McDonald v. State

807 So. 2d 447, 2001 Miss. App. LEXIS 262, 2001 WL 808339
Court of Appeals of Mississippi·Decided July 17, 2001·No. No. 2000-KA-00306-COA·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

PAYNE, J.,

For The Court:

¶ 1. In August 1999, Tyrone McDonald was indicted for the offense of sale of cocaine within fifteen hundred feet of a church in violation of Miss.Code Ann. § 41-29-139 (Supp.2000). In January 2000, a Claiborne County Circuit Court jury found McDonald guilty of this charge. He was sentenced to serve twelve years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. McDonald filed a motion for new trial, which was denied, and he now appeals to this Court.

FACTS

¶ 2. The afternoon of July 9, 1999, Tyrone McDonald and several of his friends were hanging around a store in Port Gibson. A truck drove up to the store, and McDonald went over to the truck to see what the driver wanted. The driver of the truck was confidential informant Ross Kyzer, and Agent A1 Jobe of the North Central Task Force was a passenger in the vehicle. Agent Jobe asked McDonald for “a forty,” which was slang for forty dollars worth of drugs. McDonald went back over to his group of friends, then returned to the truck and made the exchange of crack cocaine for the forty dollars. Using a surveillance video, Agent Jobe recorded the events surrounding the alleged sale. As described herein, we find the trial court’s decision was proper, and we affirm.

ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUES

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 3. Appellant Tyrone McDonald raises the following issues with this appeal:

I. WHETHER THE VERDICT RETURNED BY THE CLAIBORNE COUNTY PETIT JURY ON THE TWELFTH DAY OF JANUARY 2000 WAS AGAINST THE OVERWHELMING WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE AND MANIFESTLY WRONG AS A MATTER OF LAW.
II. WHETHER APPELLANT WAS DENIED EFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL.
III. WHETHER APPELLANT WAS DENIED HIS RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS BY THE DENIAL OF A PRELIMINARY AND/OR OMNIBUS HEARING.

¶ 4. Concerning McDonald’s first issue, our standard of review concerning weight of the evidence is enunciated in McClain v. State, 625 So.2d 774 (Miss.1993):

Matters regarding the weight and credibility of the evidence are to be resolved by the jury....
Moreover, the challenge to the weight of the evidence via motion for a new trial implicates the trial court’s sound discretion. Procedurally such challenge nec[449]*449essarily invokes [Uniform Circuit and County Court Rule 10.05]. New trial decisions rest in the sound discretion of the trial court, and the motion should not be granted except to prevent an unconscionable injustice. We reverse only for abuse of discretion....

McClain, 625 So.2d at 781 (citations omitted).

¶ 5. McDonald’s second issue concerns the effective assistance of his counsel.

The two-part test announced in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) ..., is our standard of review for resolving whether counsel was effective. In Mohr v. State, 584 So.2d 426, 430 (Miss.1991), the Mississippi Supreme Court explained the application of the Strickland two-part test, which requires that the movant show: (1) counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficient performance prejudiced the defense, and (2) there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceedings would have been different. As a legal construct, it is presumed “that trial counsel’s conduct is within the wide range of reasonable conduct and that decisions made by counsel are strategic.” “The [Strickland] standard for proving ineffective assistance of counsel makes the charge difficult to establish and appropriately so.”

Fitzgerald v. State, 754 So.2d 613 (¶ 13) (Miss.Ct.App.2000) (citations omitted).

¶ 6. Finally, McDonald argues that his due process rights were violated since he was not given a preliminary hearing. This is a question of law and we conduct a de novo review on such issues. See Brown v. State, 731 So.2d 595, 598 (Miss.1999) (citations omitted).

DISCUSSION OF THE ISSUES

I. WHETHER THE VERDICT RETURNED BY THE CLAIBORNE COUNTY PETIT JURY ON THE TWELFTH DAY OF JANUARY 2000 WAS AGAINST THE OVERWHELMING WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE AND MANIFESTLY WRONG AS A MATTER OF LAW.

¶ 7. McDonald claims that his motion for new trial was improperly denied, since the weight of the evidence did not support the verdict. Specifically, he claims that a question existed concerning who exactly participated in the sale. He cites to Agent Jobe’s testimony that Jobe could not recall whether either McDonald or Joe McDaniel was the seller of the drugs. McDonald argues that this discrepancy raises enough doubt for a new trial.

¶ 8. Joseph Turnage, a criminal investigator, testified that he viewed the videotape of the transaction at least fifteen times, and that the tape showed the appellant was the seller. A1 Jobe of the North Central Narcotics Task Force testified that McDonald nodded for him to come over to the truck, Jobe told him he wanted “a forty,” or forty dollars worth of crack cocaine, then McDonald left and came back with the drugs. Agent Jobe also testified that he purchased the drugs from McDonald, and that the videotape showed a fair and accurate depiction of the transaction that occurred on that occasion. Contrarily, McDonald argues that after he went over to the truck and left, another man, named Joe McDaniel, approached the truck and actually made the sale. McDonald claimed that he went over to the truck, Kyzer asked him for a forty, then he went back over and told his friend “Pun-key” what Kyzer had said. McDonald claims he then went back over to the truck, but he only got a cigarette from the [450]*450driver then left. Agent Jobe admitted that McDaniel did approach the driver’s side of the truck, but McDaniel was not the one who made the sale, McDonald was the culprit.

¶ 9. Recapping our standard of review, we may only find that the weight of the evidence did not support the verdict if we find that the trial judge abused his discretion and that an unconscionable injustice has resulted. McClain, 625 So.2d at 781. We find that the evidence did support the verdict, and no unconscionable injustice has resulted. Though McDonald claims that Joe McDaniel made the sale, Agent Jobe’s testimony and the videotape clearly identify McDonald as the one who sold the drugs. McDonald tries to elicit one phrase from Agent Jobe’s testimony in sole support of his contention that Joe McDaniel sold the drugs, but this excerpt does not sufficiently support McDonald’s allegation.1 Thus, we conclude that the judge did not abuse his discretion in denying McDonald’s motion for new trial. This issue is without merit.

II. WHETHER APPELLANT WAS DENIED EFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL.

¶ 10. As previously stated, in reviewing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, we look to whether the attorney’s actions were deficient and whether such deficiency acted to prejudice the defendant. Wilson v. State, 775 So.2d 735 (¶ 8) (Miss.Ct.App.2000). McDonald argues that his counsel’s performance was deficient in several different respects.

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McDonald v. State, 807 So. 2d 447, 2001 Miss. App. LEXIS 262, 2001 WL 808339 (Mich. Ct. App. 2001).

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