PEOPLE v. HOPKINS (2020)

Judgment of conviction (Guy H. Mitchell, J.), rendered June 5, 2015, affirmed.

The accusatory instrument was not jurisdictionally defective. It charged all the elements of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree (see Penal Law § 220.03) and set forth sufficient factual allegations to show the basis for the arresting officer's conclusion that the substance at issue was a controlled substance. The instrument alleged that after a police officer observed a separately charged individual hand the defendant “small objects,” the officer then “took two bags containing crack cocaine from the defendant's jacket pocket.” The instrument further alleged that the officer believed the substance to be crack cocaine based upon his “professional training as a police officer in the identification of drugs,” his “experience as a police officer making drug arrests” and his “observation of the packaging, which is characteristic of this type of drug” (see People v. Smalls, 26 NY3d 1064 [2015]; People v. Kalin, 12 NY3d 225, 231-232 [2009]; People v. Pearson, 78 AD3d 445 [2010], lv denied 16 NY3d 799 [2011]).

Per Curiam.