Court Opinion

ID: 9837025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:16:03.287991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.852206
License: Public Domain

COX, Chief Judge
(dissenting in part and concurring in the result):
I respectfully disagree that the military judge erred in giving the “deliberate avoidance” instruction in this case. Appellant acknowledged the ingestion of a substance that was designed to keep him awake. The only question was whether or not he knew the substance was a controlled one that could not lawfully be ingested without a proper prescription. Accepting the expert testimony in a light most favorable to the Government, appellant consumed methamphetamine/amphetamine within 24 hours of the test. Appellant also admitted that the consumption of the substance 4 days earlier made his hands shake, made him feel “peppy,” and made it difficult for him to sleep the following morning. He further admitted that he received at least two pills from his friend’s acquaintance.
Under these circumstances, a rational finder of fact could conclude that appellant ingested one of the pills on the night he received them and the other shortly before the urinalysis. In such a situation, even if we give appellant the benefit of the evidence and determine that he was justifiably ignorant of the nature of the drug on the night he received the pills, his failure to ascertain the true nature of the drug before he took the second pill was willful, deliberate, and reckless. The instruction was proper under this scenario.
Of course, the finders of fact in this case were perfectly free to disbelieve appellant’s testimony and evidence, and to conclude that appellant willfully and knowingly ingested a controlled substance known to contain properties to keep one awake, the exact properties of methamphetamine. See 1997 Methamphetamine Control Strategy of Arizona (“Meth is an equal opportunity destroyer”)(visited Mar. 5, 1999) <http://www.anti-meth.com/about_ineth.htm>.