James Lynn Campbell v. The State of Texas--Appeal from 47th District Court of Potter County
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NO. 07-09-0074-CR
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SEVENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
AT AMARILLO
PANEL D
JULY 14, 2011
_____________________________
JAMES LYNN CAMPBELL,
Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS,
Appellee
_____________________________
FROM THE 47TH DISTRICT COURT OF POTTER COUNTY;
NO. 57,233-A; HONORABLE HAL MINER, PRESIDING
_____________________________
Memorandum Opinion
_____________________________
Before QUINN, C.J., and CAMPBELL and PIRTLE, JJ.
James Lynn Campbell appeals his conviction for possessing a controlled
substance (cocaine).
He seeks reversal on the basis that the trial court erred in
admitting into evidence the cocaine since it was not properly authenticated; that is,
appellant questioned whether the State proved chain of custody.
judgment.
We affirm the
The pertinent standard of review is one of abused discretion. Martin v. State,
173 S.W.3d 463, 467 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Next, evidence is authenticated when
there is evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its
proponent claims.
TEX. R. EVID. 901.
Absent evidence of tampering, questions
regarding the chain of custody affect the weight a factfinder may assign to the evidence
and not its admissibility. Davis v. State, 313 S.W.3d 317, 348 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010).
Moreover, there must be affirmative evidence of tampering presented by appellant
before its admission becomes improper; the potential for tampering or theoretical
tampering does not suffice. Dossett v. State, 216 S.W.3d 7, 17 (Tex. App.–San Antonio
2006, pet. ref’d).
Officer Scott Chappell brought the baggie of cocaine at issue to court and
testified that the crack cocaine was contained in his evidence bag. He also stated that
he 1) marked and labeled the baggie when he placed it in the evidence bag, and 2)
booked it into the evidence room of the police department. The officer testified that 1)
the baggie was the same one depicted in a photograph taken at the scene of the
offense because it contained his evidence tag and his writing on the label, and 2) the
baggie was “similar to the picture.”
Then, he opined that laboratory personnel may
have placed his evidence bag into an outer sleeve. When asked if the item appeared to
have been tampered with or altered in any way, the officer replied that someone had
attempted to lift fingerprints off the bag, Officer Peoples performed a fingerprint
examination on the bag, and the evidence had been released by Officer Wheeler to the
crime laboratory for analysis. Neither Peoples nor Wheeler testified.
2
Next, Brandon Conrad, an employee of the Department of Public Safety Crime
Laboratory, stated that items received are given an individual case number and placed
into a secure vault until retrieved by an analyst. Exhibit 8 (the baggie of drugs within the
outer sleeve) was sealed and carried a laboratory case number as well as Conrad’s
initials and a date, according to Conrad. The latter also testified that he performed an
analysis of the substance, that the results of the analysis appeared in State’s Exhibit 9,
and that the evidence did not appear to have been tampered with.
To establish the chain of custody, one need only prove the chain’s beginning and
ending. Shaw v. State, 329 S.W.3d 645, 654 (Tex. App.–Houston [14th Dist.] 2010, pet.
ref’d) (rejecting the argument that the evidence was inadmissible because the State
failed to have all who may have touched the item testify about what they may have done
with it). The testimony of Chappell and Conrad did just that. A moment-by-moment
account of where the evidence had been or who may have touched it is unnecessary.
Id.
So, the authenticity of the cocaine was sufficiently established. And, that other
identification marks may have appeared on the baggie, or that someone once opined
before analysis that the bag contained cocaine when analysis showed it contained that
drug and methamphetamine, or that Chappell thought the baggie proffered at trial was
similar to the one appearing in a picture, or that someone attempted to fingerprint the
bag are not affirmative evidence of tampering. Consequently, the trial court did not
abuse its discretion in overruling appellant’s objection. See Ennis v. State, 71 S.W.3d
804, 807-08 (Tex. App.–Texarkana 2002, no pet.) (finding purported deficiencies of 1)
an officer not being able to identify the weapons at trial as the ones he saw in the
defendant’s hand although they resembled them, 2) failing to account for the
3
discrepancy in time between the seizure of the weapons and sealing the envelope in
which they were placed, and 3) inconsistent testimony regarding the envelope in which
they were placed to be nothing more than theoretical gaps).
Accordingly, we overrule the issue and affirm the judgment.
Brian Quinn
Chief Justice
Do not publish.
4
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
