“The issue of narcotics use is one that may properly be handled with some sensitivity lest it result in undue and unnecessary prejudice. There is an interest in avoiding undue evidentiary assault on prosecution witnesses. Prejudice may result if questions asked for the limited purpose of testing, say, opportunity to observe, are permitted to generate a hostility based on the general odium of narcotics use.”
How later courts described this case
- “The issue of narcotics use is one that may properly be handled with some sensitivity lest it result in undue and unnecessary prejudice. There is an interest in avoiding undue evidentiary assault on prosecution witnesses. Prejudice may result if questions asked for the limited purpose of testing, say, opportunity to observe, are permitted to generate a hostility based on the general odium of narcotics use.”
- noting that “[t]ype A blood appears to be typical of about 35% of the American Negro population”
- in deciding whether statement made after shocking event was spontaneous, “what must be taken into account is not only the length of the intervening time period but also an assessment of the declarant’s activities and atti tudes in the meanwhile”
- although the court may not prohibit probing of narcotic use by the state’s sole eyewitness, “the matter of drug addiction ... is properly approached with awareness of the potential for prejudice of the jury.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge:
I concur in Parts I, II and IV of the court’s opinion. As to Part' III, I would hold Officer Silvia’s statement to Detective Crooke admissible as a dying declaration.