SYLLABUS

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized).

State v. Lewis B. Morrison (A-81-05)

Argued May 1, 2006 -- Decided July 26, 2006

ALBIN, J., writing for a majority of the Court.

In this appeal, the Court must determine whether the trial court abused its discretion when it concluded that the evidence presented to the grand jury could not support a finding that defendant distributed heroin and, thus, dismissed the charges against defendant for distribution of a controlled dangerous substance and strict liability for drug-induced death.

Based on the testimony presented at the grand jury hearing, defendant Lewis Morrison was a 24-year-old heroin addict. He played in a band with his friend Daniel Shore, who was also 24 and had experimented with heroin in the past. Very early one morning after band practice, they drove to Plainfield, with defendant at the wheel, to find heroin. They found a dealer and with their pooled money ($30 from Shore and $10 from defendant) purchased four glassine packets (decks) of heroin, which defendant placed in his pocket. After leaving the city, defendant gave a deck to Shore, who snorted half of the deck. When they returned to defendant’s home, defendant handed Shore a second deck. Shore went into the bathroom where he presumably ingested the rest of his heroin. Defendant went upstairs and injected his two decks. When he came back downstairs, they talked about how “messed up” they were and then went to sleep. Sometime that afternoon, defendant injected another dose of heroin from the remnants of bags he had purchased earlier and fell back to sleep.