No. 118670

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Background
On October 22, 1996, police officers executed a search warrant at an apartment in Pontiac. No one was in the apartment when the police entered; police stopped defendant Carman Hardiman in the apartment's parking lot sometime during the raid. During the search, police found in a bedroom nightstand a letter addressed to Hardiman at that address. They also discovered cash, and bags of heroin and marijuana. The police also found correspondence addressed to Rodney Crump, along with an ID card and a loan payment book belonging to Crump. Both male and female clothing were found in the bedroom closet, including a blue denim dress that contained forty $10 packs of heroin in the pocket. Police found an unpostmarked letter addressed to Hardiman in the apartment mailbox. Crump was convicted of drug possession in a separate trial.

Hardiman was tried separately in a jury trial before Oakland County Circuit Judge Edward Sosnick. The prosecution's theory was that Hardiman and Crump lived in the apartment and jointly and constructively possessed the drugs found in the bedroom. Hardiman was convicted of possession with intent to deliver less than fifty grams of heroin, and possession of marijuana. She was sentenced to lifetime probation for the possession with intent to deliver heroin conviction, and one year probation for the possession of marijuana conviction. The Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished decision, stating that there was not enough evidence to link Hardiman to the drugs found in the apartment. The prosecution appeals. Prosecutors argue that, based on the evidence, the jury reasonably inferred that Hardiman was living at that apartment at the time the drugs were found, and that she shared the bedroom in which the drugs were discovered.

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