Title: Needham v. Price
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 81PA15
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: December 18, 2015

An unpublished opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals does not constitute 
controlling legal authority. Citation is disfavored, but may be permitted in 
accordance with the provisions of Rule 30(e)(3) of the North Carolina Rules of 
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NO. COA14-442 
NORTH CAROLINA COURT OF APPEALS 
Filed:  18 November 2014 
 
 
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 
 
 
v. 
 
Buncombe County 
No. 13 CRS 051036 
JOSHUA WINKLER 
 
 
 
 
Appeal by Defendant from judgment entered 7 November 2013 
by Judge Bill Coward in Superior Court, Buncombe County.  Heard 
in the Court of Appeals 25 September 2014. 
 
Attorney General Roy Cooper, by Assistant Attorney General 
Barry H. Bloch, for the State. 
 
Cooley Law Office, by Craig M. Cooley, for Defendant–
Appellant. 
 
 
McGEE, Chief Judge. 
 
 
 
Joshua Winkler (“Defendant”) appeals from 
a 
judgment 
entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of conspiring to 
traffic in opium or heroin by transporting in excess of four 
grams but less than fourteen grams of a mixture containing 
Oxycodone, which is a Schedule II controlled substance under 
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-90(1)(a)(14).  We vacate the trial court’s 
-2- 
judgment. 
 
The evidence presented at trial tended to show that, in 
January 2013, Probation and Parole Officer Melissa Whitson 
(“Officer Whitson”) received information that Jamie Harris (“Mr. 
Harris”), a probationer under her supervision through the 
Buncombe County Drug Treatment Court, was selling Oxycodone in 
exchange for rides.  Officer Whitson contacted Mr. Harris on 
16 January 2013 and requested that he visit her office.  After 
he arrived at the office, Mr. Harris was administered a drug 
test, which yielded a positive result for Oxycodone.  Officer 
Whitson and two other officers then accompanied Mr. Harris to 
83 Dix Creek Chapel Road in Asheville, North Carolina — a 
residence in which Mr. Harris had been staying “some” and to 
which he would soon be permanently moving — in order to search 
the residence. 
Upon conducting their search, the officers found drug 
paraphernalia, needles, a spoon with a partially melted pill, 
tourniquets, and a firearm.  As Officer Whitson walked into the 
living area to discuss some information with one of the other 
officers at the scene, a mail carrier knocked at the door to 
deliver a package.  The package was addressed to “Jamie Harris, 
83 Dix Creek Chapel Road, Asheville, North Carolina 28806,” and 
was sent from “J. Winkler, 1219 Everglades Avenue, Clearwater, 
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Florida 33764.”  Mr. Harris “seemed nervous” when the package 
arrived.  At the officers’ request, Mr. Harris consented to open 
the package in front of them.  Inside the package was an 
unlabeled pill bottle that contained sixty pills and a tissue 
“stuffed down” into the bottle.  Mr. Harris was then arrested 
and charged with trafficking in opium.  The pills seized from 
Mr. Harris’s residence were later tested by a forensic scientist 
with the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory, who determined 
that 
the 
pills 
contained 
Oxycodone, 
a 
Schedule II 
opium 
derivative. 
While Mr. Harris was in jail, Officer Tammy Bryson 
(“Officer Bryson”) and another officer with the Asheville Police 
Department 
began 
monitoring 
Mr. 
Harris’s 
telephone 
conversations.  Officer Bryson was assigned to the Buncombe 
County Anti-Crime Taskforce as an undercover drug agent.  
Officer Bryson primarily investigated “drug diversion” cases — 
cases in which legal drugs, e.g., prescription medications, were 
used illegally or were used in a manner in which the medications 
were not prescribed.  In a call recorded the day after Mr. 
Harris’s arrest, the officers “heard the name ‘Josh’ come up” 
and heard that he was “in town,” which prompted them to start 
investigating whether “Josh” was the “J. Winkler” who had sent 
the package of unlabeled pills to Mr. Harris.  The officers 
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learned that Defendant — Joshua Winkler — had a North Carolina 
driver’s license with a Farmville, North Carolina address, as 
well 
as 
a 
Florida 
driver’s 
license. 
 
After 
conducting 
surveillance of Mr. Harris’s residence for several days, Officer 
Bryson observed a vehicle parked at Mr. Harris’s residence that 
officers 
determined 
was 
registered 
to 
Defendant 
at 
his 
Farmville, North Carolina address.  Defendant was seen leaving 
Mr. Harris’s residence on 28 January 2013, and an officer 
executed a stop of Defendant’s vehicle. 
Officer Bryson and another officer arrived at the scene and 
asked Defendant to speak with them about the package he had sent 
to Mr. Harris.  The officers escorted Defendant to their 
vehicle, where Defendant joined Officer Bryson in the front 
seat.  After Officer Bryson advised Defendant of his rights, 
Defendant executed a rights’ advisement form and consented to 
speak with Officer Bryson and the other officer. 
Officer Bryson testified that Defendant admitted the 
Oxycodone pills he sent to Mr. Harris through the mail belonged 
to Defendant, and that Defendant received and filled his 
prescription for the pills in Florida.  According to Officer 
Bryson, Defendant said he lived in Farmville, North Carolina, 
but visited a doctor in Miami, Florida, to get his prescription 
for 
Oxycodone, 
because 
Defendant’s 
local 
North 
Carolina 
-5- 
physician was unwilling to prescribe Defendant Oxycodone due to 
his probationary status that was said to have resulted from an 
arrest for “doctor shopping.”1  Defendant told Officer Bryson 
that Mr. Harris’s son was his grandson, and said that he was 
returning to North Carolina from Florida to visit Mr. Harris’s 
son and other grandchildren who lived in the area.  Defendant 
also said he “did not want to travel with his pills on him,” so 
he sent his pills through the mail to Mr. Harris’s address, 
since Defendant was going to visit Mr. Harris’s residence to see 
his grandson. 
Officer Bryson testified Defendant told her “he knew that 
Mr. Harris did pills and sold pills.”  Officer Bryson further 
testified that Defendant was unable to give her an answer as to 
why he chose to send his Oxycodone pills to Mr. Harris “knowing 
that [Mr. Harris] was a drug dealer and . . . used drugs and why 
[Defendant] sent them to [Mr. Harris] in a plain pill bottle 
with no label and tissue stuffed in it.”  Officer Bryson also 
testified that Oxycodone pills were regularly the subject of 
drug diversion cases, and that perpetrators of drug diversion 
offenses often used unlabeled pill bottles to deliver or 
                     
1 Officer Bryson described “doctor shopping” as an offense in 
which someone obtains or seeks a prescription from a health care 
practitioner while being supplied with another prescription by 
another practitioner without disclosing the fact of the former 
prescription to the practitioner from whom the subsequent 
prescription is sought. 
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transport the pills and wedged tissues into the bottles in order 
to keep the pills from rattling around inside the bottles.  
Defendant also told Officer Bryson he thought he would arrive at 
Mr. Harris’s residence before the pills did.  Officer Bryson 
then placed Defendant under arrest. 
Defendant was indicted for conspiring with Mr. Harris to 
traffic in opium or heroin by transporting in excess of four 
grams but less than fourteen grams of a mixture containing 
Oxycodone.  At trial, Defendant presented no evidence, and moved 
to dismiss the charge at the close of the State’s evidence and 
at the close of all of the evidence.  Defendant’s motions were 
denied.  Defendant was found guilty by a jury of the charged 
offense, and was sentenced to a term of seventy to ninety-
three months imprisonment.  Defendant appeals. 
Defendant first contends the trial court erred by denying 
his motions to dismiss because the State presented insufficient 
evidence that he conspired or formed an agreement with Mr. 
Harris to traffic in Oxycodone.  We agree. 
“Upon defendant’s motion for dismissal, the question for 
the Court is whether there is substantial evidence (1) of each 
essential element of the offense charged, or of a lesser offense 
included therein, and (2) of defendant’s being the perpetrator 
of such offense.  If so, the motion is properly denied.”  State 
-7- 
v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 98, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980).  
“Substantial evidence is such relevant evidence as a reasonable 
mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.”  State 
v. Smith, 300 N.C. 71, 78–79, 265 S.E.2d 164, 169 (1980).  
“[A]ll of the evidence, whether competent or incompetent, must 
be considered in the light most favorable to the [S]tate, and 
the 
[S]tate 
is 
entitled 
to 
every 
reasonable 
inference 
therefrom.”  Id. at 78, 265 S.E.2d at 169. 
“A criminal conspiracy is an agreement between two or more 
persons to do an unlawful act or to do a lawful act in an 
unlawful way or by unlawful means.”  State v. Bindyke, 288 N.C. 
608, 615, 220 S.E.2d 521, 526 (1975).  “As soon as the union of 
wills for the unlawful purpose is perfected, the offense of 
conspiracy is completed.”  Id. at 616, 220 S.E.2d at 526.  “To 
constitute a conspiracy it is not necessary that the parties 
should have come together and agreed in express terms to unite 
for a common object.”  Id. at 615, 220 S.E.2d at 526.  “Direct 
proof of the charge is not essential, for such is rarely 
obtainable.  It may be, and generally is, established by a 
number of indefinite acts, each of which, standing alone, might 
have 
little 
weight, 
but, 
taken 
collectively, 
they 
point 
unerringly to the existence of a conspiracy.”  State v. 
Whiteside, 204 N.C. 710, 712, 169 S.E. 711, 712 (1933). 
-8- 
Nonetheless, “[w]hile a conspiracy may be established from 
circumstantial evidence, there must be such evidence to prove 
the agreement directly or such a state of facts that an 
agreement may be legally inferred.”  State v. Massey, 76 N.C. 
App. 660, 662, 
334 S.E.2d 71, 72 (1985); see 
State v. 
Worthington, 
84 N.C. 
App. 
150, 
162, 
352 S.E.2d 
695, 
703 
(“[E]vidence tending to show a mutual, implied understanding 
will suffice to withstand [a] defendant’s motion to dismiss.”), 
disc. review denied, 319 N.C. 677, 356 S.E.2d 785 (1987).  
“Conspiracies cannot be established by a mere suspicion, nor 
does a mere relationship between the parties or association show 
a conspiracy.  If the conspiracy is to be proved by inferences 
drawn from the evidence, such evidence must point unerringly to 
the existence of a conspiracy.”  Massey, 76 N.C. App. at 662, 
334 S.E.2d at 72 (citation omitted).  Thus, “[t]o hold a 
defendant liable for the substantive crime of conspiracy, the 
State must prove an agreement to perform every element of the 
crime.”  State v. Suggs, 117 N.C. App. 654, 661, 453 S.E.2d 211, 
215 (1995).  Furthermore, “[m]ere passive cognizance of the 
crime or acquiescence in the conduct of others will not suffice 
to establish a conspiracy.  The conspirator must share the 
purpose of committing [the] felony.”  State v. Merrill, 138 N.C. 
App. 215, 221, 530 S.E.2d 608, 612 (2000) (second alteration in 
-9- 
original) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-95(h)(4)(a) provides, in relevant 
part, that any person who “delivers, transports, or possesses 
four grams or more of opium or opiate, or any salt, compound, 
derivative, or preparation of opium or opiate[,] . . . or any 
mixture containing such substance, shall be guilty of a felony 
which felony shall be known as ‘trafficking in opium or 
heroin,’” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-95(h)(4)(a) (2013), and punished 
as a Class F felon “if the quantity of such controlled substance 
or mixture involved . . . [i]s four grams or more, but less than 
14 grams.”  Id. 
Defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to 
prove that he and Mr. Harris formed an agreement to traffic in 
Oxycodone.  While we recognize that a conspiracy may be 
established by circumstantial evidence and that direct proof of 
an agreement is not essential to sustaining a conviction of 
conspiring to commit an offense, even when viewed in the light 
most favorable to the State, we are not persuaded that the 
evidence in the present case “point[s] unerringly to the 
existence of a conspiracy.”  See Whiteside, 204 N.C. at 712, 
169 S.E. at 712.  Here, the parties do not dispute that there is 
no direct evidence that Defendant conspired with Mr. Harris to 
traffic in Oxycodone.  Rather, the evidence shows the following:  
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that Defendant admitted to Officer Bryson that he mailed sixty 
Oxycodone pills to Mr. Harris; that Defendant sent the pills in 
an unlabeled pill bottle with a tissue “stuffed down” into the 
bottle; that Defendant “knew that Mr. Harris did pills and sold 
pills;” that Mr. Harris’s probation officer, Officer Whitson, 
received a tip that Mr. Harris was currently trafficking in 
Oxycodone; and that, when the mail carrier delivered the package 
sent by Defendant to Mr. Harris’s residence at the precise time 
officers were conducting a warrantless search of Mr. Harris’s 
residence, Mr. Harris “seemed nervous.”   
Our 
appellate 
courts 
have 
long 
recognized 
that 
“[c]ircumstantial evidence may be of two kinds, consisting 
either of a number of consecutive links, each depending upon the 
other; or a number of independent circumstances all pointing in 
the same direction.”  State v. Austin, 129 N.C. 534, 535, 
40 S.E. 4, 5 (1901).  “In the former case it is said that each 
link must be complete in itself, and that the resulting chain 
cannot be stronger than its weakest link.”  Id.  “In the latter 
case the individual circumstances are compared to the strands in 
a rope, where no one of them may be sufficient in itself, but 
all together may be strong enough to prove the guilt of the 
defendant beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Id.  While it appears 
that a reasonable inference could be drawn from the evidence in 
-11- 
the present case that Defendant’s actions were violative of N.C. 
Gen. Stat. § 90-95(h)(4)(a), whether viewed as links in a chain 
or strands in a rope, we cannot conclude that a jury could 
reasonably infer from this same evidence that Defendant and Mr. 
Harris formed an agreement or conspired to traffic in Oxycodone.  
Although the evidence demonstrates that Defendant and Mr. Harris 
had a relationship, “a mere relationship between the parties or 
association [does not] show a conspiracy.”  See Massey, 76 N.C. 
App. at 662, 334 S.E.2d at 72.  Again, even “cognizance of the 
crime or acquiescence in the conduct” of another “will not 
suffice to establish a conspiracy.”  Merrill, 138 N.C. App. at 
221, 530 S.E.2d at 612.  Thus, while there may be sufficient 
evidence of Mr. Harris’s knowledge of Defendant’s actions, we 
cannot say that there was sufficient evidence that Mr. Harris 
“share[d] the purpose of committing [the] felony.”  See id. 
(second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks 
omitted).  Without more, we cannot conclude that the State’s 
evidence directly or indirectly established a union of wills 
between Defendant and Mr. Harris to conspire to traffic in 
Oxycodone.  Accordingly, we vacate the trial court’s judgment 
entered upon the jury’s verdict finding Defendant guilty of 
conspiring to traffic in Oxycodone by transportation.  Our 
disposition on this issue renders it unnecessary to address 
-12- 
Defendant’s remaining issue on appeal and we decline to do so. 
 
Vacated. 
 
Judges GEER and STROUD concur. 
 
Report per Rule 30(e).