State v. Salinas, No. M2004-00811-CCA-R3-CD (TN 7/18/2005)
| Decision Date | 18 July 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. M2004-00811-CCA-R3-CD.,M2004-00811-CCA-R3-CD. |
| Parties | STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JULIO CESAR HERNANDEZ SALINAS. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Theodora A. Pappas, Nashville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Julio Cesar Hernandez Salinas.
Paul G. Summers, Attorney General and Reporter; Richard H. Dunavant, Assistant Attorney General; Victor S. Johnson, III, District Attorney General; and John C. Zimmerman and Katy Hagan, Assistant District Attorneys General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.
Alan E. Glenn, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Norma McGee Ogle and Robert W. Wedemeyer, JJ., joined.
The defendant, Julio Cesar Hernandez Salinas, was convicted of conspiracy to deliver more than 70 but less than 300 pounds of a Schedule VI controlled substance, marijuana, and sentenced as a Range I, standard offender to eleven years in the Department of Correction. On appeal, he argues the trial court erred by: (1) denying his motion to suppress on the basis that he lacked standing; (2) not allowing defense counsel, during voir dire, to ask prospective jurors about their involvement in religious and social organizations; (3) permitting the State to question a trial witness as to the defendant's prior bad acts; and (4) imposing a sentence of eleven years. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
We confine our summary of the lengthy trial proceedings to the facts relevant to the issues presented in this appeal. The following facts are gleaned from the testimony of trial witnesses as well as the testimony of witnesses at the pretrial suppression hearing. According to the State's proof, on August 22, 2002, a tractor-trailer truck driver hauling a load of produce from Texas to Illinois was instructed to pick up two additional pallets of watermelons in McAllen, Texas, and drop them off in Nashville. After picking up the two large cardboard boxes filled with watermelons and attached to wooden pallets, the truck driver began receiving numerous calls on his cellular phone from someone named "Carlos," who kept inquiring about the status and location of the delivery. The truck driver became suspicious and contacted his employer, who in turn contacted agents with the Alabama Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"). After inspecting the pallets and finding they included under the watermelons several large bundles of marijuana wrapped in plastic, the DEA agents contacted the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department ("MNPD"). At that time, the agents accompanied the truck driver to Nashville and met with MNPD officers in Williamson County to arrange a controlled delivery.
Around 10:00 p.m., the truck driver, after having been debriefed and fitted with a transmitting device by MNPD officers, telephoned the number he had been given instructions to call when he arrived in Nashville. After the driver parked his truck at a Hardee's restaurant, as instructed by the party at the number he had called, he and his passenger walked across the street to a Circle K convenience store and got into a Dodge Durango driven by the defendant who was accompanied by codefendant Jose Melendez. They proceeded to a warehouse on Airline Drive and, after the manager of a business in the complex, later identified as codefendant Arthur Signoracci, refused to come unlock the warehouse, they returned to the driver's semi-truck and told the driver to make the delivery the next day. The next day, the truck driver received varying instructions and was finally told to deliver the two pallets of watermelons to a specific address in the complex around 10:00 a.m. When the truck driver arrived at 1830 Airline Drive, Suite 11, on the day of the delivery, the defendant and codefendant Melendez helped guide the truck into the loading dock. Also present was codefendant Francisco Bruno. Signoracci, who had an agreement with the defendant to store the defendant's pallets in exchange for $1,000, unloaded the two pallets of watermelons into the warehouse, where there were also several business employees, and the truck driver drove away from the premises. At that time, the defendant, Melendez, and Bruno got into the Dodge Durango and attempted to leave the premises. They were stopped and arrested by law enforcement officers who proceeded into the front and rear of the warehouse and seized the marijuana weighing approximately 140 pounds and arrested Signoracci.1
MNPD Officer Ed Rigsby, assigned to the Twentieth Judicial Drug Task Force, testified that his supervisor, Sergeant James McWright, advised him that the Alabama DEA had intercepted a load of "approximately 140 pounds of marijuana" and that "the truck driver that had found this load of marijuana in his truck had agreed to make the controlled delivery . . . in Nashville." The truck driver had become "suspicious of the load because the person that loaded the two crates of watermelons with marijuana on to [sic] his truck kept calling him, so he called his boss and then his boss contacted DEA and they agreed to assist [the MNPD] in making the controlled delivery in Nashville." Officer Rigsby fitted the truck driver with a transmitting device, and the truck driver made telephone contact with the Nashville contact. Officer Rigsby, whose "main objective at that particular time was to guard the marijuana," observed the truck driver get into a blue Dodge Durango with two Hispanic males, leave, and return a short time later. The load was not delivered, however, because "[t]here was some problem about getting the keys that night" and "they couldn't deliver it and had to wait until in the morning." The next morning, after a 10:00 a.m. delivery time had been set, Officer Rigsby followed the semi-truck to 1830 Airline Drive, which he described as a "horseshoe" complex with offices in the outer part and delivery bays in the inner part of the complex. He observed the semi-truck back into the warehouse bay door for Suite 11, and, in addition to the defendant and the codefendants, there were "probably eight or ten people that worked there at the place that were also standing out in the bay." By this time, Officer Rigsby had positioned himself so that he could see the faces of the defendant and codefendants and observed them assist the truck driver in backing up to the bay door. According to Officer Rigsby, the defendant was acting "more or less like [a] supervisor[]" in assisting the truck driver. After the two pallets of watermelons were unloaded, the bay door was closed and the semi-truck left. Melendez joined the defendant and Bruno inside the warehouse, and all three were arrested by other officers a short time later as they attempted to leave the premises. Officer Phillip Taylor then opened the rear doors to allow Officers Rigsby and Mike Garbo to enter the warehouse, where Rigsby saw codefendant Signoracci and there were a total of seven "big block square packages o[f] marijuana."
MNPD Sergeant James McWright testified that he is the sergeant over the Drug Task Force in Davidson County and was advised by his supervisor, Lieutenant J.D. Jones, that "the Alabama Drug Enforcement Administration had called him to say that they had a cooperating individual and a tractor load of marijuana that they wanted to send to Nashville." Sergeant McWright met the DEA agents and the truck driver, who was Hispanic and "spoke fluent Spanish," in the Cool Springs area of Williamson County. The driver had been instructed to call a telephone number as soon as he arrived in Nashville so he could "get directions on where he was to deliver" the pallets of watermelons. Once the driver arrived and parked at the Hardee's, other officers conducted surveillance on the semi-truck, while Sergeant McWright followed the defendant and Melendez, who were in the Dodge Durango, after they dropped the truck driver off at the Circle K. The delivery was not made that night because the defendants "couldn't get a hold of the man that had the keys to unlock the suite, . . . the warehouse where they were to unload it." After the delivery was made the next day and the defendant, Melendez, and Bruno were leaving the warehouse, Sergeant McWright "gave the order to move in and arrest all the individuals and to secure the loading dock where the watermelons and the marijuana had been offloaded at." Sergeant McWright later participated in a consensual search of a house in Nashville where the defendant paid the rent and his pregnant girlfriend, Adriana Montemayer, lived, and of the defendant's primary residence in Murfreesboro where his wife and three children lived.
MNPD Officer Michael Garbo, an interdiction officer with the Twentieth Judicial Task Force, testified that he went with the other officers to meet the truck driver in Williamson County, where they "looked at the truck" and "view[ed] the load." On the day of the delivery, Officer Garbo, along with Officer Rigsby, conducted surveillance of the warehouse and the defendants. After the delivery, Officer Taylor opened the back door to let them into the warehouse. Officer Garbo testified as to what happened once he entered the warehouse:
At the time, there was a lot of people inside of the business. There was a lot of civilian employees. The actual owner or manager of the business was inside. Essentially, what I did was assist the other officers. Of course, the crates of watermelons which contained marijuana were inside the business. I basically secured the watermelons and the marijuana and assisted the other officers with any type of paperwork they needed.
MNPD Officer Aaron Thomas testified...
To continue reading
Request your trial