RALEIGH MAN CONVICTED OF HAVING FAKE COCAINE WILL GET A NEW TRIAL

Court says characterization of neighborhood was inadmissable

RALEIGH - A man convicted of possessing fake crack cocaine will get a new
trial after the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that a judge
improperly allowed testimony that the man was arrested in what authorities
considered an "open-air market for drugs."

The characterization of the downtown Raleigh neighborhood where police
picked up Michael Cornelius Williams in December 2002 was "inadmissible
hearsay" that may have helped result in a wrongful conviction, the court
ruled unanimously.

Jurors found Williams, 34, guilty of possession with intent to sell
counterfeit cocaine and possession with intent to deliver counterfeit cocaine.

He was found to be a habitual felon and sentenced to up to 12 years and
nine months in prison. Jurors acquitted him of the sale of counterfeit
cocaine and the delivery of crack cocaine.

The guilty verdicts shouldn't stand because jurors acquitted Williams of
selling the drugs, the judges said. Possessing counterfeit drugs is not a
crime.

Williams was arrested as he sat on a porch with several other men after two
other officers bought what they believed to be crack cocaine in the same
neighborhood.

One officer said he saw Williams drop an item that looked like crack, but
that analysis found to be headache powder. The officers who made the
purchase found later that they had paid $20 for a package of Goody's
Headache Powder.

Officer M.E. Campos of the Raleigh Police Department identified Williams as
the person who sold them drugs, charges that the jury rejected.

"In that instance, North Carolina law would require acquittal because the
mere possession of a counterfeit controlled substance is not a crime,"
according to the opinion written by Judge James A. Wynn Jr.

"We conclude admission of the neighborhood's reputation was not harmless
error as there was not overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt."

During Williams' trial, his attorney objected several times as Campos
described how "crackheads" gathered in the neighborhood and drug dealers
waved down cars. Campos said he knew of 15 to 20 other arrests of suspected
drug dealers in the area.

Brian Michael Aus, an attorney from Durham who represented Williams in his
appeal, said that the testimony about the neighborhood undoubtedly played a
role in Williams' conviction since jurors determined that his client didn't
sell anything to the officers but only possessed the same substance that he
had bought.

"It basically made him guilty just by being in the neighborhood," Aus said
yesterday.