State v. GriffinState v. Griffin
- Reporters:
- , ,
- Before:
- Lockett
The opinion of the court was delivered by
Lockett, J.:
Dane Griffin was charged with possession of cocaine (
The complaint is based on the following allegations: On March 23, 1989, law enforcement officers arranged for Dusty Wilson, an informant, to purchase cocaine from Dane Griffin. Later that day, Griffin agreed to meet Wilson near 9th and Iowa Streets in Lawrence for the purpose of selling him cocaine. The meeting took place at 7:00 p.m., and Griffin sold Wilson seven packets of cocaine for $300 in marked, official funds.
The packets, containing a total of 3V2 grams of cocaine, were made out of yellow lined paper. After Wilson turned the drugs over to police, officers arrested Griffin in a parking lot near 9th and Iowa. Griffin’s car was impounded and he was taken to police headquarters.
After the police had unsuccessfully searched Griffin and his car for the “buy money,” an officer was sent to the parking lot where the defendant had been arrested to search for the money. The officer, who began his search at least 45 minutes after Griffin had been removed from the area, found 45 packets of cocaine in the parking lot. These packets contained a total of 22.5 grams of cocaine and were also made out of yellow lined paper. The “buy money” was later found stuffed under a chair in an interview room where Griffin had been held.
Griffin was charged with possession of the cocaine found in the parking lot, sale of cocaine, and violation of the drug tax stamp law. At his preliminary examination, the district court refused to admit into evidence the 45 packets found in the parking lot and a KBI forensic report which indicated that those packets contained cocaine. At the conclusion of the preliminary examination, the court dismissed the possession charge and bound Griffin over for arraignment on the remaining charges. The State appeals the dismissal of the possession charge, claiming: (1)
At common law, appeals by the State in a criminal case were unknown. By statute, a number of states now permit prosecution appeals in specified circumstances. The purpose of allowing prosecution appeals is to insure that lower court rulings do not restrict
There are two statutory options available in the Kansas Criminal Code for the State to test the dismissal of the possession charge prior to trial:
The State cites State v. Jones, 233 Kan. 170, 660 P.2d 965 (1983), as authority for this court to reverse the trial court’s decision to discharge the defendant on the possession count of the complaint. In Jones, there was conflicting testimony during the preliminary examination as to whether the defendant had acted in self-defense. This court said:
“The defendant should not be discharged where evidence conflicts or raises a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. Where there is a conflict in testimony, a question of fact exists for the jury, and the magistrate must draw the inference favorable to the prosecution.” 233 Kan. at 174.
The State’s reliance on
Jones
would be correct if there was conflicting testimony and the State had chosen 22-3602 as the vehicle for its appeal. Instead, the State has appealed pursuant to
“When a judge of the district court, prior to the commencement of trial of a criminal action, makes an order . . . suppressing evidence or suppressing a confession or admission an appeal may be taken by the prosecution fromsuch order if notice of appeal is filed within ten (10) days after entry of the order.” (Emphasis added).
Originally, Kansas appellate courts interpreted the term “suppressing evidence,” as used in the statute, to mean constitutional suppression of evidence illegally obtained by the government.
State v. Boling,
5 Kan. App. 2d 371, 617 P.2d 102 (1980).
Boling
questioned whether the trial court’s exclusion of evidence of other crimes committed by the defendant was an order “suppressing evidence” under 22-3603. To define “suppressing evidence,” the Court of Appeals looked to the Code of Criminal Procedure and found that term used in two places:
In 1984, this court departed from
Bolings
bright line rule, finding that the term “suppressing evidence,” as used in
We have applied the
Newman
standard in four cases:
State v. Huninghake,
238 Kan. 155, 156-57, 708 P.2d 529 (1985) (suppression of blood alcohol test, given the statutory presumption of intoxication based on the test, substantially impaired State’s ability to prosecute DUI case);
State v. Jones,
236 Kan. 427, 428, 691 P.2d 35 (1984) (suppression of testimony by highway patrolman regarding defendant’s refusal to complete one phase of field sobriety test did not substantially impair State’s ability to prosecute DUI case);
State v. Wanttaja,
236 Kan. 323, 325, 691 P.2d 8
The State claims it should be allowed to proceed under 22-3603 because its case has been substantially impaired, since the 45 packets of cocaine, if admitted into evidence, would: (1) strongly indicate Griffin’s intent to sell cocaine; (2) help defeat anticipated entrapment and procuring agent defenses; and (3) be needed to invoke the presumption of incarceration set out in
The argument that the evidence suppressed must substantially impair the prosecution of the case arises from the Judicial Council’s statement in the annotation to 22-3603 and this court’s decision in
State v. Newman,
235 Kan. 29, Syl. ¶ 1: “Under
The State claims that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to admit relevant evidence. “ ‘Relevant evidence’ means evidence having any tendency in reason to prove any material fact.”
Griffin argues that, although relevant, the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the 45 packets of cocaine render that evidence inadmissible due to remoteness. Griffin points out that (1) the police did not notice these packets when they arrested him, even though they had him under constant observation from the time he entered the parking lot; (2) there was no evidence to indicate that the packets were found in the same place where he had parked his car; (3) the packets were found in a public parking lot at least 45 minutes after he had been arrested; and (4) at least six other cars had been in that lot during the relevant time period.
In refusing to admit this evidence, the court said:
“Well, I’m not going to admit Exhibits 3 [the 45 packets of cocaine] and 5 [the KBI report]. Number one, the connection with this defendant is pretty vague. It’s found in an area that apparently he occupied maybe an hour before. There’s paper similar to the paper that you found on him, and that’s certainly a factor to consider, but in terms of using that to show that nothing has happened to it, in terms of showing that there was cocaine in it, I don’t find that the chain of custody is sufficiently complete to admit that exhibit, because it was obviously there with nobody around for a great period of time. So I will not admit those two exhibits.”
In dismissing the possession charge, the court said:
“Mr. Griffin, with regard to [the possession charge], I find that you should not be bound over on that count. It’s too remote to tie you into those particular items. They could have belonged to somebody else. I can speculate that they were probably yours, but I’m not supposed to be sitting up here speculating.”.
The State urges that the remoteness of the physical evidence is a question of fact which should be reserved for the jury. We disagree. Black’s Law Dictionary 1164 (5th ed. 1979) provides the following definition for remoteness of evidence: “When the fact or facts proposed to be established as a foundation from which indirect evidence may be drawn, by way of inference, have not a visible, plain, or necessary connection with the proposition eventually to be proved, such evidence is rejected for ‘remoteness.’ ” The question of whether to admit or exclude evidence for remoteness is a question of law for the trial judge to determine; the weight to be given the evidence when admitted is for the
Though the term “suppressing evidence” has a broader meaning than illegally seized evidence, the appellate courts of Kansas will not take jurisdiction of the prosecution’s interlocutory appeal from every run-of-the-mill, pretrial evidentiary ruling of a district court, especially in those situations where trial court discretion is involved. State v. Newman, 235 Kan. at 35.
The question of whether evidence is too remote to be relevant is left to the discretion of the trial judge, whose decision will not be disturbed unless a clear abuse of discretion has been demonstrated. State v. Betts, 214 Kan. 271, 276, 519 P.2d 655 (1974); Tucker v. Lower, 200 Kan. 1, 6, 434 P.2d 320 (1967).
Discretion may be defined as the freedom to act according to one’s judgment. Judicial discretion implies the liberty to apply the rules and analogies of the law to the facts found after weighing and examining the evidence. It is well settled that the appellant must establish a clear abuse of judicial discretion before an appellate court will overturn the exercise of a trial court’s discretion. See Reedy v. Reedy, 175 Kan. 438, 440, 264 P.2d 913 (1953).
“The test on appellate review of whether the trial court abused its discretion is whether no reasonable person would agree with the trial court. If any reasonable person would agree, appellate courts will not disturb the trial court’s decision.” Hoffman v. Haug, 242 Kan. 867, 873, 752 P.2d 124 (1988). We cannot say that no reasonable person would agree with the trial court’s determination that the discovery of the 45 packets of cocaine was too remote to be admitted into evidence; therefore, we cannot disturb the trial court’s decision to exclude the evidence.
The State also argues that the district court erroneously found an inadequate chain of custody regarding the 45 packets and the KBI report. The witness who was attempting to identify the KBI report testified that he had nothing to do with the evidence-gathering process involving the cocaine tested in that report. Although the court’s ruling is somewhat confusing, the chain of custody question is moot because we affirm the exclusion of the packets of cocaine found in the parking lot.
The decision of the trial court is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.