Danielle Hingle v. State of Mississippi, 2014 Miss. LEXIS 500

June 21, 2011 undercover buy: confidential informant Billy Wheater received pills from Danielle Hingle at a Sonic; deputy Herring observed and later transferred pills to Agent Coleman, who bagged and sealed them.
Pills were submitted to Mississippi Crime Laboratory; analyst Bob Reed performed testing and concluded the pills contained morphine.
Gary Fernandez, a crime-lab analyst, reviewed Reed’s report line-by-line, signed as the technical/administrative reviewer, and testified at trial that he independently concluded the pills contained morphine; Reed did not testify.
Hingle’s defense was that Wheater staged the sale; she denied selling drugs and suggested Wheater could have introduced the pills later.
At trial Hingle objected to admission of the pills on chain-of-custody grounds but did not contemporaneously object to Fernandez’s testimony on Confrontation Clause grounds; on appeal she raised both issues.
The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Hingle’s conviction, holding Fernandez’s testimony and admission of the pills were proper.

Issue	Hingle's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether admitting testimony of a reviewing analyst who did not perform/observe the test violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause	Testimony violated Confrontation Clause because Reed (the testing analyst) did not testify	Reviewing analyst had "intimate knowledge" via line-by-line review, signed the report, reached independent conclusion, and was subject to cross-examination	Admission of Fernandez’s testimony did not violate the Confrontation Clause (no plain-error reversal)
Whether admission of the physical pills was improper for lack of chain of custody/foundation	Chain broken: State failed to account for handling between Hingle s handoff and lab receipt, allowing possible tampering/substitution	Testified transfers, searches of informant, bagging/sealing by agent Coleman, lab barcode/receipt and reseal after testing satisfied authentication	Trial court did not abuse discretion; pills admissible (no reasonable inference of tampering)

Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (establishes Confrontation Clause testimony rule)
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (lab certificates are testimonial statements)
Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 131 S. Ct. 2705 (surrogate analyst who did not observe test cannot testify for certifying analyst)
Williams v. Illinois, 132 S. Ct. 2221 (expert reliance on out-of-court data not offered for truth may avoid Confrontation Clause)
Grim v. State, 102 So.3d 1073 (Miss. 2012) (reviewing analyst who signs report can satisfy confrontation if intimately knowledgeable)
Jenkins v. State, 102 So.3d 1063 (Miss. 2012) (same as Grim)
Conners v. State, 92 So.3d 676 (Miss. 2012) (Confrontation-Clause analysis and harmless-error framework)
McGowen v. State, 859 So.2d 320 (Miss. 2003) (framework for "intimate knowledge" and active involvement of reviewer)
Deeds v. State, 27 So.3d 1135 (Miss. 2009) (chain-of-custody/authentication standard)
Spann v. State, 771 So.2d 883 (Miss. 2000) (defendant must show probable tampering/substitution to defeat chain of custody)