People v. Poré

• Decision Date: 24 March 2022
• Docket Number: 353704
• Parties: PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JEHNEL JEAN PORÉ, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
JEHNEL JEAN PORÉ, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 353704

Court of Appeals of Michigan

March 24, 2022

UNPUBLISHED

Montcalm Circuit Court LC No. 2019-026184-FH

Before: Cavanagh, P.J., and Markey and Servitto, JJ.

Per Curiam.

Defendant appeals as of right her jury trial conviction of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), MCL 333.7403(2)(b)(i), second offense, MCL 333.7413(1).^[1] The trial court sentenced defendant to a prison term of 1 to 20 years, with 129 days of jail credit. Finding no error requiring reversal, we affirm.

I. RELEVANT FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

On December 10, 2019, Michigan State Police (MSP) Trooper Cole Montez and his partner were dispatched to a domestic dispute at a home where Leslie Talley Kibler, Jr.; Kibler's girlfriend, Patrisia Newland, and defendant resided. Newland's mother, Trudy Carnes, stayed at the home off and on to help with babysitting. Defendant made the 911 call to report that Kibler had assaulted her. Trooper Montez testified at defendant's trial that defendant told him she had taken methamphetamine approximately 10 hours earlier, and heroin 36 hours before that. She said that she had not slept for two days and was not feeling well, so she went into the bedroom shared by Kibler and Newland and asked if someone would call 911. Receiving no answer, she left, but then went back into the bedroom and jumped on the bed. Kibler assaulted her after she jumped on the bed. Trooper Montez testified that defendant had red marks on her right eyebrow and left cheek.

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Responding to the call in a backup capacity, MSP Trooper Trevor Rogers encountered Kibler, and talked with him for about 20 minutes. As a result of this conversation, Trooper Rogers searched the car defendant had been driving, looking primarily for a black and white wallet that, according to Kibler's and Newland's testimonies, belonged to defendant. Not finding the wallet, Trooper Rogers spoke again with Kibler. As a result of this second conversation, he and Kibler looked for the wallet in the basement, where defendant lived. Kibler found the wallet in the wall, behind a cinderblock. The wallet contained needles, three pouches of ascorbic acid, small cotton swabs, and a substance later determined to be methamphetamine. Trooper Rogers did not attempt to take fingerprints from the wallet because its coarse material was not conducive to fingerprinting and because his investigation made him confident about who owned the wallet.

According to Kibler, he and defendant worked together repairing and remodeling homes. They worked overnight from December 9 to December 10, leaving the jobsite for home between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m. When they got home, Kibler immediately went to bed. He woke up to defendant punching him. Kibler testified that defendant had been using methamphetamine and had been awake for three or four days. Kibler said that defendant kept her drugs in a black, white, and red women's wallet. Shown a photograph of the wallet retrieved from the basement, Kibler identified it as defendant's. He testified that he saw defendant with the wallet daily and that she kept it on her or near her all the time.

At defendant's trial, Newland also testified that the black and white wallet belonged to defendant and that she kept it with her almost all the time. She also testified that the basement was basically defendant's area, and that neither she nor Kibler spent time in the basement with defendant.

Testifying on her own behalf, defendant acknowledged that she and Kibler used drugs together before they went to work on the night of December 9, but she insisted that neither of them had the black and white wallet. Defendant said that the last time she saw the wallet was December 7, when Carnes threatened to call the police about her and Kibler's drug use. Kibler had called defendant at work and told her that the house had to be purged of drugs. Defendant texted Kibler with the location of anything she had, including the wallet. He later told her that everything was out of the house. Defendant testified that she did not know that the wallet was behind the wall and that she never would have put it there. Implying that someone else could have stashed the drugs in the basement, defendant testified that at least four other known drug users had been in the basement during the week before December 10.

Defendant testified that she was going through withdrawal as she and Kibler left the jobsite on the morning of December 10. She was starting to panic, feel anxious, and see stars. Upon arriving home, she sat in the truck for a few minutes and broke down crying. She knew she needed to call 911, but she could not see her phone well enough to call 911. She went through the door leading from the garage into Kibler and Newland's bedroom, told them that she could not breathe, and asked them to call 911. No one moved. After several attempts to call 911 herself, or to have someone call 911 for her, defendant found herself lying on Kibler and Newland's bed with her head in Newland's lap. Newland was shielding defendant's face from Kibler's blows, while Carnes was trying to pull Kibler off defendant. Soon thereafter, defendant was able to breathe clearly. She called 911 to report that Kibler had assaulted her. Defendant acknowledged that she

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was an addict, a fact that she never tried to hide from the police. She said that she was in recovery and was not proud of the fact that she had had a short relapse but was trying to bounce back.

After closing arguments and jury instructions, the jury took less than 40 minutes to convict defendant of possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine). The trial court subsequently sentenced defendant as indicated. This appeal followed.

II. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE

Defendant first contends that the evidence admitted at trial was insufficient to support her conviction. We disagree.

We review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution to determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found that the essential elements of the crime were proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See People v Meissner, 294 Mich.App. 438, 452; 812 N.W.2d 37 (2011). We "draw all reasonable inferences and credibility choices in support of the jury verdict," People v Oros, 502 Mich. 229, 239; 917 N.W.2d 559 (2018) (quotation marks and citation omitted), and defer to the fact-finder's role in deciding the weight and credibility to give to a witness's testimony, see People v Mehall, 454 Mich. 1, 6; 557 N.W.2d 110 (1997).

The jury convicted defendant of violating MCL 333.7403(2)(b)(i), which states in relevant part:

(1) A person shall not knowingly or intentionally possess a controlled substance, a controlled substance analogue, or a prescription form unless the controlled substance, controlled substance analogue, or prescription form was obtained directly from, or pursuant to, a valid prescription or order of a practitioner while acting in the course of the practitioner's professional practice, or except as otherwise authorized by this article

(2) A person who violates this section as to:

(b) Either of the following:

(i) A substance described in section [MCL 333.7212(1)(h) or MCL 333.7214(c)(ii)] is guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 10 years or a fine of not more than $15, 000.00, or both.

MCL 333.7214(c)(ii) prohibits the possession of any substances that contain any quantity of methamphetamine.

To obtain a conviction in the present case, the prosecution had to prove that: (1) defendant possessed methamphetamine, and (2) she knew that she possessed methamphetamine. M Crim JI 12.5. Possession does not necessarily mean ownership, but can mean either that the defendant "has actual physical control" of the controlled substance, or the "right to control" the controlled

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substance, "even though it is in a different room or place." Possession may be sole or joint. M Crim JI 12.7.

The evidence was sufficient to allow the jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant knowingly or intentionally possessed methamphetamine. Defendant testified unequivocally that she used the wallet at issue to store drugs that belonged to her and Kibler. Kibler and Newland testified that defendant typically kept the wallet close at hand, and defendant testified that when Kibler informed her that all the drugs had to be out of the house, she told him the location of the wallet. This testimony indicates that defendant not only knowingly and intentionally possessed methamphetamine, which she stored in the black and white wallet but also that she exercised sufficient control over the wallet to hide it where others could not easily find it.

Defendant argued at trial that she thought that the wallet in which methamphetamine was found had been removed from the house by December 7 and implied that the drugs could belong to drug users who visited the house and had access to the basement the week before December 10. Defendant's testimony was uncorroborated, and the verdict indicates that the jury did not find it credible. When reviewing challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court does not interfere with the fact-finder's credibility decisions. See Mehall, 454 Mich. at 6.

On appeal, defendant contends that the only story that makes sense is that she did not know about the methamphetamine discovered in the basement on December 10. The basis for her position is Kibler's testimony that he saw defendant with the black and white wallet while they were at the jobsite on December 9, and her assertion that it was impossible for her to have taken the wallet to the basement before the police arrived without Carnes seeing her, and Carnes testified that she had not seen...