Mosley v. State
| Decision Date | 24 May 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. 2010–KA–00467–COA.,2010–KA–00467–COA. |
| Citation | 89 So.3d 41 |
| Parties | James Wayland MOSLEY, Appellant v. STATE of Mississippi, Appellee. |
| Court | Mississippi Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Phillip Broadhead, Oxford, Leslie S. Lee, Jackson, attorneys for appellant.
Office of the Attorney General By Jeffrey A. Klingfuss, attorney for appellee.
Before IRVING, P.J., MAXWELL and RUSSELL, JJ.
MAXWELL, J., for the Court:
¶ 1. A Choctaw County jury found James Mosley guilty of possession of marijuana and cocaine. Mosley was a passenger in a vehicle pulled over for a traffic violation. Officers found the marijuana and cocaine under the passenger seat. On appeal, Mosley challenges: (1) the admission of the evidence seized from the vehicle during the traffic stop, (2) the denial of his offered jury instructions on constructive possession, and (3) the sufficiency and weight of the evidence supporting the jury's guilty verdict. Finding no error, we affirm.
FACTS
¶ 2. On August 4, 2009, two officers—a Choctaw County deputy sheriff and an agent with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics—were surveilling individuals known to be involved in narcotic activity. As they were driving by the home of a suspected drug dealer, a green Chevy Tahoe pulled into the driveway. The officers recognized this vehicle from undercover videos of James Mosley selling narcotics to confidential informants. The officers pulled over to watch the vehicle. They saw Mosley exit the house and get into the passenger's seat of the Tahoe. The officers followed Mosley to see where he was going.
¶ 3. The officers were directly behind the Tahoe as it came to a four-way stop and made a right turn. Both officers noticed neither the brake lights nor the turn signal was functioning properly. Based on these traffic violations, they pulled over the vehicle. After calling in the traffic stop and running the license plate, the deputy sheriff approached the vehicle's driver, who identified herself as Mosley's girlfriend. The MBN agent had already approached the passenger side of the vehicle. The agent asked Mosley to get out of the vehicle based on information from confidential informants that Mosley carried a firearm. The MBN agent noticed marijuana in plain sight on the floorboard.
¶ 4. After issuing Mosley Miranda warnings, the agent asked Mosley if there was anything illegal in the Tahoe. Mosley told him there was marijuana inside a box of plastic sandwich bags and a gun in the driver's door. The agent searched the vehicle and found the marijuana in the baggie box on the passenger-side floorboard beneath where Mosley had been sitting. Next to the marijuana was crack cocaine inside a folded paper napkin. The agent also found a Colt pistol in the driver's door.
¶ 5. The officers arrested Mosley and his girlfriend. They later released Mosley's girlfriend without issuing citations for the traffic violations. The grand jury returned a three-count indictment charging Mosley with (1) possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, (2) possession of less than thirty grams of marijuana, and (3) possession of more than 0.1 but less than 2 grams of cocaine.
¶ 6. Prior to trial, Mosley sought to suppress the drugs and gun as evidence. He claimed the officers stopped the Tahoe in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The circuit court denied his motion. Based on the officers' testimony at the suppression hearing, the circuit court found the officers had a reasonable basis to stop the Tahoe for failure to use brake lights and a turn signal. And based on Mosley's statement about the marijuana and the gun, they permissibly searched the vehicle leading to discovery of these items and cocaine.
¶ 7. At trial, because the drugs and pistol were not found on Mosley's person, the circuit court instructed the jury on constructive possession. The jury could not reach a verdict on the firearm charge, so the circuit court declared a mistrial on that count. But the jury found Mosley guilty of both the marijuana and cocaine-possession counts. The circuit court fined Mosley for the marijuana possession but sentenced him to eight years' imprisonment for the cocaine-possession charge.
¶ 8. After an unsuccessful post-trial motion, Mosley timely appealed his conviction.
DISCUSSION
¶ 9. Mosley argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the drugs and gun found in the Tahoe. Mosley asserts the basis for the traffic stop was pretextual and manufactured after the fact, as evidenced by the officers' failure to issue Mosley's girlfriend a traffic citation. He argues the stop violated the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, making the drugs and gun found incident to the stop inadmissible “fruit of the poisonous tree.”
¶ 10. Even if the traffic stop was pretextual, we agree with the trial court that probable cause existed to stop the vehicle for a traffic violation. And during the lawful traffic stop, the MBN agent saw marijuana in plain sight, and Mosley admitted there was more marijuana in the car. Thus, the search and seizure were reasonable.
¶ 11. “The proponent of a motion to suppress has the burden of establishing that his own Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or seizure.” Lyons v. State, 942 So.2d 247, 250(¶ 11) (Miss.Ct.App.2006). We review the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress evidence for abuse of discretion. Goff v. State, 14 So.3d 625, 641 (¶ 47) (Miss.2009). We look for “whether substantial and credible evidence existed to support the ruling.” Johnson v. State, 49 So.3d 130, 133 (¶ 6) (Miss.Ct.App.2010) (quoting Baker v. State, 991 So.2d 185, 187 (¶ 6) (Miss.Ct.App.2008)). We will not disturb the trial court's decision unless we find the trial court “applied an incorrect legal standard, committed manifest error, or made a decision contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence.” Id. (quoting Simmons v. State, 805 So.2d 452, 482 (¶ 65) (Miss.2001)).
¶ 12. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 3 section 23 of the Mississippi Constitution protect individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Miss. Const., art. 3, § 23. Traffic stops are Fourth–Amendment “seizures.” Tate v. State, 946 So.2d 376, 382 (¶ 17) (Miss.Ct.App.2006) (citing United States v. Grant, 349 F.3d 192, 196 (5th Cir.2003)). And a passenger of a vehicle that has been stopped has likewise been “seized.” Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 257–60, 127 S.Ct. 2400, 168 L.Ed.2d 132 (2007).
¶ 13. The “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine is an exclusionary rule that makes inadmissible tangible evidence obtained incident to an unlawful search or seizure. Marshall v. State, 584 So.2d 437, 438 (Miss.1991) (citing Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 536, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988)); Powell v. State, 824 So.2d 661, 667 (¶ 27) (Miss.Ct.App.2002). If the traffic stop was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, the drugs and gun found during the search of the Tahoe would be inadmissible.
¶ 14. “As a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.” Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). Under Whren:
[A] traffic stop, even if pretextual, does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the officer making the stop has “probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.” This is an objective test based on the facts known to the officer at the time of the stop, not on the motivations of the officer in making the stop.
United States v. Escalante, 239 F.3d 678, 680–81 (5th Cir.2001) (quoting Whren, 517 U.S. at 810, 116 S.Ct. 1769);see Adams v. City of Booneville, 910 So.2d 720, 724–25 (¶ ¶ 16–17) (Miss.Ct.App.2005) ( officer had “an objective, reasonable suspicion that [the defendant] had committed a traffic violation ... even though [the defendant] was ultimately acquitted of the careless driving charge”). “Probable cause is determined by looking at the totality of the circumstances.” Howard v. State, 987 So.2d 506, 510 (¶ 12) (Miss.Ct.App.2008) (citation and quotations omitted).
¶ 15. “[D]uring a lawful traffic stop an officer may order a passenger out of the car as a precautionary measure, without reasonable suspicion that the passenger poses a safety risk.” Brendlin, 551 U.S. at 258, 127 S.Ct. 2400 (citing Maryland v. Wilson, 519 U.S. 408, 414–15, 117 S.Ct. 882, 137 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997)). If the officer “develops reasonable, articulable suspicion of [additional] criminal activity,” the officer may expand the scope of the stop to include “investigation of the newly-suspected criminal activity.” Shelton v. State, 45 So.3d 1203, 1209 (¶ 15) (Miss.Ct.App.2010) (citing Tate, 946 So.2d at 382 (¶ 18)). When an officer determines an illegal substance is in plain view, the officer then has probable cause to make an arrest and search the vehicle. McCollins v. State, 798 So.2d 624, 628 (¶ 17) (Miss.Ct.App.2001).
¶ 16. The record shows the officers had been surveilling the house of a suspected drug dealer. They saw Mosley, who they knew had sold drugs to confidential informants, leave this house in a green Tahoe, which they recognized from undercover videos of controlled drug purchases. And they decided to tail the Tahoe to see where Mosley was going. Mosley argues this evidence supports that the stop was pretextual and unlawful. But this subjective suspicion that Mosley had drugs is not the test for whether probable cause existed for the traffic stop. Escalante, 239 F.3d at 680–81. Instead, the proper inquiry is whether the officers, under the totality of the circumstances and objective facts available, had probable cause to believe a traffic violation had occurred.
¶ 17. The trial court found...
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