In State v. Huerta, the court of appeals recently reaffirmed its controlled substance “combination decisions.” Here’s what happened. Huerta was convicted of, among other things, trafficking by possession of more than 400 grams of cocaine. During a search of Huerta’s house, officers found three caches of what turned out to be cocaine: (1) one kilogram-sized brick of white powder, (2) a plastic bag containing ten individually wrapped packets of white powder, and (3) a grocery bag containing two large plastic ziplock bags, each with twelve individual packages of white powder. Because the officers wanted to have the packaging material tested for fingerprints, they separated the substance in the packages from the packaging. Specifically, they emptied the ten individual packets in the second cache into one bag and emptied the contents of the packages in the third cache into another bag. They then sent the three bags to the SBI for testing. After receiving the bags, an agent weighed them and performed initial chemical testing on the material in each. The powder in each bag responded consistently to the chemical reagent. The agent then combined the material in the three bags for further testing. At trial the agent explained that if evidence is collected from the same location, packaged in the same manner, appears the same, and gives the same preliminary test, it is combined for analysis to confirm its identity. In this case, that analysis consisted of an infrared spectrophotometer test, which showed the material to be cocaine hydrochloride. The combined [...]
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