State v. Starr

664 P.2d 893, 204 Mont. 210, 1983 Mont. LEXIS 702
CourtMontana Supreme Court
DecidedMay 31, 1983
Docket82-124
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 664 P.2d 893 (State v. Starr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Montana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Starr, 664 P.2d 893, 204 Mont. 210, 1983 Mont. LEXIS 702 (Mo. 1983).

Opinions

MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY

delivered the opinion of the [213]*213Court.

Aaron Starr was convicted upon jury trial in the District Court, Thirteenth Judicial District, Yellowstone County, Montana, on one count of felony sale of dangerous drugs, and one count of felony attempt (theft). He was sentenced to 15 years at the Montana State Prison, with the last 7 Vz years suspended.

We reverse his conviction for felony sale of dangerous drugs and dismiss that count against him; we affirm his conviction for felony attempt (theft). We remand the cause to the District Court for resentencing on his conviction of felony attempt (theft).

I.

THE CONVICTION FOR SALE OF DANGEROUS DRUGS

Starr, sometimes known as Frank Wetch, accompanied by a man named Russell, met with Howard Pederson (an undercover agent employed by the Yellowstone County Criminal Investigation Division) on September 13,1981. Starr offered to sell Pederson one pound of “cocaine for $30,000.” Pederson declined saying he was only interested in purchasing 11 pounds of cocaine. However, Pederson performed two “field tests” on the substance offered. The first test was negative, the second test was positive. A positive test does not necessarily indicate that the substance is cocaine, since the results can be positive for several substances, including lidocaine, a prescription drug, not defined as a dangerous drug under section 50-32-101, MCA. Pederson told Starr that he was not interested in purchasing the substance on that date, but stated he would buy 5 kilos on a subsequent date. Starr and his wife testified that the substance offered for sale on September 13, 1981, was in fact lidocaine and not cocaine.

The grounds on which we reverse Starr’s conviction for [214]*214felony criminal sale of dangerous drugs (the offer to sell of September 13, 1981) are that the evidence is not sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain his conviction under the statute defining the offense, and that error occurred in the instructions.

Section 45-9-101, MCA, provides in part:

“(1) A person commits the offense of criminal sale of dangerous drugs if he . . . offers to sell. . . any dangerous drug as defined in 50-32-101.”

To sustain the conviction of Starr on an offense under this statute, the State was required to prove that (1) Starr (2) offered to sell (3) a defined dangerous drug. The statute, in its form at the time of this alleged offense, does not include the offer of sale of a look-alike drug such as lidocaine.

The State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the crime charged. State v. Hamilton (1980), Mont., 605 P.2d 1121, 37 St.Rep. 70.

Under the testimony of the chemist for the state crime laboratory, a witness produced by the State, it is clear that the field tests used by Pederson on September 13, 1981, to test the substance that was being offered for sale, would yield a positive blue color, whether the substance was cocaine or lidocaine:

“Q. Now lidocaine obviously gives a positive blue color in a field test kit, doesn’t it? A. Yes.
“Q. Are you familiar with the quality or brightness of blue the lidocaine would show as compared with cocaine? A. Yes.
“Q. And will you give us that? A. The experience I have is that cocaine will give a brighter blue, but a fairly strong concentration of lidocaine will give about the same precipitate as a weaker concentration of cocaine, so there is no real way by looking at the test that you can tell for sure what’s there or what concentration.” Tr. at 148-149.

Other than the field tests, there was no proof offered by the State as to the nature of the substance that Starr was offering for sale on September 13,1981. Such lack of proof as to the exact nature of the substance offered by Starr difieren[215]*215tiates this case from State v. Dunn (1970), 155 Mont. 319, 332, 472 P.2d 288. In Dunn, although the State was not able to produce the substance sold by the defendant Dunn because his two recipients had swallowed the substance, their testimony as to the effect of the drugs on them and their hallucinations for a considerable period of time thereafter sufficed to prove that the substance which the defendant had sold or offered to sell was actually LSD.

In this case, the State produced circumstantial evidence through the field tests administered by Pederson that the substance offered may have been cocaine; its subsequent evidence indicates also that the substance may have been lidocaine. The rule in Montana is that to justify a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the facts and circumstances must not only be entirely consistent with the theory of guilt, but must be inconsistent with any other rational theory. State v. Stoddard (1966), 147 Mont. 402, 412 P.2d 827.

We therefore hold that the evidence is not sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain Starr’s conviction on the offer to sell dangerous drugs.

Starr also relies in this appeal on error in the instructions regarding the charge of the criminal sale of dangerous drugs.

In pertinent part, the District Court instructed the jury:

“Instruction no. 10:
“A person commits the offense of criminal sale of dangerous drugs if he sells, barters, exchanges, gives away, or offers to sell, barter, exchange, or give away, or manufactures, prepares, cultivates, compounds or processes any dangerous drug as defined by law.
“To convict the defendant of the crime of Criminal Sale of Dangerous Drugs, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant sold a dangerous drug as defined by law, or that the defendant sold what he believed to be a dangerous drug . . . (Emphasis added.)
[216]*216“Instruction no. 12:
“If you find that the defendant offered for sale or sold what he believed to be a dangerous drug, you must find him guilty regardless of whether or not the substance was in fact a dangerous drug. (Emphasis added.)
“Instruction no. 17:
“A dangerous drug, as defined by the Montana Code Annotated, does not include Lidocaine.”

In instruction no. 9, the court instructed the jury with respect to each of the four counts with which Starr was originally charged, that “the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that each element of each offense was committed or perpetrated purposely or knowingly by the defendant as a voluntary act.”

In the same instruction, instruction no. 9, the court defined the terms “purposely” and “knowingly,” in the language of the respective statutes defining the same. Section 45-2-101(58), MCA [purposely]; section 45-2-101(33), MCA [knowingly].

The defendant offered his proposed instructions no. 20 and 22 as follows:

“Defendant’s proposed instruction no. 20:

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State v. Starr
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Bluebook (online)
664 P.2d 893, 204 Mont. 210, 1983 Mont. LEXIS 702, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-starr-mont-1983.