrested and charged with meth trafficking and possession [of] meth with intent to distribute,” according to Macon, Geogia, CBS affiliate 13WMAZ. Her bond was set at $1 million, and she spent months in jail because she couldn’t pay the cash bond.
Finally, in March 2017, a more comprehensive lab test came back and determined that the substance was not an illegal drug. Another four weeks passed before the charges against Fincher were dropped. – READ MORE