Byers v. State
| Decision Date | 23 January 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. CA,CA |
| Citation | 267 Ark. 1097,594 S.W.2d 252 |
| Parties | John BYERS, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee. CR79-103. |
| Court | Arkansas Court of Appeals |
William H. Craig, Little Rock, for appellant.
Steve Clark, Atty. Gen. by Robert J. DeGostin, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.
In the early morning hours of January 4, 1977, Detectives Hardester and Moomey of the Little Rock Police Department vice squad arrested appellant and transported him to the Little Rock Police Department Detention Center. While conducting a "strip search" of appellant, the detectives found three foil packets which were seized and stored.
Officer Moomey ran a field test on one of the packets and the test result was positive for cocaine. Moomey, without opening all the packets, assumed the others also contained cocaine. He turned all three packets over to Officer Sylvester of the Narcotics Division, telling him that they were three packets of cocaine. Sylvester opened one of the packets, observed a white powdery substance, and assuming that all three packets contained cocaine, logged them in and stored them in the narcotic safe. Appellant had been jailed on a charge of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver.
The three packets were subsequently taken to the crime lab of the State Health Department for analysis. Michael S. Keller, a chemist there, tested the substances in the three foil packets, and found that two of them contained white powder which tested positive for cocaine. The third packet, which was smaller, contained a brown powder and tested positively for heroin.
When the lab report was received on or about February 2, 1977, appellant was arrested and charged with possession of heroin. The cocaine charges were not pursued.
On trial for the heroin charge, appellant admitted that he knowingly possessed the two packets of cocaine, but denied having the heroin in question.
The trial court denied appellant's motion to suppress introduction of the brown powder, and it was admitted into evidence. A jury found the appellant guilty of possession of heroin, and fixed his punishment at two years imprisonment. Judgment was entered on the verdict, and appellant has appealed.
Appellant first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the brown powder, found to be heroin, and in admitting into evidence the foil packet containing the brown substance.
The record shows that Officer Moomey seized three tinfoil packets from appellant. Moomey field tested one of the packets and that showed a positive reaction for cocaine. At least one of the remaining packets was never opened by Moomey. Based on his field test of the one packet, the initial arrest report was filled out to the effect that "three (3) tinfoil packets of a white powdery substance believed to be cocaine" were seized from appellant. One of the packets subsequently turned out to contain brown powder which was heroin. Appellant claims he and his attorney were led to believe, from the information provided through discovery, that the officers had seized only white powder from appellant's person; and that, according to the officers' own reports, it had been tested and found to be cocaine. In response to appellant's motion for discovery, the state provided copies of all documents it had including the chemist's report. This report clearly indicated that only two packets contained white powder (cocaine), and the third contained brown powder found to be heroin. It seems inconceivable that appellant or his counsel could have been misled in any way because they were furnished with a copy of the lab report. Here the officers seized the heroin in question, but it was not identified as heroin until a chemical analysis was run on the substance at the lab by a chemist. Appellant has offered no authority for the proposition that officers must correctly identify drugs at the time they are seized. Certainly officers are not prevented from lodging a control substance offense if they are mistaken in their initial identification of the substance. Officers on the street are not required to be expert chemists. ...
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