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Commonwealth v. Sauer10/24/2000
e of the front seats.
One of the envelopes contained a pill identical to those the defendant had in his pocket. The pills were carisprodol, a Class E substance. The Commonwealth charged the defendant with possession with intent to distribute. The defendant claims there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the pills were for anything other than personal use. We disagree. The police officers testified that based on their training and experience, including hundreds of drug arrests, they had seen drugs packaged for distribution in envelopes. The defendant's possession of thirty-one loose pills in his pocket is at best an uncommon way to carry pills for personal use. The presence of one bank envelope with a pill identical to the other thirty-one is more than sufficient to support an inference that the defendant intended to place the rest of the pills in the remaining bank envelopes for distribution. Compare Commonwealth v. Clermy, 421 Mass. 325, 330-331 (1995); Commonwealth v. Pena, 40 Mass. App. Ct. 905, 905-906 (1996).
b. The defendant also claims there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction of operating under the influence of drugs.
Even were we to consider this argument, despite the lack of legal citation to support it, see Mass.R.A.P. 16(a)(4), as amended, 367 Mass. 921 (1975), it is unpersuasive. The evidence before the jury included the defendant's hasty visit to the Windsor Bar, which was frequented by drug users and drug dealers; the defendant's erratic driving; and a description of the defendant as "lethargic . . . slow to respond . . . eyes . . . very dilated. . . . His pupils were just enormous and he . . . had . . . glazed look." When he got out of the car, he was slow and unsteady. That evidence, combined with the defendant's admission that he had recently taken five percocets, and the page of the Physicians Desk Reference discussing the characteristics of percocet, adequately supported the jury's verdict.
3. Voluntariness.
The defendant claims that the trial judge was required to conduct a voluntariness hearing before admitting evidence of the defendant's statements. He made no such request. In the absence of a request, the judge must provide such a hearing only where there is a substantial claim of involuntariness, which was not the case here. Commonwealth v. Murphy, 426 Mass. 395, 398 (1998).
Judgments affirmed.
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