Under North Carolina law, can someone be convicted of drug possession based on only a positive drug test? In a case from Craven County decided Aug. 1, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the answer is “no.”
Early on Aug, 20, 2005, Renetta Bryant arrived at a friend’s house and found Darian Harris sitting in a chair in the front room. Byrant observed Harris snorting cocaine and bought a rock of crack cocaine from him. Bryant reported that she fell asleep, and then later got up and when to the bathroom. Bryant testified that when she returned to the front room, Harris poured alcohol on her and set her on fire with a cigarette lighter. She was transferred by ambulance to the hospital hours later with second- and third-degree burns.
Harris’ probation officer obtained a urine sample from him four days later, which tested positive for cocaine and marijuana. Harris was charged with a variety of crimes, including assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault inflicting serious bodily injury, sale and delivery of cocaine, possession of cocaine, and possession of marijuana.
At trial, a jury convicted Harris only of cocaine possession and marijuana possession. He was sentenced under the state’s habitual-felon laws to 132 to 168 months in prison on the cocaine possession charge. He also received a concurrent 20-day sentence for marijuana possession.
On appeal, Harris argued that his convictions should be overturned, contending that the state had failed to prove every element of the crimes. Specifically, he contended that a positive drug test alone was not enough to support a conviction, an issue that the state’s appellate courts had not addressed.
The Court of Appeals agreed in part with Harris’ contention.
“Viewing the evidence here in the light most favorable to the State, we conclude that it is reasonable to infer from the positive urine screen that defendant must have ingested the substance,” Judge Robin Hudson wrote for the court.
“However, we hold that a positive urine test, without more, does not satisfy the intent or the knowledge requirement inherent in our statutory definition of possession,” Hudson wrote.
The Court of Appeals cited a New Mexico appellate decision, which held:
It is quite possible that a defendant may have involuntarily ingested the drugs either through coercion, deception, or second-hand smoke. Accordingly, without some corroborating proof of knowledge and intent, the cases have uniformly held that a positive drug test alone does not prove a defendant’s knowledge of the drug or intent to possess it… Moreover, we believe the State’s argument [“that knowledge and intent can be properly inferred from the positive drug test”] impermissibly shifts the burden of proof to Defendants. In our view, it would be difficult if not impossible for a defendant to present credible evidence that he or she ingested drugs unknowingly.
The Court of Appeals overturned Harris’ marijuana-possession conviction because it was based entirely upon the drug test. The court, however, upheld, the more-serious cocaine possession conviction.
“Here, the positive urine screen gives rise to the inference that defendant ingested cocaine, and Ms. Bryant’s testimony that she saw defendant snort cocaine provides corroborating evidence that defendant exercised the power and intent to control the substance’s disposition or use, and that he was aware of its presence,” the judge wrote.
N.C. Court of Appeals decisions are controlling interpretations of state law unless overruled by the N.C. Supreme Court. The high court is not required to hear the case because the Court of Appeals decision was unanimous.
The case is State v. Harris, (05-1031).
http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/public/coa/opinions/2006/051031-1.htm
Michael Lowrey is associate editor of Carolina Journal.