Title: State v. Hager

State: minnesota

Issuer: Minnesota Supreme Court

Document:

325 N.W.2d 43 (1982) STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. David Paul HAGER, Appellant. No. 82-208. Supreme Court of Minnesota. October 22, 1982. Stein & Stein and Manuel H. Stein, Hibbing, for appellant. Warren Spannaus, Atty. Gen., Norman B. Coleman, Jr. and Richard D. Hodsdon, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., St. Paul, John P. Dimich, County Atty., Grand Rapids, for respondent. Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument. KELLEY, Justice. Defendant was found guilty by a district court jury of a charge of sale of a schedule I controlled substance, marijuana. The presumptive sentence for this offense (a severity level II offense) by a person with defendant's criminal history score at the time of sentencing (zero) is either a stay of imposition of sentence or imposition of a prison term of 1 year and 1 day with execution *44 stayed. The trial court stayed imposition of sentence and placed defendant on probation for three years, conditioned on his serving 90 days in jail and paying $500 in court costs. The trial court stayed the entire sentence pending this appeal. The sole issue raised on appeal by defendant is whether the trial court erred in determining that the prosecutor showed a sufficient chain of possession to justify admission of the marijuana at trial. Holding that the trial court did not err, we affirm. In State v. Johnson, 307 Minn. 501, 504, 239 N.W.2d 239, 242 (1976), we discussed the "chain of custody" rule, stating that "[t]here can be no rigid formulation of what showing is necessary in order for a particular item of evidence to be admissible" and that admissibility generally "must be left to the sound discretion of the trial judge." We added that "[a]dmissibility should not depend on the prosecution negativing all possibility of tampering or substitution, but rather only that it is reasonably probable that tampering or substitution did not occur" and that "[c]ontrary speculation may well affect the weight of the evidence accorded it by the factfinder but does not affect its admissibility." 307 Minn. at 505, 239 N.W.2d at 242. The issue is now covered by Minn.R.Evid. 901(a), which provides, "The requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims." An excellent discussion of the application of this rule in the context of authentication of so-called "real evidence" is contained in M. Graham, Evidence and Trial Advocacy Workshop: Relevance and Exclusion of Relevant Evidence Real Evidence, 18 Crim.L. Bull. 241, 243-46, 247 (1982), where it is stated: (Footnotes and citations omitted). In this case the defendant contends only that the chain of possession was inadequate following the chemist's analysis of the substance bought from defendant. Thus, the issue is not whether it was error to admit the chemist's testimony identifying the substance sold as marijuana. Rather, the issue is whether the trial court erred in admitting the marijuana for the jury to see. No useful purpose would be served by detailing the evidence establishing the lack of tampering following the analysis. It is sufficient to say that our examination of the record on appeal satisfies us that the trial court properly concluded that the state adequately authenticated the evidence. Affirmed.