Court Opinion

ID: 9587563
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:23:47.802936+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:27.243228
License: Public Domain

Pope, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I fully concur with Divisions 3 through 9 of the majority opinion.
With regard to Divisions 1 and 2,1 agree with the majority’s conclusion that the police conduct in this case was not so outrageous as to constitute a due process violation. I write separately, however, to express my concern over the use by police of illegally held drugs in reverse sting operations.
As an initial matter, I do not believe that the Supreme Court of Georgia’s decision in the related matter of Dean v. Gober, 272 Ga. 20 (524 SE2d 722) (2000), approved the Gwinnett County Police Depart-*176merit’s use of the methamphetamine in this case. Gober asserted essentially the same argument in his mandamus action that he asserts in this case: that the police did not legally possess the methamphetamine used in his reverse sting. “The legal basis Gober asserted for his petition was the requirement in OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1) that any forfeited contraband that is dangerous to the public be destroyed or sent to an appropriate agency for medical or scientific use.” Id. at 20.29
The Supreme Court implicitly upheld the trial court’s grant of mandamus requiring the Gwinnett County Police Department to destroy all the contraband in its drug safe. Noting that the evidence established that the owners of the drugs held in the safe could not be determined, the Supreme Court found that the drugs had been summarily forfeited pursuant to OCGA § 16-13-49 (y), which provides that “[Controlled substances . . . whose owners are unknown are summarily forfeited to the state.”30 And the court concluded that “their destruction was mandated by OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1).” Gober, 272 Ga. at 22 (1).
Nevertheless, the court applied an exception to this mandatory destruction rule to the methamphetamine used in Gober’s case. Gober, 272 Ga. at 23 (3). The Supreme Court held that those drugs were specifically exempted from destruction under “the very statutory provision on which [Gober’s] mandamus action was premised.” Id. OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1) exempts contraband that is still “ ‘needed for evidentiary purposes.’ ” Id. Gober had already been convicted at the time of the mandamus ruling. But because his conviction was subject to appeal, the Supreme Court found that the drugs might still be needed for evidentiary purposes in the event of a new trial. The court concluded that those particular drugs were, therefore, exempted from destruction. Id.
But that holding does not resolve the question at issue here. While I agree with the majority that the Supreme Court held in Gober that “there is no prohibition in the Controlled Substances Act *177against the retention and legal use of seized controlled substances . . . while acting in the course of their official duties, ... so long as the owner of the drug is known and forfeiture proceedings have not been commenced,”311 disagree that this holding answers the question before us now.32
The majority appears to discount the further finding of the Goher court that the owner of the drugs in this case was unknown and thus that the drugs fell into one of the two categories of drugs subject to summary forfeiture. Instead, the majority relies upon qualifying language that the reason the owner of the drugs in this case was unknown was “primarily because the state of the records maintained by the department rendered [them] unknown.” Gober, 272 Ga. at 24 (4). But the Supreme Court did not hold that the Gwinnett County Police Department’s sloppy record-keeping somehow removed the drugs at issue from the category of contraband subject to forfeiture.
To the contrary, the court agreed that the drugs in the Gwinnett County safe were subject to summary forfeiture and their destruction “mandated.” Gober, 272 Ga. at 22 (1). It carved out an exception for the specific methamphetamine in this case only to preserve it for evidentiary purposes pending an appellate ruling in the criminal case. But contrary to the majority’s apparent assumption, the Supreme Court in its mandamus case never addressed the issue of whether methamphetamine that is subject to summary forfeiture and mandated destruction can legally be used in a reverse sting operation. That is the issue before us now.
In addressing that issue, I am bound by the finding in the Gober decision that the drugs held in the Gwinnett police safe were subject to mandatory destruction. It follows, therefore, that the methamphetamine in this case should have been destroyed before it was used in the reverse sting against Gober.
An examination of the purposes behind the forfeiture statute confirms this conclusion. That statute was passed, in part, to provide for “the prompt disposition of property subject to forfeiture under the statute.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Yoder v. State, 211 Ga. App. 226, 228 (438 SE2d 689) (1993). And although the statute sets forth detailed procedures to be followed with regard to the disposition of most kinds of property, its treatment of illegal and dangerous drugs is markedly different. Schedule I drugs and drugs whose owner is unknown are to be summarily forfeited and destroyed. *178Gober, 272 Ga. 20. This is because, as the statute provides, such drugs are deemed harmful to the public. OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1). This statutory scheme underlines the legislature’s strong policy of ridding the state of illegal drugs.
Decided March 30, 2001
Reconsideration denied April 12, 2001
Peevy & Lancaster, Gregory W. Lancaster, for appellant.
Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Dawn H. Taylor, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
And nothing in the statute authorizes the police to maintain and use such drugs in reverse sting operations. While the statute provides that these drugs must be preserved if they are needed as evidence in a criminal proceeding, it does not provide that the drugs can then be recycled to create new criminal proceedings. And although the statute does authorize the use of the drugs for certain limited purposes — scientific and medical — it makes no similar provision for their use in crime prevention. Under the rule of statutory construction inclusio unius exclusio alterius (inclusion of one implies exclusion of others), I conclude that the legislature did not consider reverse stings, or any other crime prevention techniques, to be a legitimate use of such illegal substances. See Blackwell v. State, 237 Ga. App. 896, 897 (516 SE2d 787) (1999).
Therefore, I believe that the police in this state should not retain possession of drugs subject to the mandatory destruction requirements of OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1). After the drugs’ evidentiary use is exhausted for the case in which they were seized, they should be destroyed and should not be used to manufacture future prosecutions, unless and until the General Assembly authorizes their use in such a fashion.

 OCGA § 16-13-49 (u) (1) provides:
Whenever property is forfeited under this article, any property which is required by law to be destroyed or which is harmful to the public shall, when no longer needed for evidentiary purposes, be destroyed or forwarded to the Division of Forensic Sciences of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation or any other agency of state or local government for destruction or for any medical or scientific use not prohibited under the laws of the United States or this state.

 OCGA § 16-13-49 (y) reads:
Controlled substances included in Schedule I which are contraband and any controlled substance whose owners are unknown are summarily forfeited to the state. The court may include in any judgment of conviction under this article an order forfeiting any controlled substance involved in the offense to the extent of the defendant’s interest.

 (Emphasis supplied.) Gober, 272 Ga. at 25 (4).

 Thus, I would not, as the majority asserts, hold that the police could never use seized contraband in a reverse sting operation. I acknowledge that the Supreme Court has upheld the use of a limited class of drugs in reverse stings, but the drugs in this case do not fall within that approved class.