Poole v. State
| Decision Date | 11 March 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 47747,47747 |
| Citation | 291 So.2d 723 |
| Parties | Jim POOLE v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Albert S. Johnston, Pascagoula, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen., by Karen Gilfoy, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Jim Poole was convicted in the Circuit Court of Jackson County of selling lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary.
Defendant sold one tablet of LSD to an agent of the Bureau of Narcotics. The agent took the tablet to the Mississippi State Crime Laboratory where it was scientifically tested and determined to be LSD. Miss Harriet Pfaffman, who made the original examination of one-half of the tablet on July 28, 1972, about six days after the tablet was sold to the agent, thereafter consulted with Dr. Arthur S. Hume, the Director of the Crime Laboratory. Dr. Hume suggested that Miss Pfaffman use the remainder of the tablet for analysis, because they 'judged it necessary to analyze the other half for any other drugs, such as mescaline or drugs that are quite frequently found mixed with LSD.' There was no proof that the remaining half of the tablet was consumed in the laboratory analysis in order to deprive the defendant of the opportunity to have his own chemist examine the evidence. At the time of the examination of the evidence, the defendant had not been arrested and charged with selling LSD.
The defendant was arrested some months after the completion of the laboratory examination of the tablet in question, and upon being indicted, he moved the court to direct the state to furnish him sufficient quantities of the substance alleged to be LSD for the purpose of making an independent chemical analysis of the tablet. Since the entire tablet had been consumed in the laboratory test and there could be no compliance with defendant's motion, he moved the court for a dismissal.
The sole question is whether the trial court erred in not granting the dismissal because the entire tablet had been consumed in the process of the state's analysis. The stated question has several points of inquiry.
Any controlled substance seized under the authority of this article or any other law of Mississippi or of the United States, may be destroyed, adulterated and disposed of or otherwise rendered harmless and disposed of, upon written authorization of, and in the discretion of the director, after such substance has served its usefulness as evidence or after such substance is no longer useful for training or demonstration purposes.
Defendant argues that the LSD was destroyed before it served its usefulness as evidence, i.e., before defendant could have it analyzed for his own evidentiary purposes.
We find no merit in this argument. The purpose of this statute was to authorize the state to destroy drugs intentionally after such substances were no longer needed for evidence. There is no indication that the statute should be construed so as to prohibit the exhaustion of the substance during chemical analysis. The statute is concerned with a procedure for destroying a substance known to be a dangerous drug, not with the process of determining whether a substance is a dangerous drug.
We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution. 373 U.S. at 87, 83 S.Ct. at 1196, 10 L.Ed.2d at 218.
This case is not applicable for several reasons. First, no indication exists that the evidence was favorable to the accused. Secondly, there is no intimation in this record of any 'suppression by the prosecution.' At the pre-trial hearing, the prosecution presented the defense with a letter from the Mississippi Crime Laboratory informing the defendant that no part of the substance remained, since the tablet had been consumed in analysis. The testimony of Harriet Pfaffman, the toxicologist for the Crime Laboratory, and Dr. Arthur Hume, the director, indicates there was no effort on their part to suppress intentionally the evidence from the defendant. Brady is inapplicable to this case.
3. Defendant argues that due process required the state to make the substance available to him for inspection and analysis. Since the state's own act exhausted the substance claimed to be contraband, the evidence should be suppressed. He relies on Jackson v. State, 243 So.2d 396 (Miss.170), which held that in cases of 'possession or sale of a prohibited substance where the outcome of the case is dependent upon its identification as contraband,' due process requires making the substance available to the defendant for inspection and analysis.
Jackson applies where the state has some of the substance. The narrow question before the Court is whether the case against defendant should be dismissed when the state is unable to make the substance available to defendant because it was consumed in the process of analysis.
The testimony shows that it was reasonably...
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