## Facts

- On September 6, 1989, Robert Lee Mitchell, Jr. drove an acquaintance to a convenience store in Zebulon, North Carolina.
- The store clerk was an off-duty police officer; Mitchell and the clerk were the only people inside the store.
- The clerk testified that two rolled-up cellophane bags of marijuana were protruding from Mitchell’s shirt pocket and that Mitchell handed the bags to him.
- Mitchell testified the bags were already on the counter when he entered and were not his.
- Police were called, and Mitchell was arrested; the two bags were introduced at trial and shown to the jury.
- The State presented no evidence of the marijuana’s weight (no measurement, analysis, or testimony estimating weight).
- Mitchell was convicted of (among other offenses) felonious possession of marijuana (requiring more than 1.5 ounces) and unlawfully maintaining a vehicle for keeping or selling a controlled substance under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-108(a)(7).
- The Court of Appeals found no error; the Supreme Court of North Carolina reviewed whether the evidence was sufficient on the two listed convictions from the September 6 incident.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove felonious possession of marijuana by establishing the marijuana weighed more than 1.5 ounces.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove the defendant unlawfully maintained a vehicle for keeping or selling a controlled substance under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-108(a)(7).

## Decision

- The court held the evidence was insufficient to support felonious possession of marijuana because the State offered no evidence of weight exceeding 1.5 ounces.
- The court left undisturbed the finding that defendant possessed marijuana, but reduced the conviction to misdemeanor (simple) possession.
- The court held the evidence was insufficient to support unlawfully maintaining a vehicle because the proof showed, at most, drug possession during a single trip, not keeping or maintaining a vehicle for drug keeping or selling.
- The conviction for unlawfully maintaining a vehicle was reversed.

## Legal Principles

- When a statute makes drug weight the element that elevates possession from a misdemeanor to a felony, the State must present affirmative evidence of the required weight beyond a reasonable doubt.
- A jury’s visual inspection of drugs, without competent evidence of weight or a basis to estimate it, cannot satisfy a statutory weight threshold.
- On a motion to dismiss for insufficiency of the evidence, the State must present substantial evidence of each element; the standard does not permit conviction where an essential element lacks evidentiary support.
- For maintaining a vehicle for keeping or selling controlled substances under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-108(a)(7), evidence of a single, isolated instance of possession in a vehicle is insufficient; the State must show facts supporting that the vehicle was kept or maintained for drug-related keeping or selling.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that felony marijuana possession required proof the marijuana exceeded 1.5 ounces and that the State’s failure to present weight evidence limited the conviction to misdemeanor possession; it also reversed the maintaining-a-vehicle conviction because isolated possession during one trip did not establish the vehicle was kept or maintained for drug keeping or selling.


State v. Mitchell, 336 N.C. 22, 442 S.E.2d 24 (1994)