Washington County Confidential

State v. Williams, no. 08-0511 (Iowa Ct. App. May 29, 2009).

Williams was convicted of violating the limits on purchase of pseudoephedrine. He argued that the electronic purchase logs maintained by the pharmacies he visited in his quest to obtain cold medicine were inadmissible under Iowa Code section 126.23A(5) because they'd not been approved by the department of public safety.

The court of appeals disagreed, noting that Iowa Adm. Code 661-174.1 provides that the pharmacist's pseudoephedrine log can be kept in any electronic format, provided that the retailer provides to any peace officer a printed copy of the information.

In addition, Williams challenged the court's comparison of signatures in the pseudoephedrine book to known good exemplars, but since Williams had elected a bench trial, the district court was able to compare the signatures in the same way a jury might.