5.Keith McMahan — Direct/Cross/Redirect
105 linesKEITH MCMAHAN, being first duly sworn, testified as follows:
COURT CLERK: Have a seat, please. State your name and spell your last name for the record, please.
KEITH MCMAHAN: My name is Keith McMahan. Last name is spelled M-c-M-a-h-a-n.
DIRECT EXAMINATION By Mr. Graham:
SHAWN GRAHAM: Mr. McMahan, where are you currently employed?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I'm employed by the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory and work at the Meridian Regional Branch of that laboratory.
SHAWN GRAHAM: What is your position there?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I'm a forensic scientist specializing in the field of drug analysis.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Would you tell the jury about your background, education and training in that field.
KEITH MCMAHAN: Sure. I earned an Associate Degree from East Central Community College in Decatur, Mississippi in May of 1992 and then earned a Bachelor's of Arts degree with a Major in Chemistry and a Minor in Biology from the University of Mississippi in December of 1998. I then completed a formal training program at the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory and I have achieved Certification through the American Board of Criminalistics.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Have you ever been qualified before as an expert in the field of controlled -- controlled substance examination?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Approximately how many times?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Approximately 110 times.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Your Honor, at this time the State would offer Mr. McMahan as an expert in the field of controlled substance examination.
ROBERT MADSEN: No objection.
THE COURT: No objection. So qualified forensic drug examination, is that what you're offering him a drug analyst.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Thank you.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Agent McMahan, do you remember being involved with analyzing a can and some contents of a package that came from Smith County in September of 2014?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir. I do.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Let me show you what's been marked as State's Exhibit number 58 and ask if you recognize it. And if you need to go in the bag let me know and I'll get a pair of scissors or a knife so you can go inside.
KEITH MCMAHAN: I can recognize it.
SHAWN GRAHAM: In previous testimony it was an officer of Smith County took that bag and brought it to a -- at your agency by the name of Stephanie Baskin. Do you recognize her name?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I do.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Could you describe what Ms. Baskin does for your agency?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Ms. Baskin receives evidence from law enforcement agencies into the crime laboratory system.
SHAWN GRAHAM: So when she received -- that item in your hand, State's 58, actually came to you once she had received it in. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Whenever evidence is brought into the laboratory, each case is given a unique Mississippi Forensics Laboratory case number and a unique bar code within that case number. Then a bar code with that information is generated and placed on the evidence. The evidence then will go into our vault and it will eventually be assigned to the specific analyst that needs to work it. And then when that analyst gets ready to work it they'll request it from the vault.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And at some point did you retrieve that item from the vault?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And when you retrieved it was it properly sealed with no evidence of it being tampered with since the time the Smith County officer had brought it in?
KEITH MCMAHAN: That is correct.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Could you describe to the jury what you do next?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Once the case is assigned to me and I'm ready to work the evidence, I go to the vault and one of the evidence technicians then pulls the evidence, they check it out to me. I then take it to the laboratory. If I'm ready to analyze it then, I'll go ahead and inspect the contents of the bag, compare it to the submission form from what it was received into the laboratory, make sure everything matches up there. And then I open the bag and take samples from it for analysis.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Would you describe what you found in the contents of the bag when you opened it, and your comparison was submitted.
KEITH MCMAHAN: Inside the bag there was a can that had been crushed on one side. It had like a concave place in it made so it could be used as a smoking device. And there were also two foil packs that contained a material.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Would you describe the foil packs to the jury?
KEITH MCMAHAN: They were zippered foil packs and on the outside they had Scooby Snax written on the outside.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And State's 58 contains both of those items; the can that you just discussed and also the packages of -- described as Scooby Snax with material inside of it?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And in referring to those items in your analysis, how did you describe those items? I believe the can has been noted as -- how did you designate the can in your report?
KEITH MCMAHAN: In my report the can was designated as an aluminum can.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And that would have been submission 1-B?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Now, 1-A was described as the two bags of Scooby Snax. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir. And I designated that as two foil packets in the report.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Going through each one separately -- let's start with the can. That would be 1-B. Would you describe to the jury what you did as far as any type of testing on it?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I did two tests on the can. The first was a retention time test which comes from an instrument called a gas chromatograph, or we just call it GCMS for short. Different compounds will take differing amounts of time to go through this instrument from the time it is injected until the time it is detected. That time is called the retention time. That is one of the tests that I used. This compound then, after it goes through the gas chromatograph, then goes into an instrument called a mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer will fragment a molecule in predictable times each and every time. Each and every time it sees that compound it will fragment it the same way. I can then use that fragmentation pattern which is printed out on a graph along with the retention time to identify the compound.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And how did you actually -- from the can itself, how did you actually get something to analyze?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I took a cotton swab, soaked it with methanol, and then in the area where they would have had the substance to heat it to be able to smoke it, I swabbed that area. Then I took that swab and put it in a tube, diluted it a little bit more with methanol. I put that methanol into a small vile that then goes on that instrument, the GC, where it gets sampled by an autoscent, (phonetic) that is on the instrument.
SHAWN GRAHAM: What were the results of your examination as far as the contents of the can?
KEITH MCMAHAN: The can contained a residue amount of a substance called AB Pinaca.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And you might call that a synthetic cannabinoid. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: In general terms what is a synthetic cannabinoid?
KEITH MCMAHAN: A synthetic cannabinoid is a stimulant substance, psychoactive substance, that is somewhat similar to marijuana but not exactly.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Do you know how it is made or produced?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Typically the way it's made is some innocuous plant material. It can be from the marshmallow plant. It really doesn't matter what type of plant it is. They'll take the AB Pinaca chemical and then spray it on this plant material and let it dry, or sometimes they can mix is in a tub with plant material, then take it out and let it dry. The plant material itself is simply a carrier for the controlled substance.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Going back to submissions 1-A which were the two foil packs of Scooby Snax.
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Can you describe what test you performed on that?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Again, on this submission I performed the same two tests that I mentioned before. The retention time from the GC and also the mass spectrometry test.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Now, there were two bags that came to you. Were the bags open or unopen when they came to you? Specifically I'm talking about the foil packs.
KEITH MCMAHAN: I don't have it indicated in my notes if they were already open or not.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Were you able to determine the amounts of material within those packs?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: How much plant like material was inside those two foil packs?
KEITH MCMAHAN: The total amount in both bags was 3.765 grams.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And that's combined?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Combined. Yes, sir.
SHAWN GRAHAM: And you said you performed the same test on that material that you performed on the residue of the can, correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: That is correct.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Would you tell the jury what the results were of the plant like material itself.
KEITH MCMAHAN: The results of the plant like material in submission 1-A were AB Pinaca also.
RICK HUBBARD: Thank you. Please answer any questions the Defense has.
CROSS-EXAMINATION By Mr. Madsen:
ROBERT MADSEN: How are you?
KEITH MCMAHAN: I'm good. How are you.
ROBERT MADSEN: So you said that AB-Pinanca is a synthetic cannabinoid and it is similar to marijuana, correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: That's correct.
ROBERT MADSEN: And I guess the difference is it is a full agonist to the CB1 receptor where marijuana is only a partial agonist. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Sir, to get into the affects in the human body of the substance is a little bit outside of my expertise.
ROBERT MADSEN: Okay. So that's not something you know?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Correct.
ROBERT MADSEN: And AB Pinaca was not put on a federal ban list until sometime in 2015. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: That's possible around that time. I think you are correct.
ROBERT MADSEN: But in Mississippi it was a little bit earlier?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Correct.
ROBERT MADSEN: You think July?
KEITH MCMAHAN: July the 1st of 2014.
ROBERT MADSEN: And that kind of mirrors the legislative sessions. Is that correct?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir.
ROBERT MADSEN: That's all I have, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Just one question, Your Honor.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION By Mr. Graham:
SHAWN GRAHAM: Agent McMahon, just to be clear, AB Pinaca was illegal in your state in September of 2014?
KEITH MCMAHAN: Yes, sir. It was.
SHAWN GRAHAM: Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. You may step down. (Whereupon the witness stepped down from the witness stand.)
THE COURT: Yes, ma'am.
SUZANNE MAYES: May it please the Court, Your Honor, at this time we have a matter of stipulation. At this time we offer State's Exhibit 70 as evidence. These are the results of the blood toxicology test of the Defendant, Timothy Jones, Jr. and request the Court's instruction on that stipulation.
THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, so you understand. A stipulation is an agreement, we agree that this is fact. Today's Friday. They have agreed on a stipulation. A stipulation with regard to Exhibit 70 is the blood samples collected from Timothy Ray Jones, Jr. on September the 7th, 2014 at about 10:0 a.m. in the morning. The blood sample was sent to a toxicology lab known as NMS Labs for testing. The results of the testing were positive for AB Pinaca.
SUZANNE MAYES: Thank you, Your Honor. And State's Exhibit 70. (Whereupon, State's Exhibit 70 was admitted into evidence.)
SUZANNE MAYES: The State calls Lieutenant Dustin Smith.