Stamps

Appellant Latanya A. Stamps was convicted of multiple drug possession offenses after drugs in both pill and crystalline form were discovered in her car, purse or clothing on four different dates from October through December 2012. She appeals, arguing the court improperly admitted the testimony of an expert criminalist who identified the drugs in pill form as controlled substances solely by comparing their appearance to pills pictured on a Web site called “Ident-A-Drug.” Stamps attacks her convictions for possession of oxycodone and dihydrocodeinone on grounds that (1) the expert’s testimony was based on unreliable and inadmissible hearsay from the Web site and did not involve the use of the witness’s expertise and (2) there was insufficient evidence to convict on the counts involving those drugs because the expert relied exclusively on the Web site in rendering her opinion. Because we agree that the expert testimony was improperly admitted, and because the testimony was central to Stamps’s pill-based convictions, we reverse Stamps’s convictions on counts one, five, seven and eight. We conclude, however, that a retrial on those counts is not barred by double jeopardy…