Wood v. State, 60152
| Decision Date | 11 December 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 60152,60152 |
| Citation | 275 S.E.2d 694,156 Ga.App. 810 |
| Parties | WOOD v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Guy B. Scott, Jr., Athens, for appellant.
Harry N. Gordon, Dist. Atty., B. Thomas Cook, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Margaret Wood was convicted for violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. We reverse.
The testimony adduced at trial showed that appellant was employed as a registered nurse at a Clarke County hospital. Part of her duties included dispensing controlled drugs between the hours of 3:00 p. m. and 11:00 p. m. to patients located on the hospital's fifth floor. On April 23, 1979 several syringes located on the fifth floor and containing the narcotic pethidine (commonly known as Demerol) were discovered to have been tampered with. A diagnostic report showed that the pethidine in the syringe units had been removed and replaced with another solution to give the appearance of normalcy.
Pethidine is a Schedule II drug, which is the category containing the most addictive of the legally dispensable drugs. See Code §§ 79A-805(2) and 79A-807. Therefore, the hospital maintains strict control over its use and supply. The hospital stock of pethidine is kept in a locked "closet" in the hospital's pharmacy. However, supplies of the drug are kept on each floor of the hospital in one or more medication carts at each nursing unit. Pethidine is kept with other narcotics in a locked drawer on the top of each cart. Each nurse on duty has a key to the narcotics drawer of the cart or carts located on the floor she is working. These drugs are audited at each nursing unit every eight hours at the change of shifts. The nurses also keep a record of the particular doses given to patients and when those doses are administered.
In an effort to isolate the problem with the pethidine, the normal procedure for handling drugs on the hospital's fifth floor was altered for April 27, 1979. Instead of several nurses having keys to the two medication carts, only the nurse in charge of the shift had keys to the carts; the extra keys were impounded. Around 3:00 p. m. that afternoon, the fifth floor head nurse and a staff pharmacist opened the medication carts with a master key, counted the narcotics therein and also examined them to determine whether any of the syringes had been tampered with. Everything was found to have been in order and they remained near the carts until the off-going and on-coming nurses had conducted their audit. The off-going nurse gave the keys to appellant who was the on-coming nurse in charge of the evening shift. Appellant was instructed to allow no one other than herself access to the narcotics.
The head nurse and staff pharmacist returned to the fifth floor around 11:00 p. m. and, again using the master key, counted the narcotics in the medication carts. They discovered four syringes of pethidine had been tampered with; all other narcotics were accounted for during this audit. A later analysis of these four syringes revealed that the pethidine had been removed and replaced with what appeared to be water.
After the adulterated pethidine had been discovered, appellant was told that there was a problem and instructed not to leave. At a meeting held shortly thereafter, the hospital administrator asked that everyone involved write a statement. Appellant was too upset to make a statement although she responded in the negative when asked if she had seen anything unusual around the carts or if she had left the carts unlocked or if anyone else had given the medicine. At trial appellant offered no evidence in her own behalf.
1. In both her motion for a directed verdict and motion for new trial, appellant asserts that there was insufficient circumstantial evidence to warrant her conviction since the evidence did not exclude "every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused." Code § 38-109. She argues that any number of persons could have tampered with the narcotics (a) by duplicating the keys to the narcotics trays, (b) by finding a key that might have been lost or (c) by obtaining one of the master keys or extra keys.
The correct rule for determining the sufficiency of the evidence in convictions based entirely on circumstantial evidence was enunciated by this court in Smith v. State, 56 Ga.App. 384, 192 S.E. 647 (1937): ...
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