Court Opinion

ID: 9491788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:23:55.361323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:56.788269
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I concur in the result reached by the majority with respect to Rivera, the facts of Marsalla’s case do not warrant application of the visual identification doctrine. I respectfully dissent.
There can be no doubt that the visual identification of a controlled substance is virtually impossible, even for a chemist. Accordingly, in the vast majority of cases, the prosecution should introduce into evidence expert testimony identifying the chemical composition of the substance at issue. In instances, like this case, where the substance is either destroyed or unavailable, other methods of proving the identity of the substance are necessary. Our court has therefore allowed drug agents to testify as to their visual identification of controlled substances. See United States v. Covington, 133 F.3d 639, 644 (8th Cir.1998); United States v. Williams, 982 F.2d 1209, 1212 (8th Cir.1992). There may even be times when it is appropriate to allow lay witnesses who have direct experience with a substance to testify as to its identity. See United States v. Westbrook, *1181896 F.2d 330, 335 (8th Cir.1990) (two witnesses used substance at issue and had extensive previous use); United States v. Meeks, 857 F.2d 1201, 1204 (8th Cir.1988) (co-conspirators used substance and called it “cocaine”); see also United States v. Cantley, 130 F.3d 1371, 1378-79 (10th Cir.1997) (multiple police officers and lay witnesses who purchased substance from, or sold substance to, defendant testified that substance was “crack”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 1098, 140 L.Ed.2d 153 (1998); United States v. Taylor, 116 F.3d 269, 273-74 (7th Cir.1997) (drug supplier, purchasers, and users testified that substance was “crack”); United States v. Paiva, 892 F.2d 148, 155-57 (1st Cir.1989) (witness with seven-year cocaine habit who had used and tasted cocaine many times testified that the substance at issue tasted like cocaine). There must also, however, be a limit to the capability of lay witnesses to identify substances.
Extending the visual identification doctrine to the facts of this case is inappropriate. Lowe was the only witness who testified that the December 1995 substance was crack. She testified pursuant to a plea agreement and admitted to her lack of experience with crack. (See Appellant’s App. at 117.) As the majority notes, Lowe had only seen what she assumed to be crack between three to four times a month for seven months. While she “cooked” the November 1995 cocaine into crack herself, she did not smoke, taste, or obtain the December 1995 substance. In this regard, the majority’s reliance on United States v. Brown, 156 F.3d 813 (8th Cir.1998), is inapposite. In that case, a chemist and users and distributors of the substance in question testified as to its identity. See id. at 816. Here, we have a single witness with limited experience testifying pursuant to a plea agreement. Moreover, even though the “marketplace” may be relevant in determining the identity of drugs at sentencing, Lowe admitted that in order to identify the December 1995 substance “[y]ou probably would have to taste it to know that it was crack. Smoke it.” (Appellant’s App. at 118.) She admittedly did neither and thus had no “direct experience” with the substance in question. In my view, Lowe’s eiqperienee is not a sufficient foundation for her ability visually to identify the December 1995 substance as crack. Considering the relative inexperience of the only witness, the great sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine, and the fact that the government bears the burden of proof,1 it is wholly inappropriate to extend the visual identification doctrine to the facts of this case.
For the reasons discussed above, I respectfully dissent.

. With respect .to the government’s burden of proof, the majority points out that Marsalla relied on a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. I note that our court has expressly left open the question of whether the government must prove non-garden variety sentencing facts by a preponderance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence. See Brown, 156 F.3d at 817. Because the issue of the appropriate standard is not before us, however, there is no need to address the question.