Court Opinion

ID: 9673030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:04:50.908196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.807784
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree with the analysis and the result of the majority, but I write specially to highlight a disturbing argument raised by appellant State.
As the majority correctly points out, the mere possession of an ounce of cocaine, standing by itself, is probable cause for nothing more than at the time the person was charged, they were in possession of cocaine. It is far short of justifying the quantum leap the state insists we make here. The state insists that when you have about one ounce of cocaine in your possession, even when you are 80 miles from home, nothing more is needed to establish you are a drug dealer, not a drug possessor, that your home likely contains evidence of contraband, and that a magistrate should issue a search warrant for your home.
Appellant’s brief stated flatly “the supporting affidavit established that defendant was a drug dealer.” Appellant’s brief supports that remarkable statement by pointing out the defendant was found with approximately one ounce of cocaine on his person and that the arresting officer, “knows through training and experience that an ounce of cocaine is considered more than for personal use and indicates that the person possessing that quantity normally sells the drug in smaller quantities.” It is true the officer established some training and experience in the area of drugs and drug dealers, but so what. If the state can qualify experts, whether in law enforcement or otherwise, to give as an expert opinion the statement that when you have one ounce of cocaine in your possession, or more, you are a dealer, it would be incumbent in a criminal system, based on a fair trial and an adversarial process, for the defendant to be able to qualify an expert who would state, for instance, “based on my training and experience, etc., it is my expert opinion that you are never a dealer unless you are in possession of two or more ounces of cocaine.” Or, what about 2.5 ounces, or 3.7 ounces, or 4 ounces, or whatever?
*21Does the state’s position mean that if you are in possession of less than one ounce of cocaine you can never be a dealer? It is likely they would not concede that. A person in possession of a small amount of drugs could turn out to be a large dealer. Just as likely, a person in possession of one ounce of cocaine or more could be a heavily addicted user who buys that much at one time to save money. Or put another way, the presence or absence of one ounce of cocaine on a person, without more, is not even close to conclusive evidence that the person is or is not a dealer.
The state’s emphasis on relying on the officer’s “expert opinion” that possession of one ounce of cocaine establishes that you are a drug dealer and therefore, without more, we can get a search warrant for your home because your home is likely to contain contraband, is constitutionally infirm, and dangerous to the criminal justice system. All attempts at “one size fits all” generally end up snaring the innocent and unwary more than criminals. Are we now to say that if you are caught hours and miles away from your home with an illegal lock pick in your wallet, without more, that alone establishes you are a burglar, establishes that your home is likely to have fruits of your illegal activity, and that now a search warrant of your home is justified?
Are we to say that if you are found hours or miles away from your home with stolen goods in your possession, that, without more, you are now established as a fence, your home is established as a place where stolen property will be found, and now, without more, a search warrant for your home is authorized?
The state’s reliance on the opinion of an officer that one ounce of eoeaine means you are a drug dealer, and means you normally sell the drug in small quantities, is part of a disturbing trend by the prosecution to ask law enforcement officers to give opinions on a defendant’s guilt or innocence, and opinions as to which criminal statute they have violated. It has always been constitutionally safer, and remains so, for the state to bring its evidence, on a proposed search warrant, to a detached neutral magistrate, and at the criminal trial, to bring its evidence to a detached neutral jury, and present the evidence in a straight forward fashion without the gratuitous rhetoric. The magistrate and the jury, as fact-finders, are guided by long-standing law, and are perfectly capable of making fact determinations on their own.