State v. Jackson, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2021-NCCOA-144 (Apr. 20, 2021)

In this Buncombe County case, the defendant was convicted of possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine. The defendant sold two white rocks to an undercover officer in a parking lot. When the defendant gave the drugs to the officer, he placed them in the officer’s bare hands without any packaging. The rocks were later tested and found to contain cocaine. (1) At trial, the defendant moved to dismiss for insufficient evidence. He pointed out that the officer had handled other cocaine with his bare hands earlier in the day and had stored other cocaine in his car console where the cocaine obtained from the defendant was later stored. According to the defendant, this rendered the laboratory result unreliable and insufficient to prove possession of cocaine. The court rejected this argument, finding the handling and storing of the rocks was an issue going to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. While the jury was free to consider the contamination argument, there was sufficient evidence that the substance was cocaine when viewed in the light most favorable to the State.

(2) The defendant did not object to the authentication of the cocaine at trial but argued on appeal that the trial court plainly erred in admitting the evidence due to the potential contamination issue. The court again disagreed. “The possibility that physical evidence has been contaminated does not, by itself, bar that evidence from being authenticated and admitted.” Slip op. at 6. Just as with the sufficiency issue, the question of the authentication of the cocaine here went to the weight of the evidence and not admissibility.

(3) After one day of deliberations, the jury sent a note to the trial court indicating it was deadlocked. The trial court instructed the jury pursuant to G.S. 15A-1235 before dismissing the jury for the day. The next morning, the trial judge stated that the jury should resume deliberations “with a goal of reaching a unanimous decision as to each charge.” The defendant complained that this language improperly coerced the jury to render a unanimous verdict. The court disagreed:

The trial court properly gave the required Allen instructions to ensure that jurors understood they were not compelled to reach a unanimous verdict. In light of those instructions, the trial court’s decision, when deliberations resumed, to inform the jury that they should have the goal of reaching a unanimous verdict did not compel any juror to surrender his well-founded convictions or judgment to the views of the majority. It simply reinforced that the jury’s charge was to deliberate and reach a unanimous verdict if possible. Jackson Slip op. at 9.

The case was therefore affirmed in all respects.