Court Opinion

ID: 9630771
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:20:06.347559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:43.108902
License: Public Domain

ALEXANDER, J.,
with whom SILVER, J., joins, dissenting.
[¶24] I respectfully dissent. Today the Court holds that if a person (or his estranged father-in-law) had some of the ingredients to bake a cake, and someone once gave that person a recipe to bake a cake, then he can be found guilty of baking a cake, although no one saw him bake the cake, and no trace of a cake has ever been found. Our law does not permit beyond a reasonable doubt conviction on such flimsy evidence.
[¶ 25] Lucien Woo stands convicted of the Class B felony of trafficking in methamphetamine in violation of 17-A M.R.S. § 1103(1-A)(A) (2006). The State supports the conviction by pointing out that the definition of “trafficking” includes the “manufacture” of scheduled drugs as that term is defined in 17-A M.R.S. § 1101(4) (2006). The alleged manufacture of the scheduled drugs, according to the indictment, occurred on or about May 31, 2005.
[¶ 26] The Court acknowledges that “the State presented no direct evidence at trial that Woo successfully made, created, or manufactured methamphetamine.” The Court also acknowledges that no trace of methamphetamine was ever found in searches of Woo, his vehicle, and his property. The Court further acknowledges *19that there was no evidence linking Woo to lye, an essential ingredient of methamphetamine.
[¶ 27] The evidence that the State relies on to support the conviction for the Class B felony is limited to the following:
1. Sometime in 2004 an individual gave Woo a recipe for making methamphetamine.
2. In February or March 2005, on one occasion, Woo’s estranged wife awoke to what she testified was a strong smell in the house they then shared. The nature of the smell was not further described in the evidence.
3. An acquaintance of Woo’s, on three occasions in late 2004 and early 2005, purchased several bottles of iodine from a farm supply catalog and turned them over to Woo.
4. In March 2005, two months before the trafficking allegedly occurred, Woo’s estranged father-in-law took a trash bag that contained, among other things, empty packages of cold medicine, dry gas, and Coleman fuel from Woo’s home to his home.
5. The estranged father-in-law turned the trash bag over to law enforcement on or about May 27, 2005, several days before the trafficking allegedly occurred. After being in the estranged father-in-law’s possession for more than two months, the bag was found to contain a significant number of empty packages of cold medicine, dry gas, gas tank water remover, Coleman fuel, coffee filters with a red residue, pH strips, a large number of matches with the red phosphorous scraped off, razor blades, a gas pump and plastic tube, a video of a children’s cartoon and a partial, but not complete, recipe for methamphetamine.
6. On or about May 8, 2005, Woo was observed at the Caribou Wal-Mart purchasing some items that might be used in the manufacture of methamphetamine including plastic tubing, glass cookware, pH strips, matches, cold medicine, and camping fuel.
7. A May 2005 search of Woo’s home resulted in discovery of an open bag of rock salt and some empty dry gas bottles.
[¶ 28] That is the sum and substance of the State’s evidence used to convict Woo of trafficking in or manufacturing methamphetamine. The evidence was tied together with officers testifying as to how the items that the evidence showed that Woo, or his estranged father-in-law, had at one time possessed could be combined with other items not found to make methamphetamine.
[¶29] The reasoning to support this conviction is seriously flawed. As the reader will note, all of the items at issue are ones that can be purchased publicly at places such as Wal-Mart and are commonly found in and around rural Maine homes in the winter, particularly those that heat with wood. At the end of a long Maine winter an open bag of rock salt, empty bottles of dry gas, matches, razor blades, cold medicine, and Coleman fuel, and even a video of a children’s cartoon, are items that one would certainly find in thousands of Maine homes. The quantities may be a little different than would be commonly found in an individual home. But Woo has not been charged and convicted of manufacture of a particular volume of methamphetamine. He has been convicted of manufacturing it because he, or his estranged father-in-law, possessed most of the ingredients.
*20[¶ 30] Possession of some ingredients that might be used to manufacture a prohibited substance, without more, is not enough to support conviction of manufacture of that substance. If the law were otherwise, and as the Court holds it to be today, then many rural Mainers and the managers of stores that sell these products, might be convicted of manufacture of methamphetamine. And many Maine farmers might be convicted of trafficking in or manufacture of explosives based on their possession of gasoline and some nitrogen-based fertilizers that can be the primary ingredients for manufacturing explosives. Maine law is not so harsh.
[¶ 31] In State v. Tai, 629 A.2d 594, 595 (Me.1993), we described the “two distinct propositions” that the State must prove to convict an individual of a crime. We stated:
First, the State must prove that the acts constituting the crime were done. Second, the State must prove the defendant’s involvement in the criminal acts. Mere suspicion of a defendant’s involvement in the commission of a crime does not supply evidence sufficient to support a conviction.

Id.

[¶ 32] The Court observes, and I agree, that in reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support the conviction, we must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State and we must give equal weight to both circumstantial evidence and direct evidence. See State v. Barnard, 2001 ME 80, ¶¶ 10-11, 772 A.2d 852, 857. Judging the propositions that our opinion in Tai indicates must be proved by those standards demonstrates the insufficiency of the evidence to support this conviction.
[¶ 33] In Tai we noted that “the State must prove that the acts constituting the crime were done.” 629 A.2d at 595. Here the State’s evidence does not “prove that the acts constituting the crime were done.” Beyond “mere suspicion” the State’s evidence, at best, proves that at one time or another Woo, or his estranged father-in-law, possessed some, but not all, of the items used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Evidence of a key ingredient, lye, was lacking. Further, the State proved that Woo had, or was aware of the recipe for making methamphetamine. Some of the ingredients, plus a recipe, plus suspicion, is not enough. As the State concedes, it presented no evidence that Woo ever possessed any methamphetamine related to the May 31, 2005, trafficking charge. Nor is there any evidence that Woo took any steps toward the manufacture of methamphetamine.
[¶ 34] Interestingly, the State’s evidence could not support a conviction for attempted trafficking in or manufacturing of methamphetamine pursuant to 17-A M.R.S. § 152 (2006). To secure a conviction for attempt, the State must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, both the intent to commit a particular crime and the defendant’s taking a “substantial step” toward committing that crime. State v. Long, 577 A.2d 765, 765-66 (Me.1990). A “substantial step” is “any conduct that goes beyond mere preparation and is strongly corroborative of the firmness of the actor’s intent to complete the commission of the crime.” 17-A M.R.S. § 152(1) (emphasis added).
[¶ 35] Here, evidence of intent to traffic or manufacture is completely lacking, and the evidence of a substantial step being taken toward trafficking in or manufacture of methamphetamine is completely lacking. At best, the State has shown some preparation to manufacture or traffic. But the attempt statute tells us that “mere preparation” to commit a crime is not enough to support a conviction for *21committing a crime or even for attempting to commit a crime.3
[¶ 36] What the State has here is possession of some of the goods used in manufacture, a recipe, and “mere suspicion” that Woo may have manufactured methamphetamine. Tai tells us that is not enough. I would vacate the conviction.

. Absent a conspiracy theory not at issue here. See 17-AM.R.S. § 151 (2006).