Saul v. State

• Decision Date: 26 January 2006
• Docket Number: No. CR 05-754.,CR 05-754.
• Citation: 225 S.W.3d 373
• Parties: Donald Vern SAUL, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

225 S.W.3d 373

Donald Vern SAUL, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CR 05-754.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

January 26, 2006.

Washington County Public Defender's Office, by: Lisa C. Parks, Deputy Public Defender, Bentonville, for appellant.

Mike Beebe, Att'y. Gen., by: David R. Raupp, Sr., Ass't. Att'y. Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

ROBERT L. BROWN, Justice.

Appellant Donald Vern Saul appeals his judgment of conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine and his sentence of 360 months. On appeal, he argues multiple points. We affirm the judgment of the circuit court and reverse the decision of the court of appeals.

On February 13, 2002, Officer Andy Lee of the Bentonville Police Department stopped Saul for speeding in a white van in Bentonville. After running a warrants check on Saul, he discovered that Saul had an outstanding misdemeanor warrant for forging checks. Officer Lee arrested Saul based on the warrant, searched the van, and found a blue plastic container in the rear of the vehicle.¹ He opened the container and found items and substances he associated with a methamphetamine lab. After that discovery, Officer Lee backed away from the van and secured the scene. He also called in another investigator to assist him with the processing of the found items. Evidence was collected, following which some of the items from the blue container were sent to the crime lab and other items were sent to an environmental agency for disposal. When Officer Lee later questioned Saul at the jail about the blue container, Saul denied ever having seen it before. Officer Lee described Saul's denial in his affidavit of probable cause dated February 20, 2002. Saul was charged with manufacturing methamphetamine, based on the contents of the blue container, and also as a habitual offender with two prior convictions for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Before trial, the State filed a motion to introduce Rule 404(b) evidence to prove Saul's knowledge of the manufacturing process. The proposed Rule 404(b) evidence consisted of two prior criminal episodes. Saul objected to this evidence. The circuit court ruled that the State would be permitted to introduce its Rule 404(b) evidence at trial through the testimony of two police officers. The first witness was Detective Paul Woodruff of the Harrison Police Department, who testified both at the Rule 404(b) hearing and at trial that he arrested Saul for manufacturing methamphetamine in 1998. He explained that Saul ultimately pled guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia. The second witness, Officer Russ Allen of the Rogers Police Department, testified at both the Rule 404(b) hearing and at trial that he was called to the scene in 2000 when Wal-Mart personnel suspected Saul of shoplifting pseudoephedrine tablets, a known precursor for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Saul was not arrested for drug-related offenses but was arrested for shoplifting.

On November 3, 2003, Saul was tried before a jury on the charge of manufacturing methamphetamine which derived from the February 13, 2002 traffic stop. The State introduced, as part of its case-in-chief, the testimony of Officer Lee, Detective Woodruff, and Officer Allen, as well as testimony from a representative of the Arkansas State Crime Lab, Matthew Sarver. Saul testified in his defense that he had been at work all day on February 13, 2002, and that he was on his way to have dinner with his ex-wife and children at the time he was stopped by Officer Lee. Saul denied any ownership or knowledge of the blue container that was found in his vehicle. The jury found Saul guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine and sentenced him to thirty years.

Saul appealed his judgment of conviction to the court of appeals, and that court reversed based on a violation of Rule 404(b). See Saul v. State, 92 Ark.App. 49, 211 S.W.3d 1 (2005). We subsequently granted review. When this court grants review, we consider the appeal as if it had been originally filed in this court. Malone v. State, 364 Ark. 256, 217 S.W.3d 810 (2005).

I. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Saul first claims that his motion for a directed verdict should have been granted because the evidence at trial was insufficient to prove that he had actually engaged in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Saul cites this court to Chapman v. State, 343 Ark. 643, 38 S.W.3d 305 (2001), where he claims that this court held the evidence sufficient to prove manufacture of methamphetamine after the state had presented evidence that all of the ingredients, solvents, chemicals, and hardware necessary to manufacture methamphetamine had been found, together with the additional factor of the defendant's attempted flight from the scene. Saul also relies on Ford v. State, 75 Ark. App. 126, 55 S.W.3d 315 (2001), where the court of appeals found the evidence insufficient that the defendant was an accomplice to manufacturing methamphetamine, when the State was unable to prove that the process had actually taken place.

Saul also argues that there was no direct evidence that he actually had manufactured methamphetamine. In this regard, he explains that there was no heat source found among the items in the blue container and that Officer Lee testified that a heat source was necessary for the type of manufacturing process that was alleged in this case (the red phosphorus method). Additionally, Saul notes that there were other items necessary for the manufacturing process that were not found in the blue container, including no empty or used bottles of hydrogen peroxide; no used striker plates; no baggies for packaging the unfinished product; no clean coffee filters to filter the unfinished product; and no powder methamphetamine (the finished product). He further emphasizes that no objects were sent to the crime lab for fingerprinting. As a final point, he contends that the blue container did not belong to him. In sum, Saul claims that the circumstantial evidence presented at trial clearly allows for other reasonable explanations consistent with innocence, and that the jury had to resort to surmise and conjecture to find him guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine.

Our standard of review for a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence in a criminal case has often been stated:

We treat a motion for directed verdict as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Coggin v. State, 356 Ark. 424, 156 S.W.3d 712 (2004). This court has repeatedly held that in reviewing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we view the evidence in a light most favorable to the State and consider only the evidence that supports the verdict. Stone v. State, 348 Ark. 661, 74 S.W.3d 591 (2002). We affirm a conviction if substantial evidence exists to support it. Id. Substantial evidence is that which is of sufficient force and character that it will, with reasonable certainty, compel a conclusion one way or the other, without resorting to speculation or conjecture. Id.

Circumstantial evidence may provide a basis to support a conviction, but it must be consistent with the defendant's guilt and inconsistent with any other reasonable conclusion. Edmond v. State, 351 Ark. 495, 95 S.W.3d 789 (2003). Whether the evidence excludes every other hypothesis is left to the jury to decide. Carmichael v. State, 340 Ark. 598, 12 S.W.3d 225 (2000). The credibility of witnesses is an issue for the jury and not the court. Burley v. State, 348 Ark. 422, 73 S.W.3d 600 (2002). The trier of fact is free to believe all or part of any witness's testimony and may resolve questions of conflicting testimony and inconsistent evidence. Id.

Tillman v. State, 364 Ark. 143, 146, 217 S.W.3d 773, 774-75 (2005).

Saul was convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine, in violation of Ark. Code Ann. 5-64-401(a) (Repl.1997). Section 5-64-101(m) (Repl.1997) of the Arkansas Code Annotated defines "manufacture":

"Manufacture" means the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, conversion, or processing of a controlled substance, either directly or indirectly by extraction from substances of natural origin, or independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes any packaging or repackaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container[.]

We agree with the State that the evidence supporting Saul's conviction is more than sufficient. The arresting officer, Officer Lee, was extensively trained, certified, and experienced in the identification of methamphetamine labs and the production of methamphetamine. Officer Lee testified that he smelled a strong chemical odor coming from Saul's van after he stopped Saul. Inside the van, Officer Lee found a blue plastic container that contained what he recognized as a methamphetamine lab. The State lists dozens of items found in the blue plastic container which are associated with producing methamphetamine by the red phosphorus method, including jars, tubing, funnels, lye, filters stained with red sludge, filters containing iodine crystals, hydrogen peroxide, camping fuel, acetone, hand scales, materials used as a hydrogen chloride gas generator, and items for cutting such as scissors, knives, and razor blades.

In addition, Matthew Sarver, a chemist for the crime lab who was trained and certified in the testing of methamphetamine labs, testified that the evidence in this case indicated that the lab discovered by Officer Lee was used for the red phosphorous method of producing methamphetamine. Mr. Sarver testified that the results of his tests showed iodine and phosphorous on the coffee filters, and he explained that the sludge left on the filters was what is left after methamphetamine has been "cooked." He also stated that tests of the samples taken from the liquid in a plastic bottle showed pseudoephedrine and methanol, and that the liquid appeared to be a "pill soak," which is used in the first stage of manufacturing...