State v. Brown, 48478
| Decision Date | 18 December 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 48478,48478 |
| Citation | 683 S.W.2d 301 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Troy BROWN, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Debra Buie Arnold, Public Defender, St. Louis, for appellant.
John Ashcroft, Atty. Gen., Kristie Lynne Green, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Defendant appeals his jury conviction and court-imposed five month sentence as a prior offender for possession of dextroamphetamine, a Schedule II controlled substance. We reverse.
The state's evidence consisted of a container of pills, the testimony of two police officers, and the testimony of a criminalist who identified the substance in the pills.
The police officers testified as follows:
Shortly before noon on June 13, 1983, the two officers were on duty together and stopped a vehicle driven by defendant because the windshield was cracked, in violation of a city ordinance. As defendant curbed his vehicle, the officers saw him "leaning over on the passenger side as if to retrieve something or place something on the floor." The officers became suspicious and ordered defendant to step from the car, which defendant did. One of the officers then asked permission to search the car, and defendant readily agreed. Upon entering the car, the officer observed an open plastic bottle in a tray which sat on the "hump" of the floorboard between the driver's side and the passenger side. In the bottle were several small green pills. The officer also found a small foil package with burn marks on it lying on the floor of the passenger side of the car. The officer seized the items and gave defendant his rights. When asked about the pills, defendant responded, "Those aren't mine, I didn't even know they were there, they might be my sister's diet pills." Defendant also told the officers that the car was registered to him. However, a computer check revealed that the car was registered to defendant's sister. The officers took defendant and the seized items to the police station. The foil package was found to contain incense and no controlled substance. The pills were found to contain a Schedule II controlled substance, dextroamphetamine.
Defendant did not testify. The first defense witness was his sister, Annette Brown, to whom the car was registered. She testified that in 1979 or 1980, she moved from an apartment where she lived with her step-sister, Dorothy King. In the move, she inadvertently took the step-sister's diet pills with her. Upon discovering the diet pills at her new home, she put them in her car, intending to return them. At that time, the pills were in the same container that was seized by the officers, but the lid was on. Annette Brown further testified that she loaned her car to defendant on June 13, 1983.
Defendant's next witness was his step-sister, Dorothy King. She testified that the pills had been prescribed to her at the Malay Clinic for weight loss. She stopped taking them in 1979 because she had changed doctors, and she left them in her medicine cabinet. She further testified that some time after Annette Brown moved out, Annette Brown called and said she had taken the pills, had put them in her car, and would return them. King told Brown there was no need to hurry. The pills were not returned.
On appeal, defendant claims the state failed to make a submissible case because the evidence was insufficient to prove that defendant knowingly and intentionally possessed the controlled substance. In reviewing the record, we accept as true all evidence which tends to prove defendant guilty, along with any reasonable inferences which are supportive of the verdict. State v. Kerfoot, 675 S.W.2d 658 (Mo.App.1984).
To sustain a conviction for possession of a controlled substance, the state must prove that defendant had...
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