State v. Killean

OPINION

LIVERMORE, Judge.*

Defendant was charged with possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of marijuana for sale after he was arrested at the Phoenix airport with a suitcase containing twenty-three pounds of marijuana. His defense, revealed for the first time at trial in defense counsel’s opening statement, was that the suitcase belonged to a friend named Ed Kenefick who had traveled from Newark to Tucson with defendant and who had asked defendant to return Kenefiek’s suitcase to Kenefick’s wife. That defense was in fact presented through defendant’s testimony at trial. What is…