Court Opinion

ID: 9733943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:21:02.376612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:44.657407
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in result.
The majority premises its holding upon a conclusion that the legislature "could not have intended" to exempt manufacture of methamphetamine for personal use. Slip op. at 5. Yet that is precisely what our General Assembly did in 1988 when it enacted the statute in question. The statute remained in that form for thirteen years until July 1, 2001, when the "offending" portion of the statute was deleted. The majority avoids the clear language of the statute by opining that the 2001 deletion was merely an expression of the intent of the legislature in drafting the statute in the first place.
We cannot avoid the legislature's obviously conscious choice of words in drafting the statute. As the State in its brief notes, (Appellee's Brief at 5) the term "manufacturing" is specifically and clearly defined as including "[the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, conversion, or processing...." Ind.Code § 85-48-1-18 (Burns Code Ed. Repl.1998). Thus to engage in "preparation or compounding" the controlled substance is to "manufacture" it. Id. Such activity is protected if done "for [the actor's] own use." Id.
Neither are we able to justify this conviction upon the rationale that Hatcher falls outside the protection of the "personal use" provision because he was involved in "production," "conversion," or "processing" as opposed to "preparation or compounding." Id. Although such argument might be superficially appealing, as noted by the *175State in its brief, the definition of "manufacture" which is the prohibited act, includes all of the above terms. We cannot therefore legitimately parse the definitional portion of the statute, picking and choosing to honor the use of certain words and to disregard others in order to fit the statute to our own sense of sound public policy.
The General Assembly is not constitutionally, or otherwise, prohibited from enacting extremely poor public policy into law. The legislature, in its eminent wisdom, is at liberty to do so, so long as neither the United States Constitution nor the Indiana Constitution is violated.
More than half a century ago in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 78-79, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477 (1986), Mr. Justice Stone, not insignificantly joined by Justices Brandeis and Cardozo, eloquently articulated the principle as follows:
"The “power of courts to declare a statute unconstitutional is subject to two guiding principle of decision which ought never to be absent from judicial consciousness. One is that courts are concerned only with the power to enact statutes, not with their wisdom. The other is that while unconstitutional exercise of power by the executive and legislative branches of the government is subject to judicial restraint, the only check upon our own exercise of power is our own sense of self-restraint. For the removal of unwise laws from the statute books appeal lies, not to the courts, but to the ballot and to the processes of democratic government."
Many times both previously and subsequently, the United States Supreme Court by majority decision has expressed the underlying premise.4 In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill 437 U.S. 153, 194-195, 98 S.Ct. 2279, 57 L.Ed.2d 117 (1978), it was stated thusly:
"Our individual appraisal of the wisdom or unwisdom of a particular course consciously selected by the Congress is to be put aside in the process of interpreting a statute. Once the meaning of an enactment is discerned and its constitutionality determined, the judicial process comes to an end. We do not sit as a committee of review, nor are we vested with the power of veto."
See also Vance v. Bradley 440 U.S. 93, 97, 99 S.Ct. 939, 59 L.Ed.2d 171 (1979).
Having found fault with the majority's analysis, I nevertheless concur in the affir-mance of the conviction. It seems clear to me that Hatcher's involvement with the methamphetamine was not done for personal use. During the period beginning sometime in November when Hatcher obtained the key to the basement and November 18, when the violation was discovered by police, some eighteen batches of methamphetamine had been prepared. The amount alone warrants the reasonable conclusion that the product was being manufactured for distribution, not merely for Hatcher's own use. Chandler v. State, 581 N.E.2d 1233 (Ind.1991); Montego v. State, 517 N.E.2d 74 (Ind.1987).
Because I base my vote for affirmance upon the amount of the controlled substance involved, I feel it appropriate to address Hatcher's argument that the trial court erred in not giving his tendered specific instruction concerning the "personal use" provision of the statute which would have advised the jury that it was the State's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the methamphetamine was *176not for his own use. The instruction was, in my view, a correct statement of the law. The court, therefore, could have appropriately ruled that Hatcher was entitled to an instruction upon his theory of defense. However, I conclude that the substance of Hatcher's theory was adequately covered by the instruction which was given and which enunciated the "personal use" proviso within the definition of the term "manufacture."
Finally, I feel obliged to address the issue of defendant's mistrial motion and the majority's resolution of that issue. I agree that the admonition to the jury cured any error with regard to an arguable discovery violation. However, I do not subscribe to the possible implication of Footnote 3 of the majority opinion to the extent that it suggests that no violation takes place if the matter, i.e. the content of the note, "is introduced through the testimony of a defendant's own witness." Op. at 174. Such implication would seem to be justified upon a theory akin to invited error. Yet the scenario in our case is not so easily dismissed. Hatcher's ex-wife, the witness in question, was indeed called as a witness for the defense. However, the injection of the contents of the note was brought about upon the State's cross examination of the witness. In this sense, rather than a case of invited error, it is more like a prejudicial evidentiary harpoon thrown by the prosecution. Were it not for the admonition given to the jury to ignore the testimony, my vote to affirm might have been different.
Subject to the above comments, I concur.

. For the myriad cases on point see Constitutional Law, West's Unitep Srates Supreme Court Digest § 70.3(4), at 276-78 (2001).