Court Opinion

ID: 9758819
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:49:18.043339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:56.463379
License: Public Domain

BERGER, Justice,
dissenting:
The majority holds that there was insufficient evidence to support a guilty verdict on the charges of trafficking in cocaine and conspiracy. The majority purports to review the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, and says that a rational jury could not have concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Jan exercised dominion and control over the powdered cocaine found in the walk-in closet. In summary, the majority finds that Jan was a user of pink crack cocaine who happened to be taking a “temporary rehabilitative sojourn” in her son’s home when the police busted her son’s drug operation.
The evidence certainly could lead a rational juror to conclude that Jan was, in effect, an innocent bystander who had no involvement in her son’s business. But the evidence also could support the conclusion that Jan was a cocaine dealer, and that, while recuperating at her son’s house, she was involved in his criminal enterprise. The police found evidence that someone had been cooking cocaine in the kitchen; they found Jan standing near the door of the closet where the powdered cocaine was stored; they found 8 bags of the finished product (pink crack cocaine), packaged for sale, in her sock; and she gave a false name when arrested. True, the police did not find food coloring, which drug dealers commonly add to cocaine, and which would help establish that the cocaine in Jan’s sock was cooked at her son’s house as part of their trafficking business. The majority says that, because the police did not find food coloring, a rational jury could not make the link between the powdered white cocaine in the closet and the cooked pink cocaine in Jan’s sock. I disagree. It would have been a stronger case if the police found red food coloring, but that piece of evidence was not crucial. There was evidence that people were cooking powdered cocaine on the kitchen stove. When cooked, powdered cocaine turns into crack cocaine, which typically is sold in small quantities, packaged in plastic baggies. Eight such baggies were found in Jan’s sock, and there was expert testimony that she was a dealer, not just a user. A reasonable jury could conclude from this evidence that Jan’s pink crack cocaine was the end product of this ongoing criminal operation and, therefore, that she constructively possessed the powdered cocaine found in the closet.24 Accordingly, I dissent.

. McNulty v. State, 655 A.2d 1214, 1217 (Del.1995).