N.C. HIGH COURT THROWS OUT CONVICTION OF LOCAL MAN OF FELONY DRUG POSSESSION

RALEIGH (AP) - A Winston-Salem man convicted of cocaine possession should
get a new trial after a police officer violated the suspect's rights by
having "friendly conversation" with him on the way to jail, the N.C.
Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The justices, with no dissenting opinion, reversed a ruling of the N.C.
Court of Appeals and threw out the conviction of Dwight Raymond Phelps.

The Court of Appeals had ruled last year that the 2001 conviction should be
upheld, because letting the jury hear a statement that Phelps made about
having crack cocaine in his coat pocket would not have changed the outcome
of the trial.

When Officer Chad Mashni of the Winston-Salem Police Department picked up
Phelps at the suspect's home on outstanding warrants, Mashni talked to
Phelps before reading his Miranda rights.

"I explained to him that he needed to let me know right now before we went
past the jail doors if he had any kind of illegal substances or weapons on
him, that it was an automatic felony no matter what it was, so he better
let me know right now," Mashni said.

Phelps told Mashni that he had some crack cocaine in his coat, and Mashni
found three rocks there.

Phelps was subsequently convicted of a felony drug charge and later a
habitual-felon charge and sentenced to nearly eight years in prison.

"There should be consequences when an officer violates Miranda rights,"
said Seth Jaffe of the American Civil Liberties Union, who filed a brief on
Phelps' behalf.

Phelps said that Mashni told him that he wouldn't be charged with a drug
felony if he gave up the drugs before he went to the jail, but Mashni
denied making that promise.

The trial-court judge denied a motion by Phelps' attorney to keep Phelps'
statement and the cocaine out of the evidence presented at his trial.

Phelps appealed the verdict, but a majority on the Court of Appeals panel
last year sided with prosecutors.

The state's highest courtreversed that decision yesterday, citing the
dissenting opinion of Appeals Court Judge Bob Hunter.

Hunter disagreed that admitting Phelps' statement about crack cocaine "was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."

Without the statement, the evidence that Phelps knowingly possessed the
drugs "is hardly overwhelming."

Prosecutors also did not prove that the crack cocaine would inevitably have
been found by law officers if Phelps had kept quiet, Hunter wrote.