Opinion ID: 853073
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Distance

Text: French argues that the evidence was insufficient to establish the distance between the transaction and either the school or the park. Shawn Plummer, an auto CAD technician for the City Engineer's office, testified that the distance from the address where the dealing took place was 790 feet from St. Bartholomew's pre-school and 661 feet from the Wilson Street park. Plummer's job entails making city maps, putting new subdivisions on the maps, and keep[ing] the map accurate with the city. He stated that he enters an address into the computer, and his computer calculates everything within a 1000 feet radius of that address and produces a map. On cross-examination, Plummer admitted that he did not physically measure the distance in this case, did not write the computer program, did not know how the program worked, and did not know whether it was accurate. French objected to the map, because no one actually went out there and physically measured [the distance and] there's no foundation laid that these distances are actually the distances that that computer generated. We assume the computer generated map could be established to be reliable. In any event, before trial resumed the following day, Officer Curt Beverage physically measured the distance between the place of the dealing and the pre-school and the place of dealing and the park. He used a one-hundred-foot heavy-duty steel tape that he calibrated by comparison with a separate twenty-five foot tape. He also checked the accuracy of the twenty-five foot tape against a twelve-inch ruler. Beverage testified that the distance from the place of dealing and just past the property line of the school was 652 feet and to the far end of the school building was 964 feet. Beverage stated that the distance from the place of dealing and the park was 717 feet. This evidence was sufficient.