Will You Pick Up My Prescription For Me?

A jury convicted a criminal defendant of possession and transportation of morphine and other drugs. Defendant was arrested on the campus of U.C. Davis after he was stopped for a traffic violation and was unable to provide identification. In his pocket was a prescription bottle containing 208 pills. Another man, who has prostate cancer and other medical conditions, testified he had packed his household belongings to move, and that defendant and other friends helped him do the packing and moving.  During the move, the other man said his prescription bottle got crushed when he fell, and the group picked up the spilled pills, and he gave the retrieved pills to defendant to hold until they arrived at his new house. The sick man’s caregiver testified she witnessed the spill of the pills, and that she went inside to look for anything they could put the pills in.  She could find nothing, not even a plastic bag, because everything had been packed. She said defendant found something in his car.  The caregiver also testified about how defendant assisted the ill man “a lot.” At the time of defendant’s offense, Health and Safety Code section 11350, subdivision (a), read: “. . . every person who possesses [certain controlled substances] unless upon the written prescription of a physician . . . shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison.”  The appellate court affirmed, declining to interpret to expand the scope of the prescription defense to persons other than those for whom the prescription is written. (The People v. Carboni  (Cal. App. Third Dist.; January 3, 2014) 222 Cal.App.4th 834, [166 Cal.Rptr.3d 427].