Drug Busts 101
The Court of Appeals seems to be taking us back to basics today. In Jarvis L. Watson, Jr. v. State of Indiana we learn what the term “controlled” means in the phrase “controlled buy.”
Basically, when police conduct a purchase of drugs from a suspected dealer, they find a dirtbag, search them, maybe put a transmitter on them, and carefully watch them as they go out and attempt to buy drugs. The searching the confidential informant (CI) beforehand, and carefully watching them, makes the buy “controlled.” Anything less is not sufficient, as the officers in Watson are learning:
Because the CI was not searched prior to the buy and the CI did not testify about receiving the cocaine from Watson, we must agree with Watson that no reasonable fact_finder, based on this evidence alone, could have found beyond a reasonable doubt he originally possessed the cocaine found on the CI after the buy.
Reversed.
