Douglas

Defendant Stephen Junnell Douglas (Douglas) was found guilty by a jury’s verdict of possession of marijuana for sale. He appeals from the judgment which was thereupon entered.

We shall affirm the judgment after stating our reasons.

I. The first of Douglas’s appellate contentions is that: “The court erred in allowing expert opinion on matters which were not a proper subject of expert opinion.”

A police officer with much training and experience in the suppression of the narcotic and dangerous drug traffic was asked a long hypothetical question, in the course of which he was asked to assume as facts the prosecution’s evidence, and which ended with the following: “Assume all those things. With that long hypothetical in mind, do you have an opinion, officer, as to whether or not the marijuana . . . was possessed for personal use or was possessed for sale?”

The issue posed is whether the subject matter of the hypothetical question was “a proper subject of expert opinion.” No question was raised as to the officer’s qualifications. It is conceded that “defense counsel objected to the hypothetical [only] on the grounds that the question went to the ultimate issue.”

The…