Case Name: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jimmy Ray MALMAY, Appellant
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1975-06-23
Citations: 315 So. 2d 286
Docket Number: No. 55885
Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jimmy Ray MALMAY, Appellant.
Judges: BARHAM, J., dissents with reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 315
Pages: 286–289

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Jimmy Ray MALMAY, Appellant.
No. 55885.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
June 23, 1975.
Rehearing Denied July 25, 1975.
James B. O’Neill, Many, for appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., James Lynn Davis, Dist. Atty., for appellee.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The defendant Malmay, age 21, was convicted of distribution of marijuana to a 16-year-old minor, La.R.S. 40:966, subd. A, 981, subd. B, and sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor. On his appeal, he relies upon ten assignments of error. We find no merit to any of them and, accordingly, affirm.
Our reasons for denying reversible merit to any of the assignments are as follows:
Assignments 1, 1A, and 2:
The defendant complains of the state's failure to furnish him particulars, in response to his motion, of the quantity and form of the marijuana which he was alleged to have given to the minor, and of the actual time of day and the location in the parish of the alleged offense. Upon the state's refusal to furnish this information in response to his motion for a bill of particulars, the defendant filed a motion to quash the bill of information as failing to inform him of the nature and cause of the charge against him with sufficient certainty to enable him to prepare his defense.
The request for such information was not frivolous. The evidence shows that the defendant and the minor had been together twice during the day, once downtown and then later at the minor's brother's home. A cigarette had been exchanged on the first occasion. (As to that, the defendant's defensé, not accepted by the jury, was that a marijuana cigarette hidden by the minor and introduced into evidence was not the cigarette he had earlier obtained from the defendant.)
In the preparation of his defense, the defendant, subject to imprisonment at hard labor for up to twenty years, desired to know more specifically exactly what transaction he was charged with in connection with the minor's acquisitions of marijuana. The evidence reveals that the minor had been smoking marijuana for some time, not necessarily acquired from the defendant.
Nevertheless, our prior jurisprudence does not regard as reversible error the failure to furnish such information to an accused prior to trial. State v. Devore, 309 So.2d 325 (La.1975) ; State v. Thomas, 290 So.2d 317 (La.1974).
Assignment 6:
The state chemist analyzed a cigarette as marijuana. She stated she had received it in an envelope from a deputy, who had testified that he had received the envelope from the arresting officer and had given it to the chemist for analysis. The arresting officer testified that he had seized a cigarette which the minor had hidden in his brother's home, had placed it in an envelope, had marked the envelope, and had given the envelope to the deputy for delivery.
Based on the circumstance that the envelope had upon objection not been admitted into evidence, the defendant now contends that the chain of custody was insufficiently proven.
We do not agree. Sufficient con-nexity was shown to justify the jury's factual determination that the cigarette, identified by the state chemist as containing marijuana, was the same cigarette as that seized by the arresting officer and transmitted via the deputy to the state chemist. State v. Dotson, 260 La. 471, 256 So.2d 594 (1971). Other evidence which the jury could reasonably accept indicated that the cigarette seized by the arresting officer had been given to the minor by the accused.
We find no merit to this assignment.
Assignments 7, 8, 9: The major thrust of these assignments is that, because the marijuana cigarette should have been excluded, there is no evidence of the offense properly in the record; and, therefore, the trial court incorrectly denied motions for directed verdict, in arrest of judgment, and for new trial. The latter two motions are also directed at the failure of the State to afford the defendant sufficient information of the charge against him to enable him to defend himself. Since we have previously rejected the basis of both these contentions, we do not discuss further these assignments, which are without reversible merit.
Assignments 3, 4, and 5 involve the denial of motions for mistrial because of responses by a witness or because of the alleged failure of the prosecutor's opening statement to include the name of the defendant (it referred to him as "the defendant"). Suffice it to say, the drastic remedy of a mistrial was not warranted by the non-prejudicial alleged deficiencies complained of. La.C.Cr.P. art. 775.
Assignment 10: After the verdict, the defendant by this assignment charges that the bill of information was fatally defective. He contends that it failed to charge him with scienter (guilty knowledge), allegedly an essential element of the crime.
The bill of information does not, in fact, charge the accused with either knowingly or intentionally distributing the marijuana to a minor.
No real surprise or prejudice is shown by the alleged technical defect in formally charging that the defendant either "knowingly or intentionally" distributed the marijuana to the minor. Broadly construed (including the bill of information's reference to the charge as being a violation of La.R.S. 40:966, subd. A, see State v. Russell, 292 So.2d 681 (La.1974)), there is no doubt of the offense charged by the information, both for purposes of pre-trial notice as well as for subsequent double-jeopardy purposes.
We have held that, under such circumstances, a post-trial attack upon the technical sufficiency of an indictment (information) will be rejected, if first raised after the verdict and thus after the state can correct the technical insufficiency. State v. James, 305 So.2d 514 (La.1974). That rule here applies.
Decree
For the reasons assigned, we affirm the conviction and sentence.
Affirmed.
BARHAM, J., dissents with reasons.