Daniel Parish v. State of Mississippi

176 So. 3d 781, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 529, 2015 WL 6388808
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 22, 2015
Docket2014-KM-01401-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 176 So. 3d 781 (Daniel Parish v. State of Mississippi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Daniel Parish v. State of Mississippi, 176 So. 3d 781, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 529, 2015 WL 6388808 (Mich. 2015).

Opinions

WALLER, Chief Justice,

for the Court:

¶ 1. Daniel Parish appeals his Rankin County conviction for driving under the influence of marijuana, arguing that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to prove the elements of the charged offense^ Finding no error, wé affirm.

FACTS & PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2. At around 12:30 a.m. on October 9, 2012, Parish encountered a driver’s license safety checkpoint while driving on Luck-nqy Road in Brandon, Mississippi. , Officer James Bang of the Brandon Police Depart-mept was conducting.the checkpoint, and he observed that Parish “slowed down tremendously and did kind of a crawl roll to the checkpoint.” Officer King approached Parish’s car and asked to see his driver’s license. Upon shining his flashlight in the car, Officer King noticed that Parish “had a green leafy substance all over, his pants and some ash and he was really nervous.” Officer King suspected the leafy substance to be marijuana. Officer King also smelled burnt marijuana on Parish’s breath and in the vehicle. Parish’s speech was, slurred, and his eyes were red. Officer King asked Parish if he had been drinking, and Parish responded in the negative. However, Parish admitted that he had smoked marijuana approximately twenty minutes prior to encountering the checkpoint.

¶ 3. Officer King asked Parish if he had any marijuana in his possession. Parish [783]*783initially stated that he had some marijuana in a backpack in his car, but he later clarified that’he had only a hookah pipe. Parish gave Officer King consent to search the backpack, and Officer King found a hookah pipe inside. The pipe smelled of burnt marijuana.

¶ 4. Officer King instructed Parish to pull over into an adjacent parking lot and exit his vehicle so he could administer a field sobriety test. Prior to submitting to these tests, Parish affirmed that he did not have any medical issues or physical impairments that would hinder his ability to complete the tests. First, Officer King performed a horizontal-gaze nystagmus test on Parish. Officer King did not observe any signs of impairment based on this test. Next, Officer King conducted a lack-of-convergence test. Parish’s eyes failed to converge during this test. Finally, Officer King administered the Romberg Balance Test, which judges the subject’s ability to perceive the passage of time. Parish tested within the normal range for judging the passage of time, but he exhibited eyelid and leg tremors while performing the test. After administering these tests, and after considering Parish’s dilated pupils, bloodshot eyes, and slurred speech, Officer King came to the conclusion that Parish had been driving under the influence of marijuana. At that point, Officer King placed Parish under arrest.

¶ 5. Parish consented to having his blood drawn for testing, so Officer King transported him to Crossgates River Oaks Hospital. After Parish’s blood was drawn, it was sent to the Mississippi Crime Laboratory for testing, along with the hookah pipe found in his car. Parish’s blood and the hookah pipe both tested positive for marijuana.

¶ 6. Parish was charged with first-offense DUI in violation of Section 63-11-30 of the Mississippi Code. Specifically, Parish was charged under Section 63-11-30(l)(b), which prohibits the operation of a motor vehicle while “under the influence of any other substance which has impaired such person’s ability to operate a motor vehicle,” and Section 63-ll-30(l)(d), which prohibits the operation of a motor vehicle while “under the influence of any drug or controlled substance, the possession of which is unlawful under the Mississippi Controlled Substances Law[.]” Miss.Code Ann. § 63 — 11—30(l)(b),(d) (Rev.2013).1 Parish also was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia in violation of Section 41-29-139(d)(2) of the Mississippi Code. On April 17, 2013, Parish entered a plea of no contest to these charges in the Municipal Court of Brandon and was found guilty.

¶7. Parish timely appealed his convictions to the Rankin County Court, and a bench trial was held on August 30, 2013. At the trial, Officer King testified concerning his interactions with Parish at the checkpoint. The State also called Emily Harper, a forensic toxicologist with the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, as an expert witness. Harper had conducted the testing on Parish’s blood after he was arrested. Harper confirmed that Parish’s blood contained both active and inactive metabolites of marijuana. Harper explained that inactive metabolites are an indicator of past usage, while the presence of active metabolites in the blood indicates that the drug was still acting upon the body at the time the blood was drawn. Based on the results of her testing, Harper opined that Parish was under the influence [784]*784of marijuana when he encountered the checkpoint. She clarified that it would be impossible to determine to what extent he was impaired based solely on the test results. ...

¶ 8. Parish testified in his own defense at trial. "Parish explained that he had been at a friend’s hodse prior to encountering the checkpoint. He admitted that he and his friends had been smoking marijuana from a hookah pipe. After they finished smoking, Parish stated that they put the hookah pipe away and talked for a while. He denied telling Officer King that he had smoked marijuana twenty minutes before reaching the checkpoint. He claimed that he had stopped smoking for more than twenty minutes before even leaving his friend’s house. On cross-examination, he stated that the marijuana had given him “a little bit of a body buzz,” but he asserted that he was not too impaired to drive.

¶ 9. The defense also called Tony Corro-to, a retired police officer specializing in the “administration and interpretation of DUI detection.” Corroto was accepted as an expert witness in the fields of sobriety testing, Drug Recognition Expert protocols, and the effects of alcohol and drugs on the human body. Corroto reviewed the police reports and crime lab reports concerning Parish’s case and came to the conclusion that “I see signs of consumption of cannabis, but impairment, I don’t see it[.]” Corroto testified that a person who is under the influence of cannabis (marijuana) would have pronounced impaired perception of time and "distance. He also stated that individuals who are under the influence of cannabis have significant problems dividing their attention between different tasks. Corroto opined that the sobriety tests administered by Officer King did not account for this type of impairment, and he did not observe any evidence that Parish exhibited any signs of impairment «luring his interaction with Officer King. Corroto also claimed that the lack-of-convergence test lacked scientific validity. On cross-examination, Corrotto conceded that Parish was, clinically speaking, under the influence of marijuana, but he maintained that there was no evidence of intoxication or impairment. . .

¶ 10. -After both sides had rested, the trial court found that the prosecution had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Parish was guilty of driving under the influence of marijuana- in violation of Section 63 — 11—30(l)(d). The trial court did not rule on the prosecution’s charge under Section 63 — 11—30(l)(b). Parish was sentenced to serve forty-eight hours in jail, was required to pay a $1,000 fine, plus costs and assessments, and was ordered to attend the next available session of the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
176 So. 3d 781, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 529, 2015 WL 6388808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/daniel-parish-v-state-of-mississippi-miss-2015.