RULING RAISES STANDARD FOR METH PROSECUTIONS

Prosecutors and police working to fight the proliferation of methamphetamine
fear that a Kentucky Supreme Court ruling on Thursday could greatly
complicate their efforts to arrest and punish makers of the drug.

The 4-3 ruling said that to be charged with manufacturing meth, someone must
have all the necessary equipment or ingredients. A defendant possessing some
but not all the equipment or chemicals could be prosecuted for criminal
attempt, the court said.

Assistant Daviess County Commonwealth's Attorney Ken Nall had not yet read
the court's ruling Thursday, but he said the ramifications would likely be
felt throughout western Kentucky.

"We're going to have to examine all of our cases that are pending right
now," Nall said. "It's really taken away a big stick so to speak, a
punishment hammer. You've basically cut the fear in half."

A manufacturing meth charge is a Class B felony punishable by 10 to 20 years
in prison. A charge of attempted manufacturing meth is a Class C felony,
which carries a punishment of five to 10 years in prison.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Joseph Lambert said the majority
interpretation was "excessively technical."

The court ordered a new trial for Ronald Kotila, who was convicted in
Pulaski County on a meth manufacturing charge in 1999. Because he also had a
gun when arrested, his sentence was enhanced to 25 years.

Prosecutors still have other tools to fight meth, including possession of
meth precursors, which prohibits possession of antihistamine tablets with
intent to make meth. Defendants can also be prosecuted for possessing
anhydrous ammonia with intent to make meth.

Kotila had possession of many items needed for a lab, all of which are legal
by themselves and commonly available: antihistamine tablets, lithium
batteries, cans of starting fluid, glass jars, rock salt, a cooking pot and
a wooden stirring spoon, among other things.

However, Kotila did not have two essential ingredients -- anhydrous ammonia
and muriatic acid. And the pertinent Kentucky statute specifies that a
suspect must possess "the chemicals or equipment for the manufacture of
methamphetamine."

"The presence of the article 'the' is significant because, grammatically
speaking, possession of some but not all of the chemicals or equipment does
not satisfy the statutory language," the court said in an unsigned opinion.

Lambert predicted that prosecuting meth manufacturing cases will become nigh
unto impossible.

A suspect "with the least amount of ingenuity will be able to prevent his
conviction by merely omitting from his cache of tools and ingredients one or
two of the more common, and bringing in the missing components only at the
last moment," Lambert wrote. "Thus to achieve a conviction . . . it will be
necessary to catch the offender 'red-handed.' "

If the statute requires a person to possess all the chemicals and equipment,
then Nall would like to see what list was being used.

Most methods of making meth in western Kentucky require the "Nazi" method,
which involves anhydrous ammonia, but many other methods exist, Nall said.
Muriatic acid is not required to make meth and may be substituted by other
materials.

Daviess County Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Jim Acquisto said there are at least
50 ways to make meth, and variations exist on each step.

"There's not just an A-B-C recipe to make this stuff," Acquisto said.

Investigators have previously debated how many ingredients a person should
possess before being charged with manufacturing meth, Acquisto said. People
are not charged unless detectives feel confident to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that someone had intent to make meth.

Ever since the charge was created, the sheriff's department has never taken
a defendant to trial in state court, Acquisto said. People facing that
charge in Daviess County always have pleaded guilty except in a handful of
federal trials, in which they were found guilty, he said.

"We'll take what tools they give us and do the best we can with them," he
said.

Justices William Graves, William Cooper, Martin Johnstone and Janet Stumbo
made up the majority. Justice James Keller dissented from part of the
ruling. Justice Donald Wintersheimer joined in Lambert's opinion.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.