State v. Marr
| Decision Date | 13 September 2016 |
| Docket Number | WD 78648 |
| Citation | 499 S.W.3d 367 |
| Parties | State of Missouri, Respondent, v. Sheena Marr, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Chris Koster, Attorney General, Richard A. Starnes, Assistant Attorney General, Jefferson City, MO, Attorneys for Respondent.
Amy M. Bartholow, Assistant Public Defender, Columbia, MO, Attorney for Appellant.
Before Division Two: Karen King Mitchell, Presiding Judge, and Cynthia L. Martin and Gary D. Witt, Judges
Karen King Mitchell
, Presiding Judge
Sheena Marr appeals, following a jury trial, her convictions of first-degree trafficking, § 195.222,1 and misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, § 195.202, for which she was sentenced, as a persistent offender, to a total of sixteen years' imprisonment. On appeal, Marr claims that the trial court erred in: (1) overruling her motion to suppress because the investigating officer violated the Fourth Amendment by impermissibly extending the scope of his initial investigation; and (2) failing to sua sponte strike the trial judge's spouse from the venire panel for cause because allowing her to serve created the appearance of impropriety. We affirm.
Background2
On August 20, 2014, between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m., Higginsville Police Officer Danny Logan (a K9 unit narcotics officer) received a dispatch indicating that there was a stranded motorist on Highway 13, just south of I-70. When Officer Logan located the vehicle, he activated his emergency lights for safety reasons, ran the vehicle's Kansas license plate, and then approached the vehicle to “check[ ] on them ... [and] make sure ... they weren't broke down, didn't need a tow truck, that sort of thing.” As he approached the car, Officer Logan noticed the driver reaching around down low, as if trying to hide something. For safety reasons, Officer Logan then walked up to the passenger side of the vehicle, where he first encountered Marr.
The first thing Officer Logan noticed was that Marr appeared to be under the influence of a stimulant of some kind; she was very fidgety and her pupils were dilated—both common symptoms of methamphetamine usage. Based on his experience, Officer Logan believed Marr to be a methamphetamine addict in light of her general appearance, as she had sunken-in cheeks, she was skinny, and she had sores on her hands and face. Both Marr and the driver—later identified as Christopher Hubbard—appeared very nervous when Officer Logan first approached, more so than he would have expected with a typical citizen-police encounter. Hubbard stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact with Officer Logan, and his heart was pounding so hard that Officer Logan could see it thumping in his chest.
Officer Logan asked Hubbard and Marr what was going on, and they said they were working on the radio in the car. Because Marr appeared to be under the influence of an illegal substance, Officer Logan asked for identification. Marr told Officer Logan that she did not have any state identification, but she handed him identification from the Missouri Department of Corrections. In light of the form of identification Marr provided, Officer Logan asked what she had been incarcerated for. Marr said it was for forgery. The officer then asked if she was on probation or parole, and Marr stated that she was currently on probation. Upon learning that Marr was on probation, Officer Logan decided to investigate his suspicion that she was under the influence. He returned to his patrol car and ran the identification for both Hubbard and Marr, which confirmed that Marr was, in fact, on probation. Officer Logan then asked Marr to step out of the car, asked about drug use, asked if there was anything in her purse, and sought consent to search it. Marr denied Officer Logan's request to search her purse.
Officer Logan then approached Hubbard and asked whether the car contained anything illegal. Hubbard responded that there was not. But because of both Hubbard's and Marr's behavior and Officer Logan's belief that Marr was under the influence, Officer Logan decided to deploy his drug-sniffing dog around the outside of the car. The dog alerted at the passenger-side door, where the window was rolled down.
After the dog alerted, Officer Logan returned the dog to the patrol vehicle and approached Hubbard, having him step out of the car. When Hubbard did so, a butane torch (a kind commonly used to smoke methamphetamine) fell out of his lap onto the ground. Hubbard then “got weird, got very, very nervous, fight or flight mode-type nervous,” so Officer Logan handcuffed him and conducted a search of the vehicle.
Upon searching the car, Officer Logan discovered a Crown Royal bag, containing approximately 36 grams of crystal-like substance, which field-tested positive for methamphetamine, lying in the middle of the passenger seat.3 Also inside the bag was a “wood dugout” containing marijuana and a marijuana pipe, a digital scale, and numerous empty plastic baggies.4 Officer Logan also located a Hi-Point semiautomatic pistol between the driver's seat and the center console, concealed by a pillow that Hubbard had been sitting on, as well as a glass methamphetamine pipe in the back seat floorboard behind the passenger seat, and a briefcase containing ammunition and several cell phones.5
Hubbard and Marr were both taken to the police station, where they were advised of their Miranda warnings and then questioned. Hubbard admitted that the gun and briefcase were his but denied knowing anything about the drugs found in the car. Marr admitted that the marijuana was hers but denied knowledge of anything else found in the vehicle. They were then transported to the Lafayette County jail. On September 1, 2014, Marr contacted Officer Logan, indicating that she wished to speak with him again. After being advised of her Miranda warnings again, Marr admitted that she knew about the methamphetamine and had even concealed it inside of herself at one point.
Marr was charged as a persistent felony offender with one count of first-degree trafficking for acting in concert with Hubbard in an attempt to distribute, deliver, or sell the methamphetamine and one count of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance for the marijuana she admitted was hers. Before trial, Marr filed a motion to suppress the drugs, arguing that, once Officer Logan determined that Marr and Hubbard were not in need of any assistance, the purpose of his investigation was completed and any actions taken after that point constituted an impermissible extension of the investigation. The trial court denied Marr's motion, and the case proceeded to trial.
During voir dire when the prosecutor asked the panel if anyone knew her, Juror 30 raised her hand indicating that she knew the prosecutor through “Democratic Club and the legal family here in Lafayette County.” The prosecutor then asked if there was anyone else in the courtroom that Juror 30 knew; Juror 30 responded, The court then joked: “I do want to point out that the instructions said, ‘Are there any of you who would not be willing to follow[ ] all the instructions the Court will give to the jury,’ and I kept waiting for her to raise her hand.” The prosecutor asked Juror 30: “[K]nowing the Judge who would be sitting on the bench and obviously not back in the jury room, wouldn't be discussing the case with you at all, is there anything about being married to him that would affect your ability to serve?” Juror 30 responded, “No. Absolutely not.” During defense counsel's voir dire , defense counsel asked the panel if there was anything else any of the jurors felt they should discuss, and Juror 30 raised her hand. Juror 30 then advised defense counsel:
I'm the Judge's wife, Becky. And even though I—he is my husband, he is the most honest person, bar none, that I've known in my whole life of anybody. And I feel like that I am taken off of jury duty because of that. But he would never discuss this with me and I feel like I could be a very good juror. I'm honest. I'm sincere. And I think I could totally make my own decision and he would consider me.
Defense counsel responded to Juror 30 by stating, Neither party sought to disqualify Juror 30 for cause or exercised a peremptory strike to remove her. Juror 30 sat on Marr's jury at trial.
Following the presentation of evidence, the jury found Marr guilty as charged, and the trial court sentenced her, as a persistent offender, to sixteen years' imprisonment for first-degree trafficking and six months in the county jail for misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, with the sentences to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to any previously imposed sentences. Marr appeals.
Analysis
Marr raises two points on appeal: first, she argues that the court erred in overruling her motion to suppress; second, she argues that the court erred in failing to sua sponte strike, for cause, Juror 30 from the venire. Finding no error, we affirm.
“When reviewing the trial court's overruling of a motion to suppress, thourt considers the evidence presented at both the suppression hearing and at trial to determine whether sufficient evidence exists in the record to support the trial court's ruling.” State v. Grayson , 336 S.W.3d 138, 142 (Mo.banc 2011)
(quoting State v. Pike , 162 S.W.3d 464, 472 (Mo.banc 2005) ). “The Court defers to the trial court's determination of credibility and factual findings, inquiring only ‘whether the decision is supported by substantial evidence, and it will be reversed only if clearly erroneous.’ ” Id. (quoting State v. Goff , 129 S.W.3d 857, 862 (Mo. banc 2004) ). “By contrast, legal ‘determinations of reasonable suspicion and probable cause’ are reviewed de novo. ” Id.
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