Episode 13: Fearns and Ruffin

[00:00:10.983] [SPEAKER_01] By statute, the difference between marijuana, which is illegal, and hemp, which is not, is that hemp has a delta-9 THC concentration of not more than three-tenths of one percent. The Court of Appeals has now held that the state's evidence of marijuana-related charges was sufficient, even without a chemical analysis of the substance showing a delta-9 THC concentration of greater than 0.3 percent. We'll be discussing that case state v. Ruffin today. I'm Joseph Hyde with the University of North Carolina School of Government. And I'm Jonathan Holbrook with the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. And this is Turning States, a podcast for North Carolina prosecutors and others interested in the criminal justice system in
[00:00:52.450] [SPEAKER_00] North Carolina. Joe, there was a case involving one judge trying to sign another judge's order on a motion to dismiss. So tell us about State v. Ferns. State v. Ferns, yeah, this was
[00:01:03.048] [SPEAKER_01] a case out of Granville County. The defendant was an employee at attorney David Vessel's law firm. Back in June of 2008, Vessel apparently reported to Creedmoor Police Department that defendant had embezzled something around $50,000 in money from trust funds. In January of 2019, more than 10 years after the allegations had been initially made, defendant was indicted for embezzlement. Then in August of 2019, defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure timely to prosecute the case, specifically alleging that there is a due process violation in that pre-accusation delay. In January of 2020, the motion to dismiss came on for a hearing before Superior Court Judge Carl Fox, and at the conclusion of that hearing, Judge Fox denied the motion, directed the state to draft an order. And then some time passes in October of 2020, before signing the order, Judge Fox retired. And then in September of 2021, almost two years after the hearing on the motion to dismiss, Superior Court Judge John Dunlow signed and filed an order denying the defendant's motion to dismiss. Attached to that order, there was an addendum or additional page where Judge Dunlow said that he was relying on Rule 63 of the Rules of Civil Procedure in denying that order. Relevant to this opinion, the order denying the motion to dismiss included additional findings other than those that Judge Fox had made at the original hearing. In March of 2022, defendant was tried for embezzlement, she was convicted, and then in April 2022, judgment was entered and the defendant appealed. Before the Court of Appeals, defendant argued that Judge Dunlow erred by making findings and conclusions that were not made by Judge Fox and that Judge Dunlow lacked the authority to sign the order without having presided over the hearing on the motion to dismiss. There's quite a large section in the opinion dealing with the state apparently made a preservation argument, arguing that it was somehow the defendant's burden to present this to Judge Fox before Judge Fox retired or make some objection to the findings that Judge Dunlow had made. The Court of Appeals rejected that and then jumped immediately to the fact that the state actually conceded that if the issue was preserved, that this was error. The Court of Appeals looked to a North Carolina Supreme Court case in 2015 called State v. Bartlett, where the North Carolina Supreme Court had held an issue involving a motion to suppress that one judge lacked the authority to sign the order of another judge granting the defendant's motion to suppress. Now, that was significant because the statutes governing a motion to suppress specifically provide that the trial court has to make findings of fact and conclusions of law in ruling on a motion to suppress. That specific statutory provision has been interpreted to mean that the trial court has to make findings of fact when there's a conflict in the evidence and resolution of that conflict is necessary to determine the admissibility of the evidence. What brought this case kind of within the ambit of Bartlett was there was that discrepancy between the findings that Judge Fox had made at the oral rendering of the ruling on the motion to dismiss and the written order entered by Judge Dunlow denying the defendant's motion to dismiss. And that actually comes up in a footnote in Ferns, where the Court of Appeals noted that it is apparent that the order includes detailed findings of facts and conclusions of law not rendered by Judge Fox at the hearing, and that Judge Fox determined defendant was prejudiced by the delay. Conclusion of Law 7 made by Judge Dunlow directly contradicts Judge Fox's oral rendering, as Judge Fox unequivocally stated there is actual prejudice to defendant's case, but Judge Dunlow specifically stated defendant has not established actual and substantial prejudice. So because there was this conflict in the findings and because the judge that entered the written order had not presided over the hearing, the Court of Appeals found no authority for this substitute judge to enter that written order denying the defendant's motion to dismiss. It concluded Judge Dunlow lacked the authority to enter that order. It vacated the order denying defendant's motion to dismiss and remanded the matter for a rehearing on that motion.
[00:05:00.153] [SPEAKER_00] Joe, we talked about how in that footnote they point out that there's – I think it says, as you said in footnote two, if the issue were governed by Rule 63, the order would still have to be vacated because the second judge is basically making different findings than the first would have. But it still sort of leaves this question about – All right, so let's say that the judge were not making any different findings. Let's say that the judge really were just essentially memorializing what had already been decided and then this second judge is entering the order. Looking in that section B where they talk about the authority to enter the order, it seems like they're still not a big fan of that happening anyway. They talk about how since Rule 63 does not provide authority for Judge Dunlow to enter an order on behalf of Judge Fox, we have also considered whether the state has identified any other basis for this authority. And then a couple sentences down, they say, we cannot find any statutory authority for Judge Dunlow to enter the order on behalf of Judge Fox. So if this happens, if that original judge is retired or gone and we don't have that written order, are we saying the state is just stuck? There are
[00:06:06.928] [SPEAKER_01] sort of two points I'd like to respond to. That's a question that I think is sort of left open by this opinion. But first of all, the Court of Appeals specifically found error in the second judge's relying on the rules of civil procedure. It pointed out that the rules of civil procedure are not applicable in criminal cases. So the fact that the second judge here cited Rule 63 kind of gave the Court of Appeals a hook to say, look, this is clearly erroneous because those rules of civil procedure do not apply in criminal cases in any event. But then the specific question you asked was, What if the second judge merely memorialized findings that the first judge had made from the bench? I think that would be a more difficult case. There was a concurrence here by Judge Stadding that points out that the reliance on Bartlett is appropriate here, but might not be appropriate in every case because Bartlett specifically dealt with that statutory requirement for findings and conclusions on a motion to suppress. And where you have a motion to dismiss for which there is no statutory guidance that there have to be findings and conclusions, would it be enough for the first judge to make findings and conclusions from the bench and for a second judge merely to enter the order after that judge had retired so long as it didn't change the findings? I think you're right. The Court of Appeals expresses some kind of unease with that procedure, but that's... That's not really what happened here, and we don't have a clear answer of whether that would be a comparable violation entitling the defendant to a new hearing. Suffice it to say, in this case where the judge did make separate findings on the basis of evidence that the second judge had not heard, that certainly entitled the defendant to a rehearing on this motion to dismiss so that the judge that entered the order would be the one that listened to the evidence, saw the witnesses, and presided over that hearing.
[00:07:45.495] [SPEAKER_00] So I guess that would be our takeaway for prosecutors. If it's something that we are in a position to see coming, that this judge may retire next year and we don't have that order in hand yet, if we see it coming, be a good idea to try to gently prod the judge and say, hey, we really need that written order before you wrap everything up. If it's not something we can see coming, it's an illness or a death or whatever it may be, then would we tell prosecutors that the safest bet pre-trial might be to just bite the bullet and go ahead and do the rehearing on it with a new judge just to be certain that whatever order we get is going to hold up.
[00:08:21.201] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah, I think that's good advice. It certainly is going to require some kind of coordination with opposing counsel, because whether one party wants to redo the order is kind of going to depend on who prevailed at the hearing, right? This is the reverse of what happened in Bartlett, because what happened in Bartlett was the state had lost on that first motion to suppress, and so the state had an interest in redoing the motion to suppress hearing. Here, the defendant lost, and the defendant was the one seeking a redo, saying the second judge couldn't do this. But yes, To answer your question, it certainly would be a good idea to anticipate if you have a judge who's bumping up against a retirement deadline or looks like they're not going to be on the bench for a while. Keep that in mind if you have this order outstanding that needs to be signed. The other piece of advice would be, it's always a safer bet to put in the written order just whatever the judge said from the bench to merely replicate the oral findings and conclusions. Now, I understand it sometimes takes a while to get a transcript of the hearing. It's not always going to be possible. to directly replicate whatever was stated on the bench in the written order right away. But as soon as that can be done, it would be a safe bet to get that to the judge as quickly as possible and not make different findings, right? Not change things around, just memorialize what was stated when you have a ruling from the bench and kind of go from there.
[00:09:37.763] [SPEAKER_00] Good advice, good advice. And the next one we wanted to talk about was this case, State v. Ruffin, that the Court of Appeals decided on March 5th of this year. This was a case out of Martin County. It arose back starting on March 8th of 2021. A confidential informant, a CI that was known to one of the detectives with the Martin County Sheriff's Office had been used. a number of times over the last five years or so, contacted the detective to say that they would be able to arrange a controlled buy of drugs from this defendant, Ruffin. That happened on March 8th. The CI sent a text message to the defendant asking to buy seven grams of fentanyl and, quote, some marijuana. And the defendant gave the CI a price of $100 a gram for fentanyl, $35 for an eighth of an ounce of marijuana. So the CI goes to the defendant's house, carries out this control by. They speak briefly and the defendant then leaves. The defendant was arrested shortly after leaving the scene. Police recovered the substances that the defendant had given to the CI, which included this leafy green plant material following the control by. So the defendant is indicted and ultimately convicted for a slew of trafficking and drug charges. But the evidence that comes out at trial and what we're mainly talking about here in this appeal has to do not with the fentanyl charges, but with the marijuana charges. At the trial that happened on all of these charges, The detective testified, as we're all used to, that based on his training and experience, the plant material in the case appeared to be marijuana, that he's had training on how to recognize it, odor and everything else. Also, the detective mentioned that there had been this discussion about what the CI was buying was marijuana. an eighth of marijuana and that that's a common shorthand for an amount of marijuana. The detective also observed the defendant rolling what he called a marijuana blunt. So there was that evidence from the detective. The state did also bring in a forensic scientist from the North Carolina State Crime Lab, Lindsey Cohn. The analyst was able to testify that the testing that had been done on this substance concluded that it was plant material belonging to the genus cannabis. and that it contained THC, but of course also testified that at the state crime lab they do not currently have the ability to distinguish between marijuana and hemp because they do not do a quantitative analysis, you know, to establish that this cannabis plant material that does have THC in it, but does it or does it not have greater than 0.3% THC, that's not a quantitative analysis that they can do. But that was the evidence that the state presented and the jury ultimately returned verdicts, finding the defendant guilty of As I said, a slew of different trafficking charges for the fentanyl, also guilty of various drug charges related to the marijuana. The trial court sentenced the defendant to one term of 70 to 93 months for trafficking in heroin by sale, an additional 70 to 93 months of imprisonment for trafficking in a mixture containing heroin by transportation, to run consecutively, and then various other drug charges that were set to run concurrently with those two trafficking terms. And the defendant gives notice of appeal. So there's essentially six issues that are being discussed here in the appeal, most of them related to the marijuana or to the sentencing on some of the charges. The first issue that the defendant is raising is about this testimony from the detective that we've all heard a number of times saying, I've had this training and experience. I'm able to recognize this leafy green plant material as marijuana. And the detective testified to that. There was not an objection to this made at trial. And so the court here really is just looking at it for plain error review. But the court reviews what the detective was able to testify to about his training and experience and that it appeared to the detective to be marijuana. And so the court here in this case says, Consistent with our case law, this identification was properly admitted because Detective Harrell is a law enforcement officer with proper training and experience in narcotics. We've had a number of cases over the years saying that officers with training and experience can testify that they recognized it and that it was marijuana.
[00:13:40.644] [SPEAKER_01] The defendant's going to say all those cases predate the decriminalization of hemp, right? And then once they changed the threshold for criminality, now it depends on a, what is it, the concentration of THC in the material. Isn't it necessary to have an expert say that this particular material did constitute a criminal substance?
[00:13:58.802] [SPEAKER_00] Exactly. That's what the defendant is arguing here. They're pointing to this Ward case and essentially saying, but come on. I mean, we have hemp now. And they say that this rationale for the Ward case about a law enforcement officer making a visual ID of marijuana, that's no longer reliable since the General Assembly has legalized hemp. And they would argue that hemp and marijuana are indistinguishable. And the Court of Appeals says, no, that's incorrect. This is still the way it's going to work, basically for two reasons. Number one, the Ward case, talking about how we need scientific laboratory analysis to identify these substances, that is dealing with Rule 702. That's dealing with expert testimony under 702. So yes, if we want to look at this pill and say, this is not just... pressed sugar that somebody made in the basement. This really is a Xanax. Well, we do need, for an expert to give that opinion, they need to do a chemical analysis on it. But that's not applicable to this sort of lay opinion testimony that we're getting from these officers. And they point out, we've had cases following Ward that have affirmed that law enforcement officers may still offer lay opinion testimony identifying a substance as marijuana. So in this case, they are saying, No, the existence of hemp is not changing the ability of an officer to get up on the stand and say, I recognize that based on my training and experience as marijuana. That's issue number one. Issue number two is talking about the expert testimony. The defense is objecting to Cohn's testimony as an expert witness to identify the plant material in question as marijuana. Again, arguing for plain error on that. And as you pointed out, Joe, the defendant points to these cases that we've had, like State v. Teague, for example, to say that if we want to scientifically identify this as being a controlled substance, then the expert needs to be able to do that, that they need to be able to say that I tested it and I can tell you what it was. The court here points out in sort of in response on this Teague and Ward analysis, yes, we have cases saying scientifically valid chemical analysis and not mere visual inspection is what's required to identify the controlled substance. But then the court says, yet the next sentence of that opinion reads, however, marijuana has long been accepted from this rule. And so in other words, what this expert can tell us is exactly what we heard in the summary. The expert can come in and say, I did test it. i can tell you it is a cannabis plant i can tell you that it is positive for thc no i can't tell you because we don't do quantitative analysis i can't tell you it's definitely greater than 0.3 thc but marijuana is distinguishable from these other controlled substances that require that more technical analyses for positive identification and so the court says in keeping with a long line of cases We have repeatedly held the state is not required to submit marijuana for chemical analysis. The question then is, all right, but the state did. I mean, we did send it to the lab. We did get this. And so is this valid expert testimony for us to offer? If I can't definitively tell you it's definitely marijuana rather than hemp, then is that even proper expert testimony for us to offer? And the court here says, yes, it is. The expert is able to tell you the part that she's able to tell you. Like I said, she can tell you that it's cannabis. She can tell you it's positive for THC. Joe, you and I were talking about this case earlier, and the analogy that came to mind for me was we might send a DNA sample to the crime lab for testing, and they may not be able to tell us that one in 11 D quadrillion odds that it's definitely this one same person, but they might be able to give us something else like saying it's a DNA mixture. We can't definitively say that it's the defendant, but we can tell you that he's not excluded as a possible contributor. That is still some relevant evidence we might offer to help establish the identity of the perpetrator. I would say it's kind of the same idea here. And so they say Cohn concluded the plant material the defendant possessed was cannabis containing THC, concentration of cannabinoid not determined. This court has consistently approved of similar procedures in our case law. So that expert testimony was sufficiently reliable under Rule 702, under Daubert. The expert is telling us to the extent that she can what we are able to identify. And so then it's basically a question for the jury of, is there enough here in front of you to decide that this is marijuana? Which is then issue number three that the defendant is arguing, saying, I don't think there was. I think you should have granted my motion to dismiss. That we've got testimony from the officer, testimony from this expert, but that at this point it would essentially just be a guess for the jury to say, I think this is marijuana. But the court here, again, disagrees on that argument about whether the state's evidence is solid enough for it to go to the jury. And they say, viewed in the light most favorable to the state, is there evidence to go to the jury that this was marijuana? Yes, for both of the things we just talked about. We have an officer who's given an opinion that we've determined is permissible, saying, based on my training experience, I believe this to be marijuana. We've offered this expert testimony that further increases the likelihood that it is marijuana, Jonathan,
[00:19:02.750] [SPEAKER_01] how much emphasis do they put on the fact that the defendant himself apparently showed up with the intent to sell marijuana, right? Does the fact that there was a controlled buy here where there was apparently an arrangement to purchase and sell marijuana play into the totality considering the
[00:19:17.868] [SPEAKER_00] sufficiency of the evidence? Joe, I think it absolutely does. I mean, when they're talking about what is the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the state we can offer, yes, it's the detective's opinion. Yes, it's that scientific analysis that tells us as much as it can tell us. But you're exactly right. They also point out that the detective testified to hearing the defendant talk about an eighth of marijuana or seeing him roll what the detective believed to be a marijuana blunt. And so they say, based on all of our case law, the state did present substantial evidence that the plant material belonging to the defendant was marijuana, so the trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to dismiss. Joe, in a lot of ways, this reminds me of kind of the early days of odor plus. Remember, you know, where we were talking about all those cases about how it looks like marijuana, it smells like marijuana, a little something else as an insurance policy to tell us that it's going to be marijuana. That was what we thought. thought we might need for probable cause. And then we had cases basically backing off that, saying we don't. Even without the plus, this sort of visual ID or plain smell, those are still going to be good enough to establish probable cause. The takeaway I would offer from this case is even if we don't have that quantification analysis to definitively show the 0.3%, I think Ruffin is saying, if we've got what we've got, we've got the detective's opinion, we've got an analysis at least showing presence of THC, and then the defendant calling it marijuana. It's an arranged buy for marijuana. There's nothing to indicate a likelihood it might be hemp. I would argue Ruffin sort of puts us in a position of saying, at least like we used to be on PC, if I've got... the odor plus, the plain smell, the plain appearance, plus something else, that would definitely be good enough. If we had nothing else, would we still be able to get there? I'm not sure that's totally clear from this opinion, but if we've got something else, we could at least go to the jury. That brings us to issue number four. Okay, if it's gonna go to the jury, then the jury at least needs to be correctly instructed, right? Because it is true that it's only a crime if it's truly marijuana, meaning that it's got greater than 0.3% THC in it. And so the defendant is arguing that there was, again, plain error because the jury was not properly instructed on what is the legal definition of marijuana and hemp getting into that 0.3. But the Court of Appeals rejects that as well. The defendant made no objection to the jury instructions that were given at trial. So again, they're just Looking at this for plain error review, And here, the defendant asked the trial court to add this phrase to the pattern jury instructions for the charge. The phrase was, the term marijuana does not include hemp or hemp products. And the trial judge did that. And the court says it was fine to add that in, right? That that is a correct statement of the law. But other than that, we're following the basic pattern and jury instructions for these offenses. But given that the instruction in the case was identical to the pattern jury, With the exception of what the defendant asked to have added, they say we can't conclude that the omission of more detailed language, you know, that getting into specifying that marijuana is illegal, hemp is not, and what that means is greater than the 0.3% THC. The omission of that, they say, was not plain error. Obviously, sort of the open question is, in light of this case, defense attorneys would start to do that after a case like this to make sure it's clear that the jury, if it's going to go to the jury, to make sure they know they have to find it is greater than 0.3%. And because that's a correct statement
[00:22:51.291] [SPEAKER_01] of
[00:22:51.352] [SPEAKER_00] law, I
[00:22:51.673] [SPEAKER_01] don't know that a prosecutor would have a valid basis to contest that instruction. What do you think,
[00:22:55.880] [SPEAKER_00] Jonathan? I don't think so either. I mean, I think the cases we have on this are pretty clear. Sure, most of us start with the pattern jury instructions, but if something's requested by a party and if it's an accurate and correct statement of the law, I think it's going to be on the trial judge to include it. So maybe there will be some modification even to the pattern jury instructions coming in the future. But if nothing else, I think this case still is very interesting for the idea that what was presented here is sufficient to go to the jury and then the jury would just have to be properly instructed. I think that's important because okay, so the jury will be properly instructed that we need to know that it really was marijuana and not just hemp. But if they're instructed on that, this case is still saying that what was presented here was sufficient to go to the jury. And so even if they are instructed about you need to know it really was marijuana, and marijuana means greater than 0.3, I think we could still get to the jury on that issue and make our arguments about how even if we don't have that conclusive scientific testing, We're not required to, and you can reach the common sense conclusion based on the evidence that has been presented to you, including things like the admissions of the defendant and what the detective's opinion is and what the scientific evidence shows us so far.
[00:24:07.849] [SPEAKER_01] Jonathan, what do you think about my pet theory of as a fallback and in a doubtful case, a prosecutor could ask for an instruction that the jury could convict the defendant of an attempt Like certainly when you have a circumstance like this, where there was a controlled buy, where the defendant himself was talking about showing up with marijuana, could the prosecutor, and there's case law, there's statutes in case law that say an indictment for the substantive offense will support a conviction for attempt. Would it be a good idea to ask for an instruction just as a fallback? If there's some doubt in your mind that this actually was marijuana, the defendant can always be convicted of an attempt. And we know from the statute that an attempt is going to be penalized at the same level.
[00:24:47.967] [SPEAKER_00] Joe, I think that's an issue that we may have to start exploring more in a number of these drug cases. We talked about that a little bit at the last association meeting in the light of Smith v. Arizona. Even if we had an analyst who tested this cocaine or fentanyl or whatever it may be, if we can't get that person and if we don't think we're going to be able to get those lab results in, I think that's a good fallback for prosecutors to consider in any of these drug cases. If I can't show you that it definitely was marijuana, cocaine, fentanyl, I can show you at the very least, this guy was attempting to sell a marijuana. No, it's
[00:25:23.943] [SPEAKER_01] certainly not going to work in every circumstance, but certainly where you have a controlled buy and you've got evidence that the defendant is making these admissions where he shows up deliberately with this material that he claims is marijuana, I think this might be an appropriate circumstance.
[00:25:36.162] [SPEAKER_00] That would be my only hesitation, is I seem to remember that in the cases dealing with this, we had things like attempted possession. Somebody who's showing up to purchase what they believe is cocaine from a detective, for example, and really it's baking powder. That they were at least attempting to get the cocaine. Maybe that's a little bit different just on a sale, or attempting to sell it to the CI, kind of going the other way. Right. I don't know that we've got a case on that yet, but it's certainly something worth thinking about. Attempt, conspiracy, sort of these other ways of getting there if we may not be able to show exactly what the substance was. There were a couple of other issues in the case dealing with the sentencing, one of those being that drug prosecutors know we're not going to sentence and punish somebody for both the sale and the delivery of the drugs in the same incident. It appears that there were terms of imprisonment entered for some overlapping charges like that. The court says even if there was that error, there's no prejudice here because all the time that was ordered on those was just concurrent with what was running on some of the other active sentences he got on the trafficking. So he's not established that he's been prejudiced by the alleged error. So we don't have to deal with it. But nothing, I think, disturbing the underlying rule that ordinarily we're not going to sentence for both crimes. sale and delivery of the same drugs. And then finally, this question about the sentencing considerations. The prosecutor in the sentencing hearing discussed a little bit about some of the other events surrounding the case. The prosecutor said, there are circumstances around this particular sale that didn't come out in the trial, that being the death of another person. I know he hasn't been convicted of that, but the state would ask that you take that into consideration. In other words, alerting the court that there is this other death by distribution case going on. I think making the argument to the court of evidence of how dangerous drugs are. I mean, you know, that these are things that happen. And the Court of Appeals looks at that and they acknowledge that a trial judge can properly consider things like factors beyond the immediate offense, like the societal impact or the severity of the crime when determining sentencing. they look at a few specific examples saying that it is proper for the court to consider the broader societal impact of drug crimes. That's also permissible during sentencing. I think it would be an issue if the prosecutor were essentially standing there saying, he's standing here for sentencing on offense A, He is charged with offense B, has not been convicted of that or had his guilt established, but we want you to give him a worse sentence on A based on the factors over in case B. So what did the court of appeals do here? Was this invitation
[00:28:12.125] [SPEAKER_01] to consider other charges condoned or-
[00:28:14.230] [SPEAKER_00] So the trial judge here, fortunately, sort of made a comment on the record. The judge said, we have another proceeding at some point in the future because he's charged with death by distribution. I did not consider that. That will rise or fall on its own evidence. So he makes clear that I'm not giving you the sentences I'm giving you because of this other outside charge for which you have not yet been convicted. But the trial judge absolutely can consider, as they say, broader societal concerns. I think a prosecutor could absolutely argue this calls for a serious sentence. Drugs are dangerous. Drugs kill people. I'm not asking you to punish him for this one particular thing, but just in general. But I
[00:28:52.199] [SPEAKER_01] think your warning was particularly where you have a defendant that has other charges pending. It might be a good idea not to invite the judge to impose a more severe sentence based on these other charges, particularly where those other charges haven't been tried and haven't resulted in
[00:29:06.030] [SPEAKER_00] a conviction yet. Exactly. This opinion does cite to a number of cases where, you know, giving examples of judges where it's clear or even uncertain whether they might be loading up today's sentence based on an improper outside consideration. But talking about this offense in the sense of just generally how dangerous it is, the societal impact, that would be proper. And that's all that the court did here. So we spent a lot of time on this one, Joe, but I think it's a real interesting case and important for prosecutors with this post-hemp world that we're living in. Absolutely.
[00:29:36.529] [SPEAKER_01] That's all for today. In this episode, we discussed State v. Ferns. That was about a substitute judge signing another judge's order on a motion to dismiss. And State v. Ruffin, which involved the lay identification of marijuana and the sufficiency of evidence that it was marijuana and not hemp involved. Turning States is a collaboration between the University of North Carolina School of Government and the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys. We are coming to you from the recording studio at the School of Government in Chapel Hill. Special thanks to our producer, Paul Bonner, and to Gustav Holtz for our music. If you liked what you heard today, if you have questions, comments, concerns, if there's a topic you'd like for us to cover, please contact us. My name is Joseph Hyde, and I can be reached at jhyde at sog.unc.edu. That's jhyde at
[00:30:23.848] [SPEAKER_00] sog.unc.edu. And I'm Jonathan Holbrook. I can be reached at jonathan.p.holbrook at nccourts.org. That's j-o-n-a-t-h-a-n.p. Thank you, John. That would be the showing for the state. Sounds good, Joe. Thanks. Hope it helped.
[00:31:04.621] [UNKNOWN] Thank you. THE END