People v. Mooring

223 Cal. Rptr. 3d 616, 15 Cal. App. 5th 928, 2017 WL 4783819, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 856
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal, 5th District
DecidedSeptember 27, 2017
DocketA143470
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 223 Cal. Rptr. 3d 616 (People v. Mooring) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal, 5th District primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Mooring, 223 Cal. Rptr. 3d 616, 15 Cal. App. 5th 928, 2017 WL 4783819, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 856 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

Jones, P. J.

*932In 2011, law enforcement officers searched the home of Lanita Denise Davis and Darrell James Mooring, (Mooring, Sr.) and found over 4,000 prescription pills, many of which were in prescription pill bottles. Davis and Mooring Sr.'s names were on some pill bottle labels; other labels bore the name of their son, Darrell Ellis Mooring Jr. (Darrell). Using Ident-A-Drug, a subscription-based, login-controlled Web site, the prosecution's criminalist presumptively identified the pills as various controlled substances.

A jury convicted Davis and Darrell (collectively, defendants) of five counts of possessing a controlled substance for sale ( Health & Saf. Code, § 11351 (dihydrocodeinone/Vicodin, codeine, morphine, methadone, and oxycodone))1 and one count of possessing a designated controlled substance for sale (§ 11375, subd. (b)(1) (diazepam)). The court placed Davis on probation, with the condition she spend two years in jail. The trial court found Darrell's prior convictions true, denied his motion to strike those convictions ( People v. Superior Court (Romero ) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497, 53 Cal.Rptr.2d 789, 917 P.2d 628 ( Romero )), and sentenced him to 10 years in state prison.

Defendants appeal, and join each other's briefs. They contend: (1) the court erred by admitting statements Davis made to police in 2003; (2) the criminalist's testimony regarding the content of the Ident-A-Drug Web site was inadmissible hearsay, and its admission violated state hearsay law and their confrontation rights under the Sixth Amendment to the federal constitution; and (3) the prosecution failed to prove they possessed the controlled substances. Darrell claims the court erred by imposing an enhancement for a prior drug-related conviction (§ 11370.2, subd. (a)), and by denying his Romero motion.

We conclude the Ident-A-Drug Web site comes within the published compilation exception to the hearsay rule set forth in Evidence Code section 1340, and that defendants' confrontation clause claim fails *620because the challenged hearsay is not testimonial. We agree with defendants that the prosecution did not establish dihydrocodeinone/Vicodin is a controlled substance under sections 11055 or 11056 and, as a result, defendants' conviction for possessing a controlled substance for sale ( § 11351 (Count One)) must be reversed and the cause remanded for resentencing. In all other respects, we affirm. *933FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

An indictment charged defendants with possessing dihydrocodeinone, a controlled substance, for sale ( § 11351 (Count One)); possessing diazepam, a designated controlled substance, for sale (§ 11375, subd. (b)(1) (Count Two)); possessing codeine, a controlled substance, for sale ( § 11351 (Count Three)); possessing morphine, a controlled substance, for sale ( § 11351 (Count Four)); possessing methadone, a controlled substance, for sale ( § 11351 (Count Five)); and possessing oxycodone, a controlled substance, for sale ( § 11351 (Count Six)). The indictment alleged sentencing enhancements for Darrell's two prior drug-related convictions (§ 11370.2, subd. (a)), and his prior serious felony conviction ( Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b) - (i), 1170.12 ).

Prosecution Evidence

In January 2011, Richmond Police Sergeant Eduardo Soto was assigned to the narcotics unit. He had significant experience investigating suspected narcotics sales. As Soto was preparing to execute a search warrant at Davis and Mooring Sr.'s house, he saw a woman park her car outside the house. She went inside the house for a minute, came back outside, and drove away. Later, another person parked outside the house, went inside, came out about a minute later, and left. Soto believed narcotics were being sold in the house.

Law enforcement officers knocked on the front door of the house and Mooring, Sr. answered. Inside the house, officers found mail belonging to "Darrell Mooring" and Davis. They also found over 4,000 prescription pills. Some pills were in prescription pill bottles with labels bearing the names "Lanita Davis," "Darrell Mooring," "Darrell Mooring, Sr." and "Darrell Mooring, Jr."2 Other pill bottles had no label. In the master bedroom, officers found between 35 and 40 prescription pill bottles. Some bottles contained pills; others were empty. Officers also found a police scanner.

Darrell arrived while the officers searched the house. The officers gave Darrell a property receipt for the seized items. Later that day, Darrell came to the police station and asked for "his pills ... that [had been] taken" from the residence. When the police officer refused to return the pills, Darrell became angry.

A. Expert Testimony

Shana Meldrum, a criminalist at the Contra Costa Sheriff's Crime Lab (crime lab) testified as an expert in presumptive identification of prescription *934pills. She had 10 years of experience as a criminalist, and over 400 hours of training in analyzing and identifying suspected controlled substances. Meldrum received training on the references the crime lab uses to presumptively identify prescription pills. The crime lab uses a reference-the Ident-A-Drug *621Web site-to presumptively identify pharmaceutical pills. The Web site contains information about, and images of, pharmaceutical pills derived from the FDA and pharmaceutical pill manufacturers.3 The crime lab pays a subscription fee to access Ident-A-Drug, and the Web site is login-controlled.

To presumptively identify a prescription pill, the crime lab compares the pill's "individual characteristics"-its color, shape, and markings-to images on Ident-A-Drug. Meldrum explained: "I type the markings on the pill into the website and it gives me either one match or a list of possible matches that the pill may be. And based on the color and the shape and the imprints on the pill, I make a determination as to whether or not to report that out as a presumptive identification." This method is generally accepted in the scientific community, and has been reviewed by the crime lab's accrediting board.4 Meldrum has presumptively identified prescription pills using Ident-A-Drug over 2,000 times.

Meldrum compared the markings, imprints, coloring, and shapes of the prescription pills seized from the residence to the information on Ident-A-Drug. Meldrum presumptively identified the pills as follows: (1) 1,930 dihydrocodeinone (or Vicodin ), a controlled substance;5 (2) 573 oxycodone, a controlled substance; (3) 132 diazepam, a controlled substance; (4) 785 methadone, a controlled substance; (5) 242 morphine, a controlled substance; and (6) 113 codeine, a controlled substance.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
223 Cal. Rptr. 3d 616, 15 Cal. App. 5th 928, 2017 WL 4783819, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 856, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-mooring-calctapp5d-2017.