Money v. State
| Decision Date | 14 November 1997 |
| Docket Number | CR-96-1025 |
| Citation | 717 So.2d 38 |
| Parties | Terri Jean MONEY v. STATE. |
| Court | Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals |
Randy C. Brackin, Dothan, for appellant.
Bill Pryor, atty. gen., and James B. Prude, asst. atty. gen., for appellee.
The appellant, Terri Jean Money, pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, unlawful possession of marijuana in the first degree, as proscribed by § 13A-12-213, Ala.Code 1975, and trafficking in cocaine, as proscribed by § 13A-12-231, Ala.Code 1975. The appellant was sentenced as a habitual felony offender with two prior felony convictions. For the conviction of possession of marijuana in the first degree, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine and $50 to the crime victims compensation fund. For the conviction of trafficking in cocaine, she was sentenced to life in prison and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine, $50 to the crime victims compensation fund, and $650 in restitution to the Henry County Sheriff's Department. The appellant's sentences were to run consecutively. The appellant presents four issues on appeal from her convictions. 1
Evidence adduced at hearings on various pretrial motions filed by the appellant indicated that on June 7, 1995, two investigators from the Pike County Sheriff's Department and a confidential informant contacted Kenneth Noel Vanlandingham, a narcotics investigator with the Henry County Sheriff's Department. The informant told Vanlandingham that the appellant and others were on their way back to Alabama from Texas in the appellant's automobile and that they would have approximately 20 pounds of marijuana and other controlled substances in their possession. The informant said that they would arrive at the appellant's house in Abbeville late that evening or early on the morning of June 8. The informant told Vanlandingham that he had previously purchased marijuana from the appellant. He gave Vanlandingham the appellant's address and a detailed description of the residence. Vanlandingham checked with the United States Post Office and verified that the appellant lived at the address the informant provided. The two investigators from the Pike County Sheriff's Department advised Vanlandingham that the informant had given them what had proven to be reliable and accurate information on prior occasions. Vanlandingham had previously worked with the two Pike County investigators.
Based on this information, at approximately 10:00 p.m. on June 7, Vanlandingham and other law enforcement officers began surveillance of a house at 406 West Washington Street in Abbeville, the appellant's residence. Vanlandingham then had the informant place two telephone calls to Darlene Johnson, an individual inside the appellant's residence, to ask Johnson when the appellant was due to arrive and to arrange a purchase of marijuana from the appellant. While listening in on the telephone conversations between the informant and Johnson, the officers learned that the appellant and other individuals would be bringing in marijuana "early in the morning" on June 8, 1995, and that they would be traveling in the appellant's gray Mercury Cougar automobile.
At 3:10 a.m. on June 8, 1995, a gray Mercury Cougar automobile pulled into the driveway of the appellant's residence, and the appellant, Jeff Seneca, and Butch Jarrell got out of the car. Darlene Johnson came out of the house to meet them. With the aid of special night-vision equipment, Vanlandingham and the other officers saw the four individuals take packages from the car into the house. The four individuals made five different trips, and took seven or eight different packages or suitcase-type items into the house. After these items had been taken inside, the lights inside the house were turned out, and a Toyota truck driven by Butch Jarrell backed out of the driveway and left.
Later that morning, at approximately 8:00 a.m., Vanlandingham met with Charles W. Woodham, a district court judge in Henry County. Vanlandingham relayed the facts to Judge Woodham and then prepared an affidavit to obtain a search warrant. Among other things that Vanlandingham stated in the affidavit was the fact that he had received information from a reliable informant to the effect that the appellant had had marijuana in her possession within the last 72 hours. Judge Woodham then issued a search warrant for the appellant's residence; the warrant tracked much of the language in Vanlandingham's affidavit. Pertinent portions of the search warrant read as follows:
While the search warrant clearly showed the date it was issued, the information in the search warrant did not include the hour of its issuance.
Before executing the search warrant, Vanlandingham had the informant place a telephone call to the appellant at her residence, ostensibly to arrange payment to the appellant for a prior purchase of marijuana and to arrange a new purchase of marijuana. The informant was provided with $650 in cash from the sheriff's department to purchase marijuana from the appellant. After being searched by law enforcement officers, the informant entered the appellant's residence. A short time later, he returned to the waiting officers with a bag of marijuana he had purchased from the appellant. He turned the marijuana over to the officers at that time.
At 10:30 a.m. on June 8, 1995, Vanlandingham and the other officers executed the search warrant for the appellant's residence. The appellant was present when they conducted the search. During their search, officers found a plastic bag containing approximately 55 grams of cocaine on the bed in the appellant's bedroom. A large bag of marijuana was found in a clothes basket in the appellant's bedroom. Various items of drug paraphernalia, including roach clips, were found in a locked box in her bedroom. The appellant's purse contained a small bag of marijuana. More than $1,700 in cash was also found in the appellant's purse, $650 of which was identified by the serial numbers as the money the sheriff's department had given the informant to purchase marijuana from the appellant. In searching the kitchen area of the house, officers found several plastic bags of marijuana in the freezer; plastic bags containing marijuana residue were found in a garbage can; plant material and a partially smoked marijuana cigarette were found in an ashtray on top of the refrigerator and an electronic scale was found near the refrigerator. Other items of drug paraphernalia were found in the living room, and razor blades were found on a table in the den. Two plastic bags of marijuana, rolling papers and smoking devices, and some Valium and other assorted pills were found in Jeff Seneca's bedroom in the residence. Hashish oil was found in Darlene Johnson's overnight bag in her car, which was parked in the backyard of the appellant's residence. A small amount of marijuana residue was found inside the appellant's automobile. The total weight of the marijuana found inside the appellant's house was nearly two pounds. Butch Jarrell eventually led officers to more marijuana, weighing approximately 18 pounds, which had been hidden in a location near the Dale County/Henry County line.
The appellant was arrested and was later indicted on charges of possession of marijuana in the first degree (possession of marijuana for other than personal use, see § 13A-12-213(a), Ala.Code 1975) and for trafficking in cocaine. Shortly after the appellant's arrest, and before she was tried, the state filed a petition in the circuit court, pursuant to § 20-2-93, Ala.Code 1975, seeking the civil forfeiture of the appellant's house and 1991 Mercury Cougar automobile on the ground that the property had been used to facilitate violations of Alabama's controlled substance laws. Following an ore tenus hearing on the state's petition, the circuit court ordered that the appellant's house and automobile be forfeited to the state. After entry of the forfeiture judgment, the appellant filed a motion to dismiss the indictments, stating as grounds that she had been "punished" for the same drug offenses by the forfeiture of her property in the civil action and that, consequently, prosecution for the offenses would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. This motion was denied, as was the appellant's motion to suppress the state's evidence. The appellant then withdrew her initial pleas of not guilty and pleaded guilty to the charges in the indictments.
The appellant contends that the search of her house was illegal and that, therefore, the evidence seized during the search was due...
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...or describing the person and particularly describing the property and the place to be searched." This Court stated in Money v. State, 717 So.2d 38 (Ala.Cr.App.1997): "`When reviewing a lower court's decision to issue a search warrant, this Court looks to the totality of the information avai......
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...and veracity of the informant. See Moynes, 568 So.2d 392 ; Dale v. State, 466 So.2d 196 (Ala.Crim.App.1985)."Money v. State, 717 So.2d 38, 42–43 (Ala.Crim.App.1997). Applying the "totality-of-the-circumstances" test set out in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 ......
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