Judge clears way for Love drug trial

A US judge rejected a motion to suppress drugs evidence in the case against rocker Courtney Love, clearing the way for her trial later this month .

A judge rejected a motion to suppress drugs evidence in the case against rocker Courtney Love, clearing the way for her trial later this month .

Had Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg upheld the motion, prosecutors would not have been able to introduce key evidence – including urine samples and some of Love’s statements – into evidence at the trial, set for April 16.

“It would have killed our case,” said Assistant City Attorney Jerry Baik after yesterday’s hearing. “This was a vital ruling.”

Love – widow of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, who died ten years ago this week – was not present at the hearing.

The 39-year-old was arrested last October outside an ex-boyfriend’s house. Police said she was wandering down the driveway with an unsteady gait and slurred speech.

The singer told officers she lived at the house and was trying to retrieve a CD, and volunteered that she had broken some windows, but her ex-boyfriend declined to press vandalism charges.

Policeman Alonzo, one of the first officers at the scene, said when he pulled up Love was waving at a police helicopter hovering overhead with its spotlight fixed on her.

“She was looking up in the sky and she was waving … with her hands straight up, like waving ‘Hello'," he said. “She had an unsteady gait and she appeared to talk with slow, slurred speech.”

Howell testified that he thought Love might be under the influence and called for an officer specially trained in recognising drug use.

Love’s lawyer, Michael Rosenstein, argued that police officers had no reason to investigate his client for drug use after they decided not to arrest her for vandalism.

He argued that although Love admitted to officers she had taken “hillbilly heroin”, the street name for oxycontin, they did not know at the time that she was taking it without a prescription.

He also said she had a taxi waiting and was not going to drive under the influence.

“A thorough burglary investigation did take place. There was nothing going on there,” Rosenstein said.

“They recognised my client as high profile. She should have been released to the waiting taxi cab and sent home.”

Love is charged with two counts of drug possession for allegedly illegally possessing the painkillers hydrocodone and oxycodone.

Authorities say they discovered the painkillers when Love was taken to a hospital after her arrest.

She also faces assault charges in New York for allegedly throwing a microphone stand and striking a man in the head at a nightclub.