Opinion ID: 1540179
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trial Judge Properly Admitted Lay Testimony by a Downstream Purchaser to Establish the Substance Ingested was Methamphetamine.

Text: Campbell argues that the trial judge abused his discretion by admitting Kanich's lay witness testimony to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the substance Kanich purchased from Morales was methamphetamine. We review evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. [28] Campbell notes that DSP did not seize any drugs and no expert identified the alleged methamphetamine that Campbell was convicted of trafficking and delivering. In order to establish that the substance Kanich ingested was methamphetamine, the State relied on Kanich's testimony that after swallowing the drug, he experienced the same effects as he had experienced over his 15 to 20 years of methamphetamine use. The State also relied on Kanich's testimony that Morales told Kanich that he was going to give Kanich some crank, which is a nickname for methamphetamine. Before trial, Campbell objected in a motion in limine to Kanich testifying to the identity and the weight of the substance. [29] The State defended their use of the lay testimony to identify a controlled substance by relying on Wright v. State. [30] When a lay person gives opinion testimony it must be consistent with D.R.E. 701: If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness' testimony in the form of opinions or inferences is limited to those opinions or inferences which are (a) rationally based on the perception of the witness and (b) helpful to a clear understanding of the witness' testimony or the determination of a fact in issue and (c) not based on scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Rule 702. [31] Campbell argues that Wright v. State [32] does not apply to his case because the main issue in Wright was whether Delaware's corpus delicti rule prohibited the State's conviction for delivery of cocaine based on the defendant's confession. We explained in Wright that the State had produced sufficient evidence, beyond Wright's confession that he sold cocaine, to satisfy the corpus deliciti rule. [33] The corpus deliciti rule requires the State to present some evidence of the existence of a crime, independent of the defendant's confession, to support the conviction. [34] In Wright, Raheem Cannon supplied cocaine to Wright. Cannon testified that the substance he sold to Wright, and which Wright later sold in the transaction for which he was charged with delivery of cocaine, was in fact cocaine. Cannon testified that he had been selling cocaine on a daily basis for about two years, and that, although he never used cocaine, he knew that the substance he placed in a small baggie and gave to Wright was cocaine because [i]f you deal with it every day, you can just tell from the texture and the smell and just the look of it. [35] Cannon testified that he had received the cocaine from someone else and divided it into smaller portions, which he put in plastic baggies. [36] He testified that the cocaine was a mixture of powder and chunks and had a fuelly smell like gasoline. [37] He also testified that no one had ever complained that he had sold fake cocaine. [38] The police never recovered any cocaine in that case. [39] We found that the dealer's description and familiarity with the substance was sufficient evidence, beyond Wright's confession that he sold cocaine, to satisfy the corpus deliciti rule. [40] Wright applies to this case because in Wright we considered whether, in the absence of chemical testing or expert testimony, a lay witness can identify an illegal substance sufficient to support a jury finding. [41] We noted that at least three United States Courts of Appeals have accepted lay opinion testimony to identify a controlled substance. [42] In United States v. Dominguez, the first case we cited in Wright, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated: It is well established that the government need not prove the identity of a controlled substance by direct evidence, as long as the available circumstantial evidence establishes its identity beyond a reasonable doubt. [43] The court explained in Dominguez that [c]ircumstantial evidence establishing identification may include a sales price consistent with that of cocaine; the covert nature of the sale; on-the-scene remarks by a conspirator identifying the substance as a drug; lay-experience based on familiarity through prior use, trading, or law enforcement; and behavior characteristic of drug sales. [44] In that case, the government failed to establish the identity of the controlled substance by circumstantial evidence because the record is unclear as to what [the investigating agent's] considered which eventually convinced him that the delivered substance was cocaine. [45] The court determined that there was no factual basis in the record to support the agent's belief that the substance was cocaine, and no evidence that another agent, who accepted delivery of the substance as part of the investigation, was experienced in identifying cocaine. [46] Instead, the agent who had accepted delivery of the cocaine was uncertain whether the substance she received was authentic. [47] The court concluded that the other circumstantial evidence the government presented, that the agreed upon price was $12,000, which was consistent with the market rate for the quantity purchased, and that the transaction was conducted in a covert manner, with delivery in Guatemala and payment in Milwaukee, could as easily support the existence of a sham drug sale as an authentic one. [48] The court in Dominguez explained that the evidence presented was distinguishable from those cases in which the identity of the substance was established by circumstantial evidence. [49] For example, in one of those cases, a co-conspirator testified that she knew that the drug she received from the defendant was cocaine because the defendant told her it was and she tried it. [50] In two other cases, the co-conspirators testified that they had smoked marijuana for five to ten years and the substance they received from the defendant to sell looked, smelled and smoked like marijuana. [51] In United States v. Westbrook, the second case we cited in Wright, the defendant argued on appeal that the trial judge erroneously permitted four witnesses to refer to the substance sold or manufactured as amphetamine because, he argued, their testimony was unreliable on the grounds that they did not have prior experience with amphetamine. [52] The defendant did not, however, challenge the sufficiency of the evidence identifying the substance as amphetamine. [53] The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit explained that [t]he identity of a controlled substance can be proved by circumstantial evidence [54] and [c]ircumstantial evidence of a drug's identity may include opinion testimony of a witness who couples past use with present experience with the substance in question. [55] The court in Westbrook relied on a case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States v. Harrell, in which that court explained that [i]dentification of a controlled substance does not require direct evidence if available circumstantial evidence establishes its identity beyond a reasonable doubt and [s]uch evidence can include lay experience based on familiarity through prior use, trading or law enforcement; a high sales price; on-the-scene remarks by a conspirator identifying the substance as a drug; and behavior characteristic of sales and use such as testing, weighing, cutting and peculiar ingestion. [56] The Harrell court further explained that the testimony to which the defendant objected in that case was permissible because [i]dentification based on past use coupled with present observation of the substance at hand will suffice to establish the illicit nature of a suspected substance [57] and the witness had testified that he became a user and pusher of an assortment of drugs, including cocaine, amphetamines, and quaaludes in the past before working with the defendant on the drug transactions at issue in the case. [58] The Harrell court held that the witness's past experience qualified him to testify about the drug transactions he participated in with the defendant to sell cocaine and quaaludes. [59] In addition, another witness admitted in his testimony that he had become a frequent cocaine user before meeting the defendant. [60] The Harrell court held that the second witness's testimony of habitual use coupled with observations of [the defendant's] characteristic behavior qualified [that witness] to identify the substance that he observed [the defendant] snorting. [61] In United States v. Paiva, the third case we cited in Wright, the defendant argued on appeal that the trial judge abused his discretion when he permitted a lay witness to testify that, in her opinion, the identity of a substance allegedly distributed by the defendant was, in fact, cocaine. [62] The lay witness was the 21 year old daughter of the defendant's ex-wife. [63] She testified that while she lived with the defendant and her mother in Florida, she found a plastic bag with white powder inside of the defendant's shoes. [64] She testified that, before that time, she had used and tasted cocaine on many occasions and had developed a cocaine problem at age fourteen. [65] She testified that the substance she found in the defendant's shoe was a white powder with little bits of rocks in it and that she tasted the powder and it tasted like cocaine. [66] The witness testified that based upon looking at the substance and tasting it, the substance, in her opinion, was cocaine. [67] In Paiva, the defendant argued on appeal, as he had argued before trial in his motion in limine, that the witness' testimony was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 701 because identification of a substance, such as cocaine, is beyond the common knowledge of ordinary persons and also under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 because the government had not qualified the witness as an expert. [68] In Paiva, the court explained that the admissibility of lay opinion testimony under Rule 701 is within the sound discretion of the trial judge and would not be overturned absent a clear abuse of discretion. [69] The court held that a drug user testifying as a lay witness, who had not been qualified as an expert, was competent to express an opinion about the identity of a particular controlled substance. [70] Accordingly, the court in Paiva concluded that the admission of the witness' testimony that the substance she found in [the defendant's] shoe looked and tasted like cocaine was clearly proper and within the trial judge's discretion. [71] In addition, the witness' definite opinion identifying the white powder as cocaine was also properly admitted. [72] The court rejected the defendant's argument that identification of a substance, such as cocaine, is exclusively within the domain of expert opinion evidence and an improper subject for lay opinion testimony. [73] Instead, the court held that [a]lthough a drug user may not qualify as an expert, he or she may still be competent, based on past experience or personal knowledge and observation, to express an opinion as a lay witness that a particular substance perceived was cocaine or some other drug. [74] Delaware Rule of Evidence 701 tracks the federal rule and it was amended in 2001 to be consistent with the 2000 amendments to the federal rule. [75] Federal Rule of Evidence 701 permits a drug user to testify about the identity of a controlled substance as long as the government lays a foundation that the witness' testimony is rationally based on his own perception of and personal experience with the substance and not on scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge. [76] Kanich was a 15 to 20 year methamphetamine user [77] who testified that he purchased the substance in question from Morales on two occasions and ingested the substance on both occasions. [78] Morales told Kanich that the substance was methamphetamine. [79] He testified that the substance looked, felt, and tasted the same as the methamphetamine he had used in the past. [80] He also testified that the substance had the same effect when he ingested it as the methamphetamine that he had ingested in the past. [81] He testified that he had tried cocaine and that the substance gave him different effects than from cocaine. Therefore, the State laid a sufficient foundation that Kanich had past experience with methamphetamine and present knowledge of the substance at issue in this case to testify that the substance he obtained from Morales was in fact methamphetamine. Accordingly, the trial judge correctly concluded that a sufficient foundation existed for the lay opinion and did not abuse his discretion when he admitted Kanich's testimony that the substance delivered was methamphetamine. [82]