State v. BallomState v. Ballom
Defendant in this case has appealed from a conviction of possession of 200, but less than 400, grams of cocaine, a violation of
On January 7, 1989 two NOPD officers assigned to the narcotics division received information that drug transactions were occurring in the 3700 block of Benefit Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. They proceeded to this area in street clothes and an unmarked police car. As they approached a driveway in this block, they saw the defendant with a brown paper bag in his hand leaning on an automobile, another man sitting on top of another car and a third man walking up and down. When they made eye contact with the defendant, he dropped the bag he was holding and began to run. The officers chased him and apprehended him crawling under some bricks torn from the lower part of a house located at 3803 Benefit Street. After they arrested him, they returned to the driveway where he had originally been spotted and retrieved the brown bag he had thrown
A review of this case for errors patent reveals that
In his first assignment of error, the defendant contends that insufficient evidence was presented to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the quantity of cocaine in his possession. Specifically, that the sampling procedure used by the criminologist was not comprehensive enough to prove that the defendant was in possession of 200, but less than 400, grams of cocaine. He contends that the one gram of cocaine tested, out of the 260.25 grams was insufficient to convict him of possession of more than 200 grams.
The criminologist testified at trial that he randomly tested the contents of four of the 1095 bags. Each was found to contain .25 grams of pure cocaine. The combined weight of the contents of the bags was 260.20 grams, all assumed to be pure cocaine as per the random tests. The criminologist further testified that this sampling procedure was the standard policy of the department. The defense had stipulated that he was an expert in the field of drug analysis and cross examined the criminologist on his sampling and testing procedures.
When assessing the sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction, the appellate court must determine whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that every reasonable hypothesis of innocence had been excluded. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Buxton, 416 So.2d 71 (La.1982). In addition, when circumstantial evidence partly forms the basis of the conviction, such evidence must consist of proof of collateral facts and circumstances from which the existence of the main fact may be inferred according to reason and common experience. State v. Shapiro, 431 So.2d 372 (La.1983). The elements must be proven such that every reasonable hypothesis of innocence is excluded.
We believe that, based on the aforementioned facts, a rational juror could have found the defendant to have been in possession of 260 grams of cocaine and, therefore, no error was made.
In his second assignment of error, the defendant asserts that his sentence should be vacated because the trial judge failed to follow the sentencing guidelines of
Defendant in the case at hand was sentenced to thirty years at hard labor, the maximum sentence imposable under
The record in this case reveals that the trial judge did not comply with the sentencing guidelines of
CONVICTION AFFIRMED, SENTENCE VACATED, REMANDED IN PART.