STATE SUPREME COURT REVERSES HAMPTON DRUG CONVICTION

The state's highest court says it was wrong for a Hampton Circuit
Court judge to allow evidence about a separate crime into a drug
dealing case.

HAMPTON - The Virginia Supreme Court has reversed a Hampton
conviction in a cocaine distribution case, saying a Hampton Circuit
Court judge erred in allowing "misleading" evidence to be introduced
at a jury trial.

The state's highest court said last week that it was wrong for Judge
William C. Andrews to allow a prosecutor from the Hampton
Commonwealth Attorney's office to question a defendant about a drug
possession incident that occurred four months after the drug dealing
charge at issue at the trial.

"The Commonwealth cannot be allowed to essentially smuggle into
evidence during its cross examination ... proof of another crime not
admissible in its case-in-chief," the state's highest court said in
the Nov. 2 ruling.

Kyna Chanelle McGowan was found guilty and sentenced to five years in
prison for distributing cocaine in March 2004.

While on the witness stand, McGowan testified that she "wouldn't know
crack cocaine if she saw it." But during a cross-examination, Deputy
Commonwealth Attorney Matthew Hoffman attempted to question her
credibility by bringing up a separate incident that occurred four
months later. "So when you were arrested on July 13, 2004, did you
have any crack cocaine on your person?"

Evidence of other crimes is generally not allowed at trials. But
Andrews allowed such questioning to proceed, reasoning that McGowan
had "opened the door" to such questioning when she said she didn't
know what it looked like.

Though the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled twice in split decisions
that the line of questioning was justified, the Virginia Supreme
Court unanimously disagreed. Bringing up the later incident "is not
only highly inflammatory and misleading to a jury," but also lacking
a serious attempt to answer the issue, the court said.

But Hoffman said Friday that the Supreme Court opinion -- including
the statement that he "smuggled" evidence into the case -- itself
used "inflammatory" language. "I was surprised by the decision and
shocked by the language," he said, adding that he also thinks the
decision was wrong legally.

He said he wasn't trying to sneak anything into evidence, he said,
but simply attempting to show that the method McGowan used to keep
the drugs -- storing them in her bra -- was identical in both cases.

Evidence is typically allowed, he said, when it's attempting to prove
an identical mode of operation. He raised the issue, he said, to
counter McGowan's testimony that she reached into her bra to get
money for a hamburger.

McGowan's defense attorney, Charles Haden, said he expected the
decision based on the high court's previous rulings, and said he was
happy with the result. "The fact that she may have possessed cocaine
in July of 2004 failed to show that she possessed it four months
earlier," he said. "There's a high risk of prejudice to bring that
extraneous issue before the jury."

McGowan later pleaded guilty to the July possession charge and
received a three year suspended sentence. Hampton Commonwealth's
Attorney Linda Curtis said McGowan will be tried again on the March
incident, but "without the evidence that was found by the court to be
improper."