State v Ross
| Decision Date | 09 July 2001 |
| Docket Number | 99-00972 |
| Citation | 49 S.W.3d 833 |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. PETER ALLEN ROSSIN THE SUPREME COURT OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals |
Appeal by Permission from the Court of Criminal Appeals Circuit Court for Hardin County, No. 7757
The appellant was convicted of possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia with intent to sell after officers discovered 53.5 grams of cocaine in his motel room. Prior to trial, he challenged the search of his motel room under the federal and state Constitutions, but the trial court denied his motion to suppress, finding that he possessed no reasonable expectation of privacy in the room after he disclaimed ownership of the room key. Following his conviction, the appellant urged the trial court to consider as a mitigating factor that his conduct did not cause or threaten serious bodily injury, but the trial court disagreed and sentenced the appellant to serve the maximum term in the range. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the convictions and the sentences, and we granted permission to appeal. Based on our review of the record and applicable legal authorities, we agree that the appellant relinquished his otherwise legitimate expectation of privacy in his motel room by disclaiming ownership of the key and by asserting that it belonged to another person. We also conclude that the evidence is sufficient to support the convictions on both charges. Finally, although the trial court should have considered the mitigating factor in Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-35-113(1), we conclude that the maximum sentence in the Range is nevertheless appropriate. The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
William M. Barker, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which E. Riley Anderson, C.J., and Frank F. Drowota, III, and Janice M. Holder, JJ., joined. Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., J., filed a dissenting opinion.
Richard W. DeBerry, Assistant Public Defender, Camden, Tennessee, for the appellant, Peter Allen Ross.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General; Elizabeth T. Ryan, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
OPINIONOn August 31, 1998, two officers with the Savannah Police Department accompanied a person to Shaw's Motel to recover stolen checks in her possession. Upon arriving at the motel, the suspect informed the officers that she was staying in room 121. The officers knocked on the door to that room, and when it was finally opened, the officers detected the smell of marijuana and found four people inside the room, including the appellant, Peter Allen Ross.
The officers then asked everyone to leave the room and to empty their pockets. When the appellant came outside, the officers told him to remove his shoes. As he did so, he removed a key to room 132 from his sock and kept it in the palm of his hand. One of the officers noticed that the appellant had something in his hand, and when the officers discovered that it was another room key, they asked the appellant whether the key belonged to him. The appellant denied that the key was his, and he instead claimed that it belonged to another occupant of the room, Ms. Safon Black. When the officer asked Ms. Black whether the key belonged to her, she also denied ownership, but she told the officers that they were nevertheless free to search anything that belonged to her.
Another officer soon arrived with a drug dog, and the officers searched room 121, finding only a small amount of marijuana behind the dresser. However, when the officers next took the dog to room 132, they discovered 53.5 grams of cocaine base, more commonly known as crack cocaine, in a night stand drawer.1 The officers also found a set of electronic scales, a roll of plastic sandwich bags, and several items bearing the appellant's name, including his wallet, two car titles, and a receipt dated August 28. Later investigation revealed that room 132 was registered to the appellant.
On November 23, 1998, the Hardin County Grand Jury indicted the appellant with one count of possession of more than 0.5 grams of cocaine base with intent to manufacture, deliver, or sell, and with one count of possession of drug paraphernalia. Prior to trial, the appellant filed a motion to suppress the search of his motel room, claiming that the officers possessed neither a warrant nor probable cause to believe that illegal items were present in room 132. In denying the motion, the court found that the appellant had disclaimed any ownership or interest in room 132 before the search, and that therefore, he lacked any legitimate expectation of privacy in the room. Consequently, the trial court held that the appellant's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by the search.
On April 21, 1999, a jury found the appellant guilty as charged on both counts of the indictment. At the sentencing hearing, the trial court found that the following three enhancement factors applied to increase the length of his sentence: (1) that the appellant has a previous history of criminal behavior; (2) that the appellant has previously failed to comply with conditions of probation; and (3) that the appellant was adjudicated to have committed a delinquent act or acts as a juvenile that would constitute a felony if committed as an adult. The appellant argued that one mitigating factor also applied: that his criminal conduct neither caused nor threatened serious bodily injury. The trial court disagreed, however, finding that a threat of serious bodily injury was present because crack cocaine "is an inherently addictive and dangerous substance that [the appellant] had in his possession in a very significant quantity." The trial court then sentenced the appellant, as a Range I standard offender, to serve twelve years for the controlled substances conviction, the maximum sentence available for a Class B felony, and to serve a concurrent sentence of eleven months, twenty-nine days for the drug paraphernalia conviction.
On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, the appellant argued that (1) the search of room 132 was in violation of the federal and state Constitutions; (2) the evidence was insufficient to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he possessed the items seized in room 132; and (3) the trial court erred in imposing the maximum sentence in the range for his offense by failing to consider the specified mitigating factor. With respect to the lawfulness of the search, the Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the denial of the motion to suppress, finding that the appellant's disclaimer of the motel room key operated as a disclaimer of any legitimate expectation of privacy in the room searched. Although the appellant argued that the purported disclaimer was only of the key and not of the room itself, the intermediate court held that this distinction was not "reasonable under the facts," and that "[b]y disclaiming the key, the [appellant] disclaimed his connection to the room." The Court of Criminal Appeals also found that the evidence was sufficient to support the appellant's convictions and that the sentence was appropriate.
The appellant then requested, and we granted, permission to appeal to this Court on the three issues addressed by the Court of Criminal Appeals. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the intermediate court.
The appellant first argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the search of his motel room. More specifically, he claims that because the officers possessed neither a warrant nor probable cause to believe that illegal items were present in room 132, the search was in violation of the federal and state Constitutions. In response, the State argues that any legitimate expectation of privacy that the appellant may have possessed in the motel room disappeared when he disclaimed any interest in the key to the room. We agree with the State.
When reviewing a trial court's findings of fact and conclusions of law in ruling upon a motion to suppress evidence, we are guided by the now familiar standard of review set forth in State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18 (Tenn. 1996). Under this standard, "a trial court's findings of fact in a suppression hearing will be upheld unless the evidence preponderates otherwise." Id. at 23. In reviewing these factual findings, we are mindful that "[q]uestions of credibility of the witnesses, the weight and value of the evidence, and resolution of conflicts in the evidence are matters entrusted to the trial judge as the trier of fact." Id.; see also State v. England, 19 S.W.3d 762, 766 (Tenn. 2000). As such, "the prevailing party in the trial court is afforded the 'strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable and legitimate inferences that may be drawn from that evidence.'" See State v. Carter, 16 S.W.3d 762, 765 (Tenn. 2000) (quoting State v. Keith, 978 S.W.2d 861, 864 (Tenn. 1998)). Our review of a trial court's application of law to the facts, however, is conducted under a de novo standard of review. See State v. Walton, 41 S.W.3d 75, 81 (Tenn. 2001); State v. Crutcher, 989 S.W.2d 295, 299 (Tenn. 1999).
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . ." Article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution similarly prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and we have long held that this provision is identical in intent and purpose with the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., State v. Binette, 33 S.W.3d 215, 218 (Tenn. 2000); State v. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d 730, 733 (Tenn. 1997). As we stated in State v....
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