## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged Sherman Mitchell with offenses arising from participation in a PCP distribution conspiracy in Washington, D.C.
- Police executed a search warrant and seized multiple bottles containing a liquid suspected to be PCP.
- Officers took samples from the seized liquid, packaged the samples in sealed evidence bags, and sent them for DEA laboratory testing.
- At trial, the seizing detective testified about the seizure, sampling, and sealing of the samples but could not recall whether he personally delivered the sealed bags to the DEA chemist or instead gave them to another officer for delivery.
- The government did not call a witness who transported the sealed bags from the police to the DEA lab, creating a brief, undocumented link in the chain of custody.
- The DEA chemist testified that he received sealed evidence bags, tested the liquid inside, and determined it contained PCP; the laboratory reports reflected the same conclusion.
- Over Mitchell’s authentication objection, the district court admitted the chemist’s testimony and lab results, and the jury convicted Mitchell.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion by admitting the DEA chemist’s testimony and lab reports identifying PCP when the government did not fully document one link in the chain of custody, under Federal Rule of Evidence 901.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the judgment.
- The court held the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the PCP identification evidence.
- The court treated the chain-of-custody gap as a matter for the jury to consider in evaluating weight, not a bar to admissibility.

## Legal Principles

- Under Federal Rule of Evidence 901(a), the proponent must present evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is.
- Authentication imposes a modest threshold; the proponent need not eliminate every possibility of tampering or substitution.
- In drug and other physical-evidence cases, minor breaks or uncertainties in chain of custody ordinarily affect the weight of the evidence rather than admissibility.
- The government is not required to call every person who might have handled the evidence if the record still supports a reasonable finding of authenticity.
- Appellate review of a trial court’s authentication ruling is for abuse of discretion.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit held that testimony describing the seizure, sampling, and sealing of suspected PCP, combined with the chemist’s receipt of sealed bags and testing results, satisfied Rule 901 despite an undocumented transport link; any gap was for the jury’s evaluation and did not require exclusion.


United States v. Mitchell, 816 F.3d 865 (D.C. Cir. 2016)