Shears v. Commonwealth

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that this Court gives due weight to \a trial court's finding that [an] officer was credible and [that the officer's] inference was reasonable\ (internal quotations omitted)
• finding that the defendant’s possession of cocaine at his residence and at an informant’s trailer constituted two possessory offenses
• affirming two convictions for possession of cocaine where the defendant had a small amount of the drug on his person for the “immediate distribution to a prospective buyer” and constructively possessed similar drugs elsewhere
• evidence of personal documents in same room as drugs and firearms is a circumstance to consider in finding constructive possession of drugs
• “The gravamen of the offense is clearly possession of the specified drug with the requisite intent. Thus, each distinguishable incident of the offending conduct constitutes a ‘unit of prosecution’ for violation of the statute.”
• two cocaine possession charges for two distinguishable incidents arising from a single criminal enterprise

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).