Roach v. State

• Decision Date: 23 April 2009
• Docket Number: No. 2005-CT-00237-SCT.,2005-CT-00237-SCT.
• Citation: 7 So.3d 911
• Parties: Jimmie ROACH v. STATE of Mississippi.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

7 So.3d 911

Jimmie ROACH v. STATE of Mississippi.

No. 2005-CT-00237-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

April 23, 2009.

Julie Ann Epps, Canton, attorney for appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by W. Glenn Watts, attorney for appellee.

EN BANC.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI

CARLSON, Presiding Justice, for the Court.

¶ 1. Jimmie Roach was convicted by a Hinds County jury of possession of cocaine and possession of hydromorphone. Roach was sentenced as a Mississippi Code Section 41-29-147 second/subsequent drug offender and as a Section 99-19-81 habitual offender, as to both charges, and received consecutive sentences of forty-eight years for the possession-of-cocaine charge and sixty years for the possession-of-hydromorphone charge, respectively, to be served in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. See Miss. Code Ann. § 41-29-147 (Rev.2005) and Miss.Code Ann. § 99-19-81 (Rev.2007). On direct appeal, a divided Court of Appeals reversed the convictions and sentences based on the majority's finding that the trial court had erred in denying Roach's motion to suppress the search warrant and its fruits inasmuch as insufficient information was provided to the magistrate who issued the search warrant. The State filed this petition for writ of certiorari asserting the opposite premise — that sufficient information was provided for a probable-cause determination, thus justifying the issuance of the search warrant. Upon a grant of certiorari, this Court reverses the Court of Appeals and reinstates and affirms the judgment of conviction and sentence of the Circuit Court for the First Judicial District of Hinds County.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS IN THE TRIAL COURT¹

¶ 2. On January 22, 2003, a confidential informant (CI) reported to Shannon Bullock, an investigator with the Hinds County Sheriff's Department, that he had witnessed the possession and distribution of cocaine at the home of Jimmie Roach. In turn, Investigator Bullock relayed this information to another Hinds County investigator, Richard Spooner. On the same day, Investigators Spooner and Bullock met with the CI to arrange a controlled buy of crack cocaine from Roach at his residence. Investigator Spooner testified that following the purchase, field tests of the substance confirmed it was crack cocaine.

¶ 3. The following day, January 23, 2003, Investigator Spooner signed and presented an Affidavit for Search Warrant to Hinds County Judge Mike Parker for the purpose of obtaining a search warrant for Roach's residence. Without relaying any information about the controlled buy one day earlier, Investigator Spooner, in the affidavit, characterized the CI as being a "truthful, credible, and a reliable source" who had furnished him with "information in the past." Attached to the Affidavit for Search Warrant was a document entitled "Underlying Facts and Circumstance Sheet," likewise signed by Investigator Spooner. We set out here verbatim the language of the Underlying Facts and Circumstances:

On the morning of Thursday, January 23, 2003,[²] I, Investigator R.W. Spooner, received information from a Confidential Informant that cocaine was being stored and sold from a residence located at 217 Foxboro Drive, Jackson, Mississippi. This Confidential Informant has observed cocaine being stored and distributed from this location within the last twenty-four hours and has identified the owner of this residence to be a black male known only to the Confidential Informant as "Jimmy Roach."

This Confidential Informant, having furnished me with information in the past that has proven to be true and correct regarding the trafficking of illicit narcotics is known by me to be a truthful, credible, and a reliable source of information.

Based upon these underlying facts and circumstances, I, Investigator R.W. Spooner, request that a search warrant be issued for the search of the residence located at 217 Foxboro Drive in the First Judicial District of Hinds County, Jackson, Mississippi, for the search and seizure of cocaine, paraphernalia related to the trafficking of cocaine, and any monetary instruments derived from the trafficking of cocaine. This search to include any outbuildings, vehicles located on the property, and any safe or locked containers found on the premises.

On January 23, 2003, Judge Parker issued the search warrant for Roach's residence, and it was executed the same day. The return on the warrant, signed by Investigator Spooner, reveals an inventory of the items taken from Roach's residence. Investigator Spooner would later testify at the suppression hearing that, in the Underlying Facts and Circumstance Sheet, he did not include information about the controlled buy that took place prior to the issuing of the warrant for fear of revealing the identity of the CI. Investigator Spooner also testified that he had spoken with this particular CI on several occasions, each of which involved another officer's case.

¶ 4. The search warrant executed on January 23, 2003, resulted in the detention and questioning of five people, including Roach and his wife, Petrice. During the course of the search, cocaine and hydromorphone were recovered. A small bag filled with crack cocaine was found in one of the couch cushions in the living room. Jamie Johnson, a Mississippi Crime Laboratory employee who is a forensic scientist specializing in the field of drug identification, testified at trial that this substance was cocaine with a weight of 1.86 grams.³ In front of the refrigerator in the kitchen, a bag containing crack cocaine and 400 dosage units of Dilaudid was discovered.⁴

¶ 5. During the course of the trial, defense witness John Henry Clark, Jr. testified that he possessed most of the drugs recovered from the Roach residence,⁵ and that he had dropped the drugs during the course of his flight from the residence just after the police arrived. Clark admitted on cross-examination that in another case in Tennessee, he had falsely confessed to possession of illegal drugs, a crime with which another person subsequently was charged and convicted.

¶ 6. Petrice and Jimmie Roach were tried together. At the conclusion of the presentation of all the evidence, the trial court granted a directed verdict in favor of Petrice due to insufficient evidence that she was in possession of the drugs. However, the jury rendered a guilty verdict against Jimmie Roach, who was sentenced to consecutive terms of forty-eight years for the cocaine and sixty years for the hydromorphone. The trial judge found Roach to be a drug recidivist pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 41-29-147 (Rev. 2005), and thus doubled the statutory maximum penalty.⁶ The trial judge likewise found Roach to be a habitual criminal pursuant to Mississippi Code Section 99-19-81 (Rev.2007), directing that these sentences be served without the benefit of reduction or suspension of sentence or eligibility for parole or probation. Aggrieved by his convictions and sentences, Roach timely appealed, and this case was assigned to the Court of Appeals.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE COURT OF APPEALS

¶ 7. On direct appeal, Jimmie Roach presented the following assignments of error to the Court of Appeals for its review: (1) that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the search warrant and its fruits, (2) that the trial court erred in refusing to order the State to reveal the identity of its confidential informant, (3) that the trial court erred in failing to grant a mistrial after a defense witness was arrested after testifying, (4) that the trial court erred in refusing to grant Petrice Roach's motion for a directed verdict at the close of the State's case-in-chief, (5) that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, and (6) that his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeals found merit in Roach's contention that the trial court had erred in denying his motion to suppress the search and its fruits; therefore, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. Roach v. State, 7 So.3d 933, 2007 Miss.App. LEXIS 538, *2, ¶ 1 (Miss.Ct. App., Aug. 21, 2007).

¶ 8. The Court of Appeals' majority found that the motion to suppress should have been granted on the basis that there was no substantial basis for probable cause in the magistrate's issuance of the warrant. Id. at 941, 2007 Miss.App. LEXIS 538, *23, ¶ 20. The Court of Appeals took issue with the affidavit presented by Investigator Spooner to Judge Parker inasmuch as Investigator Spooner stated he had gotten credible information from the CI in the past without mentioning that his first encounter with the CI had occurred on the previous day, January 22. Id. The Court of Appeals stated:

It is the second paragraph of Officer Spooner's affidavit that is particularly troubling. In that paragraph, Officer Spooner states that the CI in question had furnished him "with information in the past that has proven to be true and correct regarding the trafficking of illicit narcotics...." However, Officer Spooner's testimony during the suppression hearing indicates that the CI had never provided him with information prior to January 22, 2003. Although Officer Spooner waffled and attempted to rectify the situation by asserting that the CI had provided him with credible information in the past that had not actually led to arrests, Officer Bullock's testimony clarified that it was apparent when Officer Spooner and the CI met on January 22, 2003, that the two had never met before. Officer Bullock also testified that, to his knowledge, Officer Spooner had never worked with the CI prior to January 22, 2003.

There are two interpretations of the statement in the affidavit that the CI had furnished Officer Spooner with information in the past: (1) that Officer Spooner had a working relationship with the CI, who had given him reliable information that had been verified in the course of past cases; or (2) that...