Court Opinion

ID: 9717069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:57:15.694194+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:51.030081
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE HEIPLE, dissenting: Persons violating the law for unlawful possession of cannabis are subject to a sliding scale of penalties based on the quantity of cannabis possessed. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1983, ch. 56½, par. 704. In the instant case, the defendant, Larry Little, was apprehended with 14 small manila envelopes. Donna Reese, a forensic chemist for the police, dumped the contents of 11 of these envelopes into a common container, weighed the combined contents out at 13.4 grams and tested a sample which was found to contain cannabis. Three other envelopes were individually weighed and tested. These latter three envelopes each tested positive for cannabis and had a combined weight of 3.7 grams. The prosecution then charged the defendant with unlawful possession of more than 10 but less than 30 grams of cannabis, a Class A misdemeanor, for which the defendant was convicted and sentenced to 364 days of imprisonment. The defendant correctly points out that when the contents of the 11 manila envelopes were combined by the police before they were individually weighed and tested, that the prosecution lost any basis to charge the defendant with possession of any specific quantity of a substance containing cannabis as to those 11 envelopes. The State, after all, is required to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. We may speculate that each of those 11 envelopes contained cannabis. That, however, amounts to guess and conjecture which will not do. It is possible that only one of those 11 envelopes contained cannabis and we do not know the weight of any of them. Hence, allowing for the other three envelopes that were individually tested and weighed and discounting the weight of the 11 envelopes which we do not individually know, the maximum offense that the defendant can be held to account for under this statute is possession of less than 10 grams which is a Class B misdemeanor. Therefore, the defendant’s conviction for a Class A misdemeanor should be reduced to a Class B misdemeanor and his sentence of 364 days should be reduced to the permissible sentence of a maximum of six months. The majority here chooses to rely on People v. Jackson (1985), 134 Ill. App. 3d 785, 481 N.E.2d 1222. That case was similarly wrong and should not be followed. The attempt to distinguish this case from People v. Games (1981), 94 Ill. App. 3d 130, 418 N.E.2d 520, is unsuccessful. Games is diametrically contrary to the ruling announced here and is irreconcilable also with the ruling in Jackson. I cannot believe that the majority here would have allowed the police to combine one of these manila envelopes with say, a five pound bag of flour or sugar, had such an item also been in the defendant’s possession. That, however, is where their logic leads them. Accordingly, I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion.