State v. Schmidt

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

*260O’HERN, J.

The defendant stands convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The central question in his appeal is whether an appellate court may use that conspiracy conviction as the theory for sustaining a substantive conviction of possession of the drugs without submitting that theory to the jury. The case concerns the criminal liability of defendant as the alleged leader of an operation that transported cocaine from Florida to New York. New Jersey police seized the contraband pursuant to a lawful search of a car traveling on the New Jersey…