Court Opinion

ID: 9688022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:57:29.908578+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:33.820222
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the opinion here on the facts of this case. It should be emphasized that the “burden of proof” of exceptions does not fall on a defendant until the State has first established a prima facie case. The cases following the rule of placing the “burden of proof” of exceptions on the defendant almost without exception reveal facts which demonstrate that the State had first established a prima facie case of unlawfulness. Here the evidence as to the defendant’s possession clearly and almost overwhelmingly established the fact that the defendant’s possession was presumptively unlawful.
The opinion here was not intended to remove the State’s burden of proving a defendant guilty and instead place the burden upon a defendant to establish his inno*29cence. At the same time, in the absence of any explanatory statement, it might well be interpreted to mean that all the State was required to do was to prove possession of a controlled substance, without any reference to whether the evidence and circumstances did or did not indicate that the possession was pursuant to a valid prescription. If possesion alone were enough, then proof that a defendant had a controlled substance in a bottle on his person with his name and that of a pharmacy on the label would be sufficient to convict him if the defendant could not or did not produce any evidence. The number of citizens who have knowing possession of a controlled substance under a lawful prescription is many times greater than the number who hold such substances unlawfully without a valid prescription. Under such circumstances, it would be wholly unrealistic to place on every citizen the burden of proving that he has a valid prescription until the State has produced at least enough evidence as to the circumstances of the possession to raise a presumption that the possession was unlawful.
As long ago as 1934, Mr. Justice Cardozo said: “The decisions are manifold that within limits of reason and fairness the burden of proof may be lifted from the state in criminal prosecutions and cast on a defendant. The limits are in substance these, that the state shall have proved enough to make it just for the defendant to be required to repel what has been proved with excuse or explanation, or at least that upon a balancing of convenience or of the opportunities for knowledge the shifting of the burden will be found to be an aid to the accuser without subjecting the accused to hardship or oppression.” Morrison v. California, 291 U. S. 82, 54 S. Ct. 281, 78 L. Ed. 664.
The Nebraska Jury Instructions, NJI No. 14.05, approved by this Court, states in part: “The burden of proof is always on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of the material elements of the crime *30charged, and this burden never shifts.”
Once the State has met its initial burden of establishing a prima facie case, the defendant must then bear the burden of coming forward with the evidence to establish that he comes within an exception provided for by the drug control statutes. -
Boslaugh and Clinton, JJ., join in this concurrence.