State v. Wright

101 N.E.3d 496, 2017 Ohio 9041
CourtCourt of Appeals of Ohio, Fourth District, Lawrence County
DecidedNovember 22, 2017
DocketNo. 16CA24
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 101 N.E.3d 496 (State v. Wright) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Ohio, Fourth District, Lawrence County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Wright, 101 N.E.3d 496, 2017 Ohio 9041 (Ohio Super. Ct. 2017).

Opinion

Harsha, J.

*497{¶ 1} After a jury convicted John F. Wright of three drug offenses, the trial court sentenced him to prison. Wright raises six assignments of error but we address only the fifth one because that review renders the remaining errors moot.

{¶ 2} Wright asserts because the pills introduced into evidence were not properly tested, the trial court committed reversible error in denying his motion to exclude them as evidence. We agree. The state's expert witness, a forensic scientist, testified that he did not test a sample size large enough to determine the content of the remaining pills with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty. Thus, the remaining pills should have been excluded from evidence. We reverse the trial court's judgment and remand for a new trial.

I. FACTS

{¶ 3} In 2015, a Lawrence County Grand Jury indicted Wright on one count of complicity to aggravated trafficking in drugs in violation of R.C. 2923.03(A)(2) and R.C. 2925.03(A)(1)(C)(1)(d), a second degree felony; one count of trafficking in drugs in violation of R.C. 2925.03(A)(2)(C)(1)(c), a third degree felony; and one count of possession of drugs in violation of R.C. 2925.11(A)(C)(1)(b), a third degree felony.1

{¶ 4} At trial the state presented three law enforcement officers who testified about a controlled drug buy where a confidential informant used marked money to purchase oxycodone, a schedule II controlled substance, from Wright. The confidential informant and a woman who assisted Wright during the drug buy also testified about their roles.

{¶ 5} Laura Miller, a grocery store pharmacist, testified that Wright had a prescription for oxycodone and that the prescription drug bottle recovered from Wright after the controlled drug buy was one that she filled. Miller testified that the oxycodone tablets she had provided were 15 mg, green, round, and marked "K8". Miller testified that if the pills in the prescription bottle were marked "A214" instead of "K8", then they would not be the oxycodone pills she used to fill Wright's prescription.

{¶ 6} Stanton Wheasler, a forensic scientist with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation ("BCI"), testified that he tested the pills and prepared a written report. Wheasler indicated that the evidence consisted of a prescription bottle of 98 pills marked "A214" and a plastic bag containing 95 pills with five different markings: (1) 63 pills marked "M30"; (2) 21 pills marked "A215"; (3) 1 pill marked "224"; (4) 7 pills marked "K8"; (5) 3 pills marked "A214". Wheasler tested six pills in total, one pill from each differently marked group. Wheasler testified that for marked pharmaceuticals, his standard protocol is to test one pill per marked group. Each of the six pills he tested contained oxycodone. Wright testified that after testing one of *498each marked group of the 95 pills and finding it contained oxycodone, it would be reasonable to infer that the remaining pills in the group also contained oxycodone. However, Wheasler did not testify that he personally made this inference or that he made this inference with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty:

Q. And that's the total of ninety five. And is it your opinion based upon testing one of each that these ninety five pills contained oxycodone?
A. It's my opinion that the five I tested contained oxycodone.
Q. Go ahead.
A. It would be a reasonable inference that um, the remaining ones did as well.

{¶ 7} Wheasler testified that when he tested one of the 98 pills marked "A214" that were in the prescription drug bottle, it contained oxycodone. The state asked him about the inference that could be drawn from that test:

A. That is [sic] was 98 round green tablets marked A214. Which had a reference strength of 15 milligrams of which I tested one. Weighing .10 gram plus or minus 1.04 gram. It was found to contain oxycodone.
Q. And can that lead you to by inference by a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that, all ninety eight were oxycodone's [sic]?
A. That would be in the inference that could be made, yes.

{¶ 8} Although Wheasler stated that an inference about the remaining 97 pills could be made, he clarified that he did not make that inference because he did not test a sufficient number of pills to be able to make the inference with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty.

{¶ 9} In response to questioning from the trial judge, Wheasler testified that he has a reasonable degree of scientific certainty that the six pills he tested were oxycodone, and that it would be unlikely that the remaining pills were not oxycodone. Wheasler testified that he would need to sample a larger population of the pills to make an inference with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty about the remaining untested pills:

A. * * * in order for me to make an inference about a population, the rule in my laboratory is that I have to test a um, statistically back sampling plan of that population, which means I have to test, um, for example in the case of, um, sixty three tablets I'd probably be testing somewhere around twenty of them. * * * and that would be for anything. That would be for demos of heroin, that would be for bags of marijuana. That would be the number I'd have to test to be allowed to infer um, about the entire population. Um, here all I can say is that the one's I tested had oxycodone in them. And they were stored with tablets that were visually identical to me.
COURT: To a degree of scientific certainty?
A. I don't know if I am allowed to have scientific certainty about simply visual examination.
COURT: Alright, that's not something you express an opinion in that form?
A. Yes.

{¶ 10} On re-direct and re-cross, Wheasler explained that the accrediting body imposed requirements on inference populations. When he tests a single pill from a population of marked pills, he cannot use the reasonable degree of scientific certainty standard on the entire population of pills. In order to give an opinion within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, he would have to test a larger sample to establish a confidence interval. Wheasler testified that for the 63 pills marked *499"M30", he would need to test approximately 20 pills using "the hypergeometric function" to establish a 95% confidence level that at least 90 percent of the pills in the sample are oxycodone.

{¶ 11} Wheasler's lab report states, "Hypergeometric sampling may be specified in the findings above. The application of hypergeometric sampling establishes a ninety-five percent (95) confidence level that at least ninety percent (90) of the units in the sample are as reported." Wheasler's report was consistent with Wheasler's testimony that only six pills were tested and found to contain oxycodone, three pills with a referenced strength of 30 mg and three pills with a referenced strength of 15 mg. Thus, Wheasler's report identified a total 135 mg of oxycodone.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
101 N.E.3d 496, 2017 Ohio 9041, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wright-ohctapp4lawrenc-2017.