Kenneth Jerome Roundtreev.The State
Kenneth Roundtree was convicted of possessing cocaine and Alpha-PVP after officers searched him following an arrest on a probation warrant. The search produced small bags containing residue, and Roundtree told officers that he had found the bags near a park and collected them to keep children from handling them. On appeal, he challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, the trial court’s handling of a jury question, and the denial of a new trial. The Court of Appeals held that the evidence supported the cocaine conviction because testing showed cocaine residue in the bags. It reached a different result on the controlled-substance conviction, concluding that the State did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Roundtree knowingly possessed Alpha-PVP rather than merely possessing bags he had found. The court also rejected his jury-instruction and general-grounds arguments. It affirmed the cocaine conviction, reversed the Alpha-PVP conviction, and left the remaining judgment undisturbed.
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