Court Opinion

ID: 9639521
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:21:44.010054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:19.532727
License: Public Domain

*161GLICKMAN, Associate Judge,
concurring in the result:
I write separately to explain why I conclude that, without the DEA chemist’s report, a rational jury could have had a reasonable doubt that appellant committed the lesser-included offense of attempting to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute it. The question is a close one, for even without the chemist’s report, there was quite strong evidence that appellant intended to exercise dominion and control over a secret cache of drugs for purposes of distribution. In brief, the police saw appellant retrieve a small item from a basement stairwell for a hurried hand-to-hand exchange on the street with a fleeting customer. When the police inspected the stairwell, they found 82 small zip-lock bags containing a white rock-like substance (plus five bags containing one pill each) concealed inside a gutter down spout. A police detective testified that, in his expert opinion, the quantity and packaging of the suspected drugs indicated that appellant held them for distribution rather than personal use. What the police witnessed had all the hallmarks of a typical street-level drug transaction, and to convict appellant of the lesser-included attempt offense, the government was not required to prove that the white rock substance actually was cocaine (or, indeed, that it was contraband of any kind).8
Nonetheless, the mens rea element of the attempt offense required the government to prove that appellant intended to possess a controlled substance for purposes of sale.9 With respect to that element, as we recognized in Fields, “the jury could well have had a doubt about the government’s case if the prosecution did not proffer the type of scientific evidence establishing the identity of the [putative drugs] that is commonly expected.”10 The government’s unexplained failure to prove that there was some type of controlled substance in the zip-lock bags seized by the police might have fueled a suspicion that appellant only possessed, and only intended to possess, fraudulent “burn bags” — bags containing a substance that appeared to be cocaine but that in reality was not contraband of any sort. This possibility might seem unduly speculative, but it was raised at trial, albeit obliquely, by the government’s own expert witness. The witness, a police detective, testified that the average cocaine user purchases no more than two or three zip-lock bags at a time in order to reduce the risk of buying “what we call burn bags.” All of the government’s admissible evidence, including the fact that appellant stored his merchandise in a hidden stash, was consistent with *162the “burn bag” hypothesis; to achieve verisimilitude, someone trying to defraud would-be buyers of cocaine would have every incentive to mimic the behavior of a dealer in the genuine article. At the close of trial, appellant’s counsel could have argued forcefully that the government had not met its high burden of proof as to appellant’s intent to possess a controlled substance when it had not even shown what the zip-lock bags contained.11 This might have been a difficult argument to counter, for the prosecutor would have been unable to rule out the “burn bag” hypothesis or to explain the conspicuous gap in the government’s proof. The unanswered questions might have loomed large in the jury’s deliberations.
It is for these reasons that I think a rational jury not privy to the DEA chemist’s report could have declined to find appellant guilty of attempted possession of a controlled substance. Hence I agree with my colleagues that the unconstitutional introduction of the chemist’s report was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the lesser-included offense.12

. See Fields v. United States, 952 A.2d 859, 864 (D.C.2008).

. Id. at 865.

. Id. at 867.

. I do not suggest, however, that appellant’s counsel would have been allowed to make a "missing witness” argument based on the DEA chemist's absence. For one thing, the chemist was available "more or less equally" to both sides. McPherson-Corder v. Chinkhota, 835 A.2d 1081, 1086 (D.C.2003) (explaining that argument for adverse inference from absence of witness at trial is appropriate only when witness is "peculiarly available” to the opposing party).

. See Fields, 952 A.2d at 862-64, 867.