State v. Scanlon

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY,

for the Court.

I

Sometime after midnight on March 2, 2003, Janet S. 1 left Buddy’s, a bar in Woonsocket. Janet, an admitted drug addict and prostitute, had spent most of the previous afternoon and evening consuming drugs, including cocaine, as well as a prodigious amount of alcohol. 2 She was, in her own words, “wasted” and having trouble walking. Despite her condition, Janet was on her way home to meet one of her drug suppliers, from whom she intended to procure a “seventy piece,” an amount of cocaine that costs $70. 3

As Janet made her way along Arnold Street, a…