Title: People v. Jones

State: illinois

Issuer: Illinois Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE: Under Supreme Court Rule 367 a party has 21 days after 
the filing of the opinion to request a rehearing. Also, opinions 
are subject to modification, correction or withdrawal at anytime 
prior to issuance of the mandate by the Clerk of the Court. 
Therefore, because the following slip opinion is being made 
available prior to the Court's final action in this matter, it 
cannot be considered the final decision of the Court. The 
official copy of the following opinion will be published by the 
Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions in the Official Reports 
advance sheets following final action by the Court. 
 
              Docket No. 80405--Agenda 13--September 1996. 
     THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant, v. TONY JONES, 
                                Appellee. 
                    Opinion filed December 19, 1996. 
 
 
     JUSTICE HEIPLE delivered the opinion of the court: 
     Defendant, Tony Jones, was arrested for the possession of five 
separate packets containing a white rocky substance which the 
police believed to be a controlled substance. The State selected 
two of the five packets and tested their contents. The contents of 
the remaining three packets were not tested. Results of the two 
packets tested showed the presence of cocaine. Notably, the two 
packets tested weighed a combined total of 0.59 grams while the 
total weight of all five packets was 1.4 grams. Defendant was tried 
and convicted of possession with intent to deliver 1.4 grams of 
cocaine, a Class 1 felony. 720 ILCS 570/401(c)(2) (West 1992). The 
appellate court reversed, finding that the evidence only supported 
defendant's possession of 0.59 grams of cocaine, with intent to 
deliver, a Class 2 felony. 720 ILCS 570/401(d) (West 1992). 
Accordingly, the appellate court reduced his conviction from a 
Class 1 to a Class 2 felony and reduced his sentence from six years 
to four years. 276 Ill. App. 3d 926. We affirm. 
 
                                 ANALYSIS 
     When a defendant is charged with possession of a specific 
amount of an illegal drug with intent to deliver and there is a 
lesser included offense of possession of a smaller amount, then the 
weight of the seized drug is an essential element of the crime and 
must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Williams, 267 
Ill. App. 3d 870, 879 (1994). A chemist, however, generally need 
not test every sample seized in order to render an opinion as to 
the makeup of the substance of the whole. People v. Maiden, 210 
Ill. App. 3d 390, 398 (1991). Rather, random testing is permissible 
when the seized samples are sufficiently homogenous so that one may 
infer beyond a reasonable doubt that the untested samples contain 
the same substance as those that are conclusively tested. People v. 
Hill, 169 Ill. App. 3d 901, 912 (1988). This rule is based in 
reason and practicality. 
     In People v. Kaludis, 146 Ill. App. 3d 888, 891-92 (1986), for 
example, a forensic chemist visually examined 100 tablets and 
determined that they had identical markings, lettering 
characteristics, bevelling, and scoring. Based on this visual 
examination, the chemist opined that all the tablets were 
manufactured on the same tablet press with the same set of dies. 
Kaludis, 146 Ill. App. 3d at 892. Subsequent chemical test results 
of three of the tablets established the presence of a controlled 
substance, which led the expert to testify that all 100 tablets 
contained the same controlled substance. Kaludis, 146 Ill. App. 3d 
at 892. 
     However, when such samples are not sufficiently homogenous, a 
portion from each container or sample must be tested in order to 
determine the contents of each container or sample. See People v. 
Williams, 267 Ill. App. 3d 870 (1994); People v. Young, 220 Ill. 
App. 3d 488 (1991); People v. Hill, 169 Ill. App. 3d 901 (1988); 
People v. Games, 94 Ill. App. 3d 130 (1981); People v. Ayala, 96 
Ill. App. 3d 880 (1981). In the instant case, defendant possessed 
five packets, each containing a white rocky substance. While the 
chemist looked at all the packets and weighed them individually, 
she selected only two packets for chemical analysis. The two 
packets tested showed the presence of cocaine and weighed a 
combined total of 0.59 grams. 
     What inference can be drawn concerning the composition of the 
three packets not tested? Without more, the answer is none at all. 
And in this case, the five packets containing loose substances 
cannot be equated with identically marked and stamped tablets, 
pills, or capsules. While it is not difficult to speculate, as did 
the trial judge, that the remaining three packets may have 
contained cocaine, such a finding must be based on evidence and not 
upon guess, speculation, or conjecture. Quite simply, the chemist 
failed to test a sufficient number of packets to prove beyond a 
reasonable doubt that defendant possessed one gram or more of 
cocaine. 
     Look-alike substances (pseudo narcotics) are sold with such 
regularity that the legislature has drafted a criminal statute 
proscribing their sale. 720 ILCS 570/404 et seq. (West 1992). 
Whether the untested packets in the instant case may have contained 
cocaine or mere look-alike substances is pure conjecture. The State 
was in the best position to answer this question; it had the seized 
packets and could have easily tested a sample from each. This it 
did not do. Thus the State did not meet its burden of proof of 
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as to the untested packets. 
     Accordingly, the appellate court's judgment reducing 
defendant's Class 1 felony to a Class 2 felony and his sentence 
from six years to four years is hereby affirmed. 
 
Appellate court judgment affirmed. 
 
     JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: 
     Unlike the majority, I believe that the State presented 
sufficient evidence to establish the defendant's guilt of the 
charged offense of possession with intent to deliver more than one 
gram but less than 15 grams of cocaine. In the circumstances shown 
here, the tests performed on two of the five plastic packets found 
together in a single bag in the defendant's possession were 
adequate to establish the contents of all five packets, and the 
judge at the bench trial below was entitled to infer from the 
evidence that the defendant was guilty of an offense involving the 
greater amount of contraband. 
     In requiring direct rather than circumstantial evidence of the 
contents of each packet, the majority ignores the rationale for the 
rule to which this decision will stand as an exception. The 
majority acknowledges that proof by random sampling may be used for 
tablets, pills, or capsules, yet the majority refuses to allow the 
same process of proof when contraband is divided among plastic 
packets, as it was here. There is no reason to allow random 
sampling in one case and not the other, however. The same 
considerations of "reason and practicality" (slip op. at 1) that 
permit the use of sampling when contraband takes the form of 
tablets, pills, or capsules also warrant its use when contraband is 
found in plastic packets or other, similar, containers. See People 
v. Black, 264 Ill. App. 3d 875, 877 (1994). Indeed, the contents of 
capsules can be as variable as the contents of the plastic packets 
involved in this case. In either event, tests of randomly selected 
samples may provide circumstantial evidence of the contents of the 
remaining items. 
     The strength of the inference of guilt will depend, of course, 
on the circumstances in the case, including the size and appearance 
of the items involved and the manner in which they were kept by the 
defendant or made available for distribution. Dissimilarities in 
the size or appearance of the containers or in the manner in which 
they were grouped, for example, might suggest that their contents 
are also dissimilar. In the present case, all five plastic packets 
were kept together in a single bag, and the defendant does not 
point to any feature that distinguished the two packets that were 
tested from the three that were not. 
     In support of its decision, the majority also notes the 
existence of look-alike drugs and the separate statute proscribing 
their sale, suggesting that untested samples might actually 
comprise a look-alike substance rather than the drug alleged in the 
charge. The same objection can be raised, however, when the 
contraband is in one of the forms for which the majority would 
allow proof by random sampling. Tablets, pills, and capsules can 
also be look-alike substances. 
     Finally, our recent decision in People v. Robinson,  167 Ill. 2d 397  (1995), is not to the contrary. The court in that case 
merely noted the line of appellate court authority under which "a 
sample from each separate bag or container must be tested to prove 
that it contains a controlled substance." Robinson, 167 Ill. 2d  at 
409. Robinson did not find it necessary to resolve the issue raised 
here. 
     I believe that there was sufficient proof of the defendant's 
guilt of the charged offense, and I would therefore affirm the 
defendant's conviction. There is no reason to require the State in 
cases such as this to test the contents of each of the items the 
defendant has in his possession. Random sampling can provide 
circumstantial evidence of guilt, the strength of which will vary 
from case to case. Today's decision simply imposes an unnecessary 
burden on the State, making more difficult the prosecution of 
offenders who are found with contraband divided among multiple 
bags, packets, or other containers that, under the majority's rule, 
must now be tested individually. 
 
     CHIEF JUSTICE BILANDIC joins in this dissent.