Opinion ID: 1762542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prejudicial Evidence Relating to Offenses of Third Persons

Text: The Smiths were arrested as a result of two police officers observing Mrs. Smith acquire glassine envelopes containing heroin. The officers were hiding in a cemetery and watching a location across the street suspected of narcotics activity. Some five-ten minutes before Mrs. Smith came on the scene, the officers observed Lloyd Kimbrough deliver some heroin (glassine envelopes) to James Sullivan and his female companion. Three bills were taken relative to the State's use of this incident: Bill of Exception No. 2, to the district attorney describing the Kimbrough-Sullivan transaction as a preliminary to his proof; and Bills of Exception No. 3 and No. 4 to actual testimony of the Kimbrough-Sullivan transaction. The defendant made part of each bill the testimony objected to, the objection, the entire line of testimony relative to it, and the entire record. The trial court held that the testimony was relevant to prove Lionel Smith's intent and guilty knowledge. It relied on La.R.S. 15:441: Relevant evidence is that tending to show the commission of the offense and the intent   . Facts necessary to be known to explain a relevant fact, or which support an inference raised by such fact, are admissible. The ruling is correct. The defendant Smith is charged with constructive or joint possession of drugs actually in his wife's physical custody. She had obtained them while out of his presence. Essential to proof of the case against him was evidence that he knew his wife had acquired the heroin and also that his wife had acquired such heroin for his use and control as well as hers. (The only defense made was through the wife's testimony that she had acquired the drugs for her own use and had hidden the fact from her husband's knowledge, since he, a former addict, wished her to break the addiction, too.) The evidence of the Kimbrough-Sullivan transaction is relevant because of the husband's incriminating (intendedly exculpatory) statement made at the time of his arrest: He told the officers that they had arrested him too soon and had no case, that he had paid Kimbrough $105.00 for drugs, but that Kimbrough had not given them to him yet. Tr. (Vol. 2) 87-88, 96, 106. The defendant Smith is charged with constructive or joint possession of the drugs obtained by his wife from a man (Paul George) who came from an alleyway on Saratoga Street. The evidence that Kimbrough had delivered to Sullivan and his companion some drugs from the same alleyway some ten minutes earlier is relevant, in view of the defendant Smith's admission he had paid Kimbrough money for drugs. It tends to show that Smith knew and participated in his wife's obtaining possession and control of heroin from such alleyway.