By Deana Medina
The defense and prosecution agreed to a stipulation during a preliminary hearing that the items discovered by a Woodland narcotics specialist officer were indeed methamphetamine.
The only witness during the hearing was Agent Zachary Ryno, a peace officer of ten years currently in a specialized assignment where he is part of an enforcement team investigating the sale and transportation of controlled substances.
Ryno provided his testimony to support the stipulation.
Deputy DA Daniele Schlehofer, for the prosecution began the questioning with Ryno’s background, asking Ryno what drug dealers typically have in their possession to which he answered scales, packaging materials, and a ledger.
She continued establishing Ryno’s knowledge on what entails the selling of drugs, asking the various weights and measures one might encounter, which he had no trouble providing information about.
The prosecution succeeded in proving Ryno an expert in his area of narcotics, with the defense’s attempted rebuttal being that of asking Ryno if had been proven an expert witness before, and if so 
how many times, to which he replied five times.
The now expert witness Ryno then told of his encounter with Jeremy Deaton, for whom he had a search warrant for on June 28, 2018.
On June 29, 2018 Ryno served the search warrant sometime after 8:00 pm. Due to the defense’s probing Ryno revealed and his team had Deaton under surveillance one hour prior to the serving, along with numerous other days of surveillance. Information from a confidential information and this surveillance helped secure the search warrant for Deaton.
Once Ryno and his team arrived at Deaton’s residence, they watched as he exited his house and drove about a block away before pulling to a curb. Ryno detained Deaton in his car, noticing right away a plastic storage bin on top of the center console which appeared to contain methamphetamine inside of clear ziploc bags. In his hands Deaton held a gallon size ziploc bag with over 100 grams of methamphetamine. On his person Deaton had an ounce of methamphetamine, a torch, and a wallet.
Later, when Ryno had time to search through the bin, he discovered ten to eleven bags in total. Ryno searched the rest of the vehicle, finding in the back what he described as a tool bag, inside of which there was two smaller bindle baggies.
After proper searching of Deaton and his vehicle, Ryno moved to the residence, first detaining everyone else he saw in the house.
He took photographs, and then entered Deaton’s bedroom which he confirmed by mail containing Deaton’s name within the room. Scattered throughout the room lay new and unused packing material, a cellphone, another working digital scale, and a short list of names and numbers aligned with each name, leading Ryno to believe it was a ledger.
When asked by the prosecution whether Ryno believed Deaton to be a drug dealer, he did not hesitate, saying “Having these quantities…he has the tools right there on him to make 16 grams [an example] to sell it.”
Deputy Public Defender David Mueller’s cross examinations consisted of the methodology used by Ryno, as stated before with the surveillance tactic. Muller also questioned Ryno whether he reported back when he served the search warrant and detained Deaton, asking if there is some sort of catalog system him and his team use. Ryno stated there is no such system, but rather he knows what he did in his head, and his colleagues do as well. With one last attempt to discredit Ryno’s method, Muller asks if any sort of testing was used on the substances found, to which Ryno said a NIK test was completed and came back positive for methamphetamine.
The defense rested with the line of questioning, establishing the stipulation that the substances discovered by Ryno and his team was methamphetamine.
Despite the defense’s best attempts to argue Deaton should not have multiple counts for the same substance, Judge Beronio said to “save it for the jury,” upholding all counts.
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