Kohlmeier v. State

658 S.E.2d 261 (2008)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

The sheriff's department issued a BOLO for a certain truck based upon a report from a local merchant, the Food Lion, that two of its customers had left in that truck after purchasing a large quantity of matches. The sheriff's department took this as an indication of possible impending methamphetamine manufacturing. A patrol officer spotted the car and noticed it didn't have a working tag light on the vehicle a violation of Georgia law. The truck was stopped. D was the driver, and the male and female passengers matched the descriptions in the BOLO of the two recent purchasers of matches. A drug dog alerted at the driver's door seam. A search of the truck yielded a box of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine, two full bottles of HEET brand fuel treatment, a Coleman camping stove, and a can of kerosene. Another officer with special training testified that two of the three main ingredients required for manufacturing the drug had been recovered: pseudoephedrine and red phosphorus, the latter being contained in the striker plates of the matchbooks. D was handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car with his male passenger, and read his Miranda rights. A shopping bag of boxes containing about 5,000 matchbooks, was found on the road on the route D had just traveled. D was recorded stating to his male passenger that the store likely had “ratted” about the matchbook purchases. Receipts found in the female's possession showed recent purchases at Food Lion and a CVS store. The indictment alleged that D committed criminal attempt to manufacture methamphetamine by performing “an act constituting a substantial step toward the commission of said offense in that D did possess methanol, pseudoephedrine, a cook stove and approximately 1000 books of matches containing red phosphorus, essential elements in the manufacture of methamphetamine. To avoid arousing suspicion Ds had gathered the materials necessary in a piecemeal fashion. The female passenger entered a negotiated guilty plea and then testified as a state witness about how on several occasions before, the three of them had made and used methamphetamine. D and the male passenger had plans to make a small amount of the drug in a certain wooded area, where they previously had done so using the stove found on D's truck. When stopped, the three of them were accumulating various items they needed to manufacture methamphetamine. She had purchased the cold medicine from CVS, two boxes of matches from Food Lion, and kerosene from Citgo. The male passenger had purchased three additional boxes of matches from Food Lion. And Kohlmeier had gone into a Fred's store and walked out, pulling from underneath his jacket two bottles of HEET. D was convicted and appealed. D claims the evidence was based on uncorroborated testimony of his accomplice, the female passenger. An accomplice's uncorroborated testimony is insufficient to support a felony conviction.