Gayle v. State, CR-91-1531
| Decision Date | 05 March 1993 |
| Docket Number | CR-91-1531 |
| Parties | Lloyd Clifton GAYLE v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Lawson Little, Dothan, for appellant.
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and Joseph Marston III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
On April 4, 1991, the appellant, Lloyd Clifton Gayle, was convicted of trafficking in cocaine and of failure to obtain tax stamps for the cocaine. He was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and was fined $50,000 on the trafficking conviction and was sentenced to imprisonment for 1 year and 1 day on the conviction for failing to obtain tax stamps, both sentences to run concurrently. This court reversed his convictions in Gayle v. State, 591 So.2d 153 (Ala.Cr.App.1991). The appellant was retried on April 14, 1992 and was again convicted of trafficking in cocaine and of failure to obtain tax stamps. He was again sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment and was fined $50,000 in the trafficking conviction and was sentenced to imprisonment for 1 year and 1 day on the conviction for failure to obtain tax stamps, both sentences to fun concurrently. It is from these convictions that the appellant now appeals.
The evidence presented at trial tended to show that in October 1990 the appellant and two other men were staying in room number 224 of the Olympia Spa Motel in Houston County, Alabama. Betty McClendon, an employee at the motel, noticed that several times a day over a period of four or five days the appellant and one of the other men would look in the shrubbery near the room where she worked. On October 23, Ms. McClendon and Vicky Bradley, the head housekeeper, looked in the shrubbery the appellant had been looking in. In the shrubbery, they found a black round package with a red sticker on it. They took the package to David Polur, the owner of the Olympia Spa Motel. Mr. Polur then called the police.
Officers Steve Parrish and Duane Herring of the Dothan Police Department went to the motel and took the black package back to the police department. At the police department, Officer Parrish opened the package and found numerous bags of an off-white, rocklike substance. He then conducted a field test on the substance and determined that it was crack cocaine. The officers then replaced the cocaine with business cards and rewrapped the package. They returned to the motel and put the rewrapped package back in the shrubbery where Ms. McClendon had found it.
Officers Parish and Herring, along with Officer Antonio Gonzalez, staked out the area around the motel and waited for someone to pick up the package. Two men who were staying in room 224 went downstairs and got into a blue Mazda MX-6 automobile. Shortly thereafter, the appellant left room 224, went to the shrubbery, picked up the package, and got into the vehicle with the other two men. The appellant passed the package to the man in the driver's seat, who then passed it to the man in the back seat. When the men in the Mazda left the motel, Officers Parrish and Herring followed them in one automobile and Officer Gonzalez followed them in another. The officers stopped the vehicle and arrested the occupants. They recovered the package from the back floorboard of the Mazda.
The officers then secured a warrant and searched room 224 of the Olympia Spa Motel. They found $3,000 in cash and bags of an off-white, rocklike substance that they assumed was cocaine.
David Thorne, supervisor of drug chemistry for the Enterprise laboratory of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, tested and weighed the substances recovered from the black package in the shrubbery and from the motel room. He determined that the substances were 90-95% pure cocaine. The cocaine recovered from the black package weighed 28.904 grams and the cocaine recovered from the motel room weighed 1.546 grams.
None of the cocaine had tax stamps affixed to it.
The appellant argues on appeal that there was not sufficient evidence to support his conviction for trafficking in cocaine. Section 13A-12-231(2), Code of Alabama 1975, provides, in pertinent part:
"Any person who...
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