Bessent v. State

808 So. 2d 979, 2001 WL 1106126
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedSeptember 18, 2001
Docket1999-KA-00947-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 808 So. 2d 979 (Bessent v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Mississippi primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bessent v. State, 808 So. 2d 979, 2001 WL 1106126 (Mich. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

808 So.2d 979 (2001)

Quentin Izel BESSENT, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Mississippi, Appellee.

No. 1999-KA-00947-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

September 18, 2001.
Rehearing Denied December 4, 2001.
Certiorari Denied February 28, 2002.

*981 Dan W. Duggan, Jr., Brandon, Attorney for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General, by Charles W. Maris, Jr., Jackson, Attorney for Appellee.

Before McMILLIN, C.J., BRIDGES and MYERS, JJ.

MYERS, J., for the Court:

¶ 1. Quentin Izel Bessent was convicted in the Circuit Court of Rankin County of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of Miss.Code Ann. § 41-29-139(b)(1) (Rev.2000). At the conclusion of his trial, Bessent moved for a directed verdict, judgment notwithstanding the verdict and/or a new trial. Judge Samac S. Richardson denied all motions and Bessent appeals on the following issues:

1. Whether trial court erred by failing to suppress illegally obtained evidence.
*982 2. Whether the trial court erred by failing to grant defendant's motion for directed verdict and motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and/or the verdict was against the weight of the evidence.

FACTS

¶ 2. Quentin Izel Bessent was pulled over by Rankin County Sheriffs Deputy Shannon Penn. Penn drove beside Bessent on I-20 westbound to pace him and decided Bessent was traveling at 78 miles per hour in a 70 mile per hour zone. After being stopped by Penn, Bessent was asked to exit his truck and step to the rear of the truck. At some point Penn allowed Bessent to return to his truck to turn the ignition off. Penn felt it necessary to search Bessent, upon his return, to make sure he did not have any weapons.

¶ 3. When Penn came to Bessent's groin area, he felt an object "that wasn't part of his (Bessent's) personal body." At that point Bessent ran. Officer Penn said he saw Bessent remove an object from his pants and throw it. Bessent was then caught and Officer Penn pulled a gun on him and placed him in handcuffs. Backup officers had arrived by then and the other officers found an oblong shaped package with black tape around it. Upon cutting open the package, they discovered that it was further bound with electrical tape and a fabric softener. Inside of that was a white powder.

¶ 4. In his testimony, Officer Penn contended that Bessent voluntarily signed a consent form allowing for the search of his car. Bessent asserts that Penn told him he had to sign the consent form or he would get the "dog out of the car." Bessent was then allowed to turn his car off. They both agree that Penn then told Bessent that he was going to search him for officer safety. Penn said his reasoning behind his belief that a search was necessary was that Bessent was acting nervous, his veins were jumping up and down and his cheeks were jittery. Bessent points out that most people are nervous when pulled over by a police officer.

¶ 5. They differ on what happened thereafter. Penn says when he got to the groin area he felt a "large object that was not part of his (Bessent's) personal body," and asked Bessent to identify the object. Bessent says that Penn grabbed his penis. Bessent testified that he then jumped away and ran far enough away to get some distance, about ten feet, between him and Penn. Penn testified that as Bessent ran, he tossed something from his pants. After a lengthy search of the area, the officers found an oval shaped package which was later found to contain cocaine. Bessent testified that Penn and another officer found a package only when Penn and another officer went behind a fence together. Bessent insists that the drugs were not his.

¶ 6. Bessent filed a motion to suppress the drug evidence prior to trial. Bessent says the trial court made no findings of fact regarding its denial of his motion. Bessent implores this Court to remand for such findings or conduct a de novo review of the matter.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7. In criminal appeals, a presumption of correctness attaches to any ruling by the trial court. Carr v. State, 770 So.2d 1025, 1027 (¶ 7) (Miss.Ct.App.2000), citing Hansen v. State, 592 So.2d 114, 127 (Miss. 1991).

¶ 8. When reviewing a trial court's ruling on a suppression hearing, we must assess whether substantial credible evidence supports the trial court's finding considering the totality of the circumstances. Price v. State, 752 So.2d 1070 *983 (¶ 9) (Miss.Ct.App.1999), citing Magee v. State, 542 So.2d 228, 231 (Miss.1989). The admissibility of evidence lies within the trial court's discretion and will only be reversed if this discretion is abused. Crawford v. State, 754 So.2d 1211, 1215 (¶ 7) (Miss.2000).

¶ 9. We must also address the issues of whether the trial judge was wrong to deny Bessent's motion for a new trial and his motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. For this we rely on ensconced Mississippi case law.

The standard for reviewing denial of a new trial goes to the weight of the evidence and the standard for reviewing the denial of a JNOV is whether or not the evidence was sufficient to warrant such and whether fair-minded jurors could have arrived at the same verdict. The standard for a JNOV is not whether it was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence.

White v. State, 761 So.2d 221, 224 (¶ 10) (Miss.Ct.App.2000).

¶ 10. To discern whether the jury verdict is against the weight of the evidence, we must "accept as true the evidence which supports the verdict and will reverse only when convinced that the circuit court has abused its discretion in failing to grant a new trial." Crawford, 754 So.2d at 1222 (¶ 30), citing Collier v. State, 711 So.2d 458, 461 (Miss.1998) (other citations omitted). In order to mandate a new trial, the verdict must be "so contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence that to allow it to stand would sanction `unconscionable injustice'" Crawford, 754 So.2d at 1222 (¶ 30), citing Groseclose v. State, 440 So.2d 297, 300 (Miss.1983).

DISCUSSION

1. Whether trial court erred by failing to suppress illegally obtained evidence.

¶ 11. Before turning our attention to the delineated issues presented by Bessent, we must address the issue he slipped in at the beginning of his brief, alleging that the trial court made no findings of fact regarding his suppression hearing and therefore this Court should conduct a de novo review of the record. The State's brief aptly dealt with this assertion and we agree that issues like this have been addressed by the case, Riddle v. State, 580 So.2d 1195 (Miss.1991). In Riddle, the supreme court acknowledged that where the trial court has failed to make specific findings of fact, the Court will recognize findings which are "fairly implicit" in the trial court's ruling. Riddle, 580 So.2d at 1200. After reviewing the record, we noticed that Mr. Bessent made every possible attempt to impede the progress of his trial throughout the long and arduous process. At one moment he asserted one proposition and at another he would assert the opposite. He contradicted himself, the judge, the prosecutors and his many attorneys. It is evident that the prosecutor and the current attorney presented their arguments to the judge based on the law regarding the suppression of evidence. The judge denied the motion.

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Bluebook (online)
808 So. 2d 979, 2001 WL 1106126, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bessent-v-state-missctapp-2001.