Court Opinion

ID: 9532294
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:20:03.811836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:43.596711
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion
White, J.
For the reasons stated in my dissenting statement in Butler v. State (1972), 154 Ind. 361, 289 N.E.2d 772, I must also dissent here. While the majority opinion glosses over the hiatus from the property room to the chemist whose testimony was crucial, it does acknowledge want of evidence as to who delivered the envelope to him.
If the crime with which defendant was charged had been possession of a brown envelope there would be no question, but as Mr. Justice Hunter said in the leading heroin ehain-ofcustody case, “The fact that the chewing gum wrapper [in which the “buy” in that case was wrapped] was identifiable as that acquired from appellant at the drugstore cannot cure the defective evidentiary chain of custody which preceded the laboratory experiments.” Graham v. State (1970), 253 Ind. 525, 532, 255 N.E.2d 652, 655, 20 Ind. Dec. 343, 348.
Note. — Reported at 289 N.E.2d 763.