Hawkins v. State

The purpose of establishing a chain of custody is not to present an accounting of every hand that touched an item of contraband as it made its way from the alleged perpetrator to the arresting officer to the State Crime Lab and back into Drug Task Force custody. Instead, its purpose is to prevent the introduction of evidence that is not authentic. The majority has lost sight of this purpose, or simply ignored it, by refusing to recognize that the testimony and evidence in this case present a significant possibility that the contraband tested was not the same as that allegedly purchased by the…