NEW TRIAL ORDERED IN DRUG CASE

Appeals Court Says Prosecutor Went Too Far

FRANKFORT - The state Court of Appeals yesterday ordered a new trial
for a woman convicted in Floyd County of trafficking in OxyContin.

A three-judge panel criticized the prosecutor for exhorting the jury
to use the case to "send a message" about drugs.

The judges said he also went overboard by telling jurors: "It's time
for you to do your job" by convicting the defendant, Lorrie Mitchell.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has said that jurors are not to be badgered
about future consequences of a particular verdict or coerced into
reaching a verdict to please the public.

In the case of Mitchell, who was charged with selling OxyContin to an
undercover police officer, Assistant Floyd County Commonwealth's
Attorney Wayne Taylor expounded on the region's epidemic abuse of the
narcotic painkiller.

"It's time to send a message to this defendant and to this community
that we're going to punish drug dealers for doing what they're doing.
. Tell them something needs to be done," Taylor said.

He added: "It's time we take a stand on OxyContin. There's one way to
do that. Everybody else has done their job. It's time for you to do
your job. And you make sure the defendant is punished for what she did
in selling OxyContin."

Writing for the Court of Appeals, Senior Judge Joseph Huddleston said
"anger over a perceived drug problem in the community has no bearing
on an individual's guilt or innocence."

"It was improper for the (prosecutor) to suggest that the jury had
some obligation to cure the community's problems through its verdict"
instead of "evaluating whether the evidence presented established
Mitchell's guilt," Huddleston's opinion said.

The prosecutor's suggestion that the jury could only do its "job" by
convicting Mitchell "is patently untrue," the opinion said. "The
jury's function is to consider the evidence and return a verdict;
whether the verdict is guilty or not guilty, the jury has in either
instance fulfilled its obligation."

The appellate court also criticized the trial court for allowing a
Kentucky State Police detective to testify at length about OxyContin's
opiate-like effects and how it can be ingested to be most addictive.

The detective was not a scientist, and the relevance of his testimony
was questionable, the appeals court said. "Its admission made it no
more or less likely that Mitchell sold OxyContin to a police
informant, the only issue which the jury was called upon to decide."

The court said the "cumulative effect" of several errors was to deny
Mitchell a fair trial.

Judges Lewis Paisley and Julia Tackett, both of Lexington, joined in
the opinion by Huddleston, of Bowling Green.

In other cases, the appeals court:

. Ruled against Georgetown College, among other heirs of the late
Mattie Anderson, in an estate dispute involving 32 valuable acres of
land in Fayette County.

The court upheld a Fayette Circuit Court ruling that the property
should be sold for $1 million, with proceeds going to a specific line
of heirs.

Anderson, who died unmarried and childless in 1936, left her 71-acre
farm to Georgetown College. The school asserted a claim for her
32-acre home place as well.

. Upheld a murder conviction and life prison sentence for Erskin
Thomas in the broad-daylight shooting of drug trafficker Osama Shalash
at a crowded Lexington restaurant in June 1997.