Johnson v. State

• Decision Date: 16 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2003-KA-02139-SCT.,2003-KA-02139-SCT.
• Parties: John L. JOHNSON a/k/a Johnny L. Johnson v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

904 So.2d 162

John L. JOHNSON a/k/a Johnny L. Johnson v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2003-KA-02139-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

June 16, 2005.

Leslie D. Rousell, appellant, pro se.

Office of the Attorney General by Jean Smith Vaughan, attorney for appellee.

Before SMITH, C.J., EASLEY and GRAVES, JJ.

GRAVES, Justice, for the Court.

¶ 1. John L. Johnson was convicted of the sale of cocaine within fifteen hundred feet of a church, in violation of Miss.Code Ann. §§ 41-29-139¹ and 41-29-142.² The trial judge sentenced Johnson to a term of thirty years imprisonment in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections without early release. Johnson timely appealed and charges the trial court with numerous errors.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. On June 14, 2002, officers Michael Tolbert and Tony Holifield of the South Mississippi Narcotics Task Force conducted an undercover drug buy with the aid of a paid informant, Steve Brown. Officer Tolbert monitored the transaction by surveillance equipment while Holifield and Brown purchased the cocaine. Holifield and Brown arrived at a trailer park in Wayne County at approximately 9:14 p.m., purchased one rock of crack cocaine from Jeffrey Miller and another from Johnson, left that location at approximately 9:18 p.m., and met up with officers Tolbert and Overstreet for a post-buy meeting where Tolbert took possession of the drugs and weighed them. Johnson was later arrested and indicted by a grand jury for the illegal sale of cocaine within fifteen hundred (1,500) feet of the Saint Mary Holy Church of God in Christ. Five or six days after the sale, Officer Holifield identified Johnson as one of the individuals from whom he purchased drugs after being shown a single photograph of Johnson by Officer Tolbert.³

¶ 3. Johnson's trial in the Circuit Court of Wayne County began on July 9, 2003. At trial, the State introduced testimony of Tolbert, Holifield, and Brandi Goodman, who worked for the Mississippi Crime Lab. Tolbert and Holifield provided conflicting testimony as to the amount of money used in the drug buy and as to the value of the drugs purchased. Tolbert testified that he gave Holifield $40 total to purchase drugs and that Holifield purchased a $20 rock of crack cocaine from both Miller and Johnson. Holifield, however, testified that Tolbert gave him $60 to purchase drugs and that he bought a $40 rock from Miller and a $20 rock from Johnson. There was also conflicting testimony as to the weight of the drugs purchased. Tolbert testified that the weight of the cocaine purchased from Johnson was approximately 0.6 grams. Brandi Goodman testified that the drugs she weighed at the state's crime lab, which were purportedly purchased from Johnson, weighed only 0.22 grams.

¶ 4. After the State rested its case-in-chief, Johnson made a motion for a directed verdict, which the court denied. Johnson then rested without offering any additional evidence. The jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on July 10, 2003. A sentencing hearing was held on September 12, 2003, and the judge sentenced Johnson to thirty years without early release, pursuant to Miss.Code Ann. § 99-19-81, assessed him $250 in court costs, and assessed a crime lab fee of $300. Johnson timely filed a motion for a judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict (J.N.O.V.) or, in the alternative, a new trial, which was denied.

¶ 5. Johnson raises five (5) issues on appeal⁴, alleging that: (1) The trial court committed reversible error by failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict. Further, the weight of all of the evidence at the trial of this matter cannot sustain a conviction of guilty of sale of cocaine within 1500 feet of a church. The state failed to prove identification as well as within 1500 feet of a church beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) Although the defendant did not object to the chain of custody and the subsequent admission into evidence of the alleged crack cocaine in this case, the court should not have allowed the State of Mississippi to introduce it into evidence; (3) The trial court committed error by sentencing the defendant to thirty years without parole as doing so was tantamount to giving the defendant a life sentence; (4) The court committed reversible error by refusing to grant defendant's proposed jury instruction D-2; and (5) Whether the above described errors when viewed cumulatively rise to the level of preventing Mr. Johnson from receiving a constitutionally fair trial. Finding no error, we affirm Johnson's conviction and sentence.

DISCUSSION

I. Sufficiency and Weight of the Evidence.

¶ 6. Johnson's attack of the trial court's denial of a directed verdict breaks down into two arguments: (1) that the evidence put on by the State was insufficient to overcome a motion for a directed verdict, let alone to support a jury verdict of guilty, and (2) that Officer Holifield's pre-court identification of him, based on a single photograph, was unnecessarily suggestive, as was admission of that photo at trial, and amounted to a denial of his fourteenth amendment due process rights. This claim of a due process violation raises an independent issue which we will address separately in Section II below.

¶ 7. This Court reviews an appeal of an overruled motion for a directed verdict or j.n.o.v. as a matter of law, with the legal sufficiency of the evidence being viewed in a light most favorable to the State. McClain v. State, 625 So.2d 774, 778 (Miss.1993). Essentially, all credible evidence supporting a defendant's guilt should be accepted as true, and all favorable inferences drawn from the evidence must be reconciled in the prosecution's favor. Id. This Court will only overturn a trial court's denial of a motion for a directed verdict or j.n.o.v. if, after considering all of the evidence, "reasonable and fair-minded jurors could only find the accused not guilty." Id.

¶ 8. Johnson attacks his conviction, in part, based on discrepancies in the weight of the cocaine, arguing that this evidence was not credible. He argues that the difference in weight of the cocaine, as measured by the task force officers, and the weight of the cocaine tested by Brandi Goodman at the Mississippi Crime Lab cannot support the conclusion, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the cocaine introduced against him in court is the same substance that the officers supposedly purchased from him on June 14, 2002. Johnson also argues that the State introduced insufficient evidence to prove that the alleged sale took place within 1,500 feet of a church. He noted that Officer Tolbert had not actually measured the distance from the church to the location of the drug buy and, furthermore, that the State introduced no evidence that the church housed an active congregation.

¶ 9. The State rebutted Johnson by introducing testimony of the officers who conducted the drug buy and a surveillance recording of the sale itself. Officer Holifield made a positive identification of Mr. Johnson as the person from whom he purchased cocaine. In response to Johnson's charge that the State hadn't proven the distance of the alleged sale from the church, Officer Tolbert admitted that he did not make an actual measurement of the distance; however, he approximated the distance as roughly thirty (30) yards and testified that he drove from the spot of the sale to the church and that the distance was too short to even register one tenth of a mile on the odometer of his vehicle. Brandi Goodman also testified that the substance purchased by the undercover agent was in fact crack cocaine.

¶ 10. Viewing the evidence introduced at trial in a light most favorable to the State and the guilty verdict, there is sufficient evidence to overcome Johnson's motions for a directed verdict and j.n.o.v. Issues concerning the weight and credibility of evidence are to be determined by a jury, Harveston v. State, 493 So.2d 365, 370 (Miss.1986), and this Court is not allowed to "pass upon the credibility of witnesses and, where the evidence justifies a verdict, it must be accepted as having been found worthy of belief." Davis v. State, 568 So.2d 277, 281 (Miss.1990). Any conflicts in the evidence introduced at trial were resolved by the jury and such evidence was not so deficient that "reasonable fair-minded men in the exercise of impartial judgment" could not conclude that Johnson was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. May v. State, 460 So.2d 778, 781 (Miss.1984). As such, we find that the trial court did not err in denying Johnson's motions.

¶ 11. At trial, Johnson, in addition to his motion for a j.n.o.v., made an alternative motion for a new trial which the judge denied. Though Johnson does not explicitly state that he is appealing the denial of his motion for a new trial, he does make a claim that his conviction is contrary to the weight of the evidence introduced at trial. This Court's standard for reviewing the trial court's denial of a motion for a new trial is abuse of discretion. A new trial should only be awarded if "the verdict is so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence that, to allow it to stand, would be to sanction an unconscionable injustice." Esparaza v. State, 595 So.2d 418, 426 (Miss.1992).

¶ 12. To support its case, the State introduced a tape recording of the sale where Johnson's fellow drug dealer referred to him as Johnny. Officer Holifield, the officer who conducted the undercover drug buy, testified that Johnson was the individual he purchased drugs from and made an in-court identification of Johnson. The State also introduced evidence from the state's crime lab which indicated that the substance Johnson sold was in fact crack cocaine. Johnson's defense was based primarily on an argument that the cocaine introduced into evidence was not the same piece of cocaine which the officers supposedly bought from him. He also alleges misidentification by the officers working the case, yet Johnson never offered an...