Court Opinion

ID: 9455658
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:28:46.121034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:40.771476
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
Here we had a chemist who testified that heroin can be made from morphine. Of course, what underlies Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57, is the large incidence of domestic homegrown marijuana which makes the use of the presumption unfair.
Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 90 S.Ct. 642, 24 L.Ed.2d 610, clears the Section 174 presumption in the case of heroin. If I were not a judge, I would know that very little heroin is made in the United States from morphine. I would not reverse here unless the chemist had testified that the incidence of conversion within the United States of morphine to heroin is high. This he did not do.
Accepting the foregoing, it seems to me that the majority is overcritical of the instructions. If there was slight error, I would say it is harmless.