Opinion ID: 612350
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Field Testing of Cocaine

Text: Acknowledging that this was raised as a claim of prosecutorial misconduct, and abandoning his separate claim based on the admission of this evidence, petitioner contends that we should permit him to argue that trial counsel’s failure to object to this evidence denied him effective assistance of counsel. The Michigan Court of Appeals, albeit reviewing for plain error, explained in pertinent part: During trial, the prosecutor asked the officer in charge to perform field tests on each of the substances [that had not been tested] in court, using the Cobalt Thiocyanate test. The officer characterized this type of test as a preliminary test and testified that he was trained to perform field tests on suspected narcotics. All samples that were tested in court were positive for the presence of cocaine. Defendant now argues that the results of the field tests conducted in court were erroneously admitted because the Cobalt Thiocyanate test is only a “presumptive” test and can indicate the presence of other narcotics besides cocaine. He further argues that the jury should have been instructed on the limitations of this type of test. Defendant relies on People v. Velasquez, 125 Mich. App. 1, 4 [] (1983), which refers to the limited nature of the Cobalt Thiocyanate test, and an unpublished Tennessee case, State v. Roberts, 2004 WL 2715316 (Tenn Crim App), in support of his arguments. Neither of these decisions addresses the admissibility of Cobalt Thiocyanate test results. Although the Cobalt Thiocyanate test may not be dispositive of whether a substance is actually cocaine, defendant has not established any basis in the record for concluding that the substances analyzed in this case were inaccurately classified as containing cocaine. Moreover, the officer in charge explained how the test is conducted, performed the testing in court, and characterized the this type of test as preliminary only. Anderson, 2006 WL 2787878, at . While this evidence was damaging to the defense, it was relevant and petitioner has not demonstrated that there was a basis to exclude the No. 09-1294 28 evidence under state law. Petitioner has not demonstrated that counsel’s performance was deficient or that the failure to object resulted in prejudice under Strickland. It may be that petitioner frames this issue as an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim in order to emphasize the comment that Attorney Henry made suggesting his belief that the substance was or would test positive for cocaine. Specifically, as Officer Janczarek began to field test the substances found in the house, defense counsel commented: Your Honor, I hope that this cocaine doesn’t float around this, this room because I hear about people sniffing cocaine and getting high and I don’t feel like getting high off some cocaine. I just – I don’t mind him doing this test, but I sure hope he does this over there so that the cocaine or whatever it is stays in there. First, this claim was not raised in the habeas petition or in the state court. Second, the comment, although suggesting a belief that the substances did contain cocaine, did not result in prejudice since the evidence suggested that it did contain cocaine. There was testimony that it looked like cocaine, smelled like cocaine, and tested positive for cocaine. Moreover, as the state court observed, there is no basis in the record to conclude that the substances were not cocaine.