BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN
Daily and Sunday Review           

 The 2004 methamphetamine-manufacturing conviction of Cory Dobbins, 33, of Troy attained statewide importance when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last November that critical evidence in the case could not be used against him.

 The evidence was gathered by Bradford County sheriff’s deputies, and the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s illegal drug law does not permit sheriff’s deputies to investigate crimes that occur outside their presence, which is the type of investigation that had occurred in the Dobbins case.

 Following the Supreme Court ruling, Pennsylvania’s Superior Court suppressed all evidence gathered against Dobbins by the Bradford County Sheriff’s Department, vacated Dobbins’ four-to-23 year sentence, and sent the case back to trial court in Bradford County.

 On Monday, the case was re-tried in the Bradford County Court of Common Pleas, and at the end of the trial, the jury found Dobbins guilty of all the charges that had originally been lodged against him, said Bradford County District Attorney Daniel Barrett.

 “Dobbins won in the Supreme Court, but all he won was a new trial,” said Barrett, when asked to comment on the case.

 Dobbins’ arrest occurred when Bradford County deputies went to a private residence near Troy in July 2003, seeking to question a woman in a drug investigation. At the time they detected a chemical smell coming from a barn. They approached Cory J. Dobbins, who escaped on foot, and then came across items used to manufacture methamphetamine before obtaining a search warrant.

 Dobbins was arrested less then two weeks later in Elmira, N.Y., and was subsequently convicted of methamphetamine-related offenses.

 Barrett said it was a challenge to re-try Dobbins because so much of the evidence and testimony used at Dobbins’ original trial could no longer be used, including the physical evidence gathered at the scene by the sheriff’s department, Barrett said.

 In this week’s trial, the district attorney’s office relied heavily on the testimony of others involved with Dobbins in manufacturing meth, Barrett said.

 With the passage of time, more of them were willing to testify, he said.

 Also testifying at this week’s trial was state police fire marshal Robert McKee, who reported during the proceedings that when he was investigating a fire on the same property in June 2003, he found items that suggested that methamphetamine manufacturing was going on on the property, Barrett said.

 Barrett said he appointed Bradford County Sheriff’s Deputies David Hart and Jamie Lammy as special deputy county detectives so that they could help coordinate the preparations for this week’s trial,  

 “They wore the badge of the district attorney’s Office and the county detective’s office in addition to their own,” Barrett said. 

 The jury found Dobbins guilty this week of manufacturing methamphetamine, possession of methamphetamine, criminal conspiracy, and criminal attempt, Barrett said.
 
 Dobbins’s bail was revoked on Monday, and he is scheduled to be sentenced by Bradford County Court Judge Jeffrey Smith on May 15.