In State v. Phelps, 156 N.C. App. 119, 575 S.E.2d 818 (2003), a police officer arrested the defendant on outstanding warrants and took him to the county jail. Id. at 121, 575 S.E.2d at 820. Once at the jail, and before reading the defendant his Miranda rights, the officer told the defendant that "he needed to let me know right now before we went past the jail doors if he had any kind of illegal substances or weapons on him, that it was an automatic felony no matter what it was, so he better let me know right now." Id. The defendant admitted that he had crack cocaine in his pocket, and the officer retrieved the drugs. Id. A jury found the defendant guilty of possession of cocaine after a trial in which the State introduced the defendant's statement, over the defendant's objection. Id. at 122, 575 S.E.2d at 820-21. On appeal to the Court of Appeals, our Court found that the officer's question to the defendant constituted custodial interrogation. Therefore, we held that the defendant should have received his Miranda warnings prior to being questioned, and that as a result, the trial court erred in admitting the defendant's statement. Id. at 123, 575 S.E.2d at 821. In Phelps, Judge Hunter found that the erroneous admission of the defendant's statement "was highly inflammatory on the issue of whether the defendant knowingly possessed the cocaine," because the defendant's statement was the State's only evidence as to the mens rea element of the crime. Phelps, 156 N.C. App. at 127-28, 575 S.E.2d at 824 (Hunter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). This holding was later adopted by the Supreme Court. See Phelps, 358 N.C. at 142, 592 S.E.2d at 688.