Singleton v. State

2011 Ark. App. 145, 381 S.W.3d 874, 2011 Ark. App. LEXIS 150
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedFebruary 23, 2011
DocketNo. CA CR 10-913
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 2011 Ark. App. 145 (Singleton v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Singleton v. State, 2011 Ark. App. 145, 381 S.W.3d 874, 2011 Ark. App. LEXIS 150 (Ark. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

DAVID M. GLOVER, Judge.

| ¶Appellant, Felton Singleton, was convicted by a jury of the offenses of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver; possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver; possession of marijuana with intent to deliver;1 maintaining a drug premise; and misdemeanor tampering with physical evidence. He received an aggregate sentence of forty years for those convictions. On appeal, he argues that there is insufficient evidence to support the convictions. We affirm the convictions.

Facts

At trial, Sergeant Alan Hamby testified that on July 15, 2009, his SWAT team was involved in a search and seizure at 4305 Maryland Street. His team was first in the house, fusing a “flash bang” to distract any people in the house. Appellant was found lying on the floor of the bathroom at the back of the residence. He was secured but not moved from the scene. Two other individuals fled as the SWAT team entered the residence.

Detective Rick Kizer of the Little Rock Police Department narcotics division testified that he was the property officer in the search conducted at 4305 Maryland. Kizer identified several bags of marijuana found in various locations in the house, including underneath Singleton on the bathroom floor, and several bags of drugs in the toilet. Specifically, he testified that an off-white rock wrapped in plastic, weighing 2.29 grams, was found in the toilet together with another baggie with white residue and some powder or pills. He found a box of sandwich bags on the dryer in the kitchen and some pills in the front room. He also found surveillance equipment outside the house and audio-surveillance equipment inside the house. Kizer obtained Singleton’s address from conducting an interview with Singleton, who gave his address as 4305 Maryland. According to Kizer, on Singleton’s bond sheet, he listed his address as 4305 Maryland as well. Kizer did not get any information from Singleton about who owned the residence, but he did retrieve paperwork indicating that Felton Duncan, Singleton’s son, lived at the residence. Detective Tim Stankev-itz, a Little Rock narcotics detective, testified that he found two hydroeodone pills in a bedroom dresser but that he had never seen Singleton selling drugs out of the house at 4305 Maryland.

Detective Lawrence Wellborn, also a Little Rock narcotics officer, testified that the surveillance system at 4305 Maryland was a closed-monitor system that had two cameras at the front of the residence and a monitor inside; people in the house could see persons approaching the front door. He explained that such a system jeopardized the safety of the |3SWAT officers by allowing early detection of the officers’ presence and giving the people inside time to ami themselves and flush any narcotics. Wellborn testified about packaging and pricing drugs. Marijuana packaged for street sale is in small packages; low-grade marijuana sells for five to ten dollars for five grams, while high-grade marijuana sells for about thirty dollars a gram; crack cocaine is packaged in quarter grams, half grams, grams, or an eight ball (three and a half grams); a rock is about a quarter gram; and each rock sells for twenty-five dollars, with an eight ball selling for about $280. A simple user buys a quarter to a half gram of cocaine for personal use, which would be about fifty dollars, and it is not common to go above a gram for personal use, but addicts usually buy rocks because it gives the user a quicker high. Wellborn testified that the rock of cocaine found in the toilet was well above the amount for one person’s use. He also explained that methamphetamine is packaged and sold in the same way as cocaine — either powder or “ice,” which is like rock candy, but that it can also be purchased in pill form. With a pill press, a person can make pills from methamphetamine powder or any other type of drug. Methamphetamine-cocaine pills sell for between forty and eighty dollars per pill, and a person buys one or two pills at a time. Wellborn considered the amount of pills in the house to be a sale amount.

Wellborn stated that many drug houses, or “trap houses,” did not keep a large quantity of drugs on the premises — sellers buy large amounts of drugs, but they take only small amounts to the trap house and call for more when needed. Wellborn explained that in such a house, the drugs would be on one person, and the money would be kept by another person, keeping the drugs and money separate.

|4Kim Brown, a forensic drug chemist for the Arkansas State Crime Lab, testified that the cocaine base weighed 2.2957 grams. She said that five of the pills found had a Batman emblem on them, contained cocaine, methamphetamine, caffeine, Levamisole, dimethylsulfide, and ibuprofen, and weighed 1.5795 grams; and that three of the pills had a Transformer emblem on them, contained cocaine, methamphetamine, caffeine, dimethylsulfide, and Levamisole, and weighed .9212 grams. The total weight of the eight pills was 2.5007 grams. She could not differentiate between the weight of the substances in the pills.

At the close of the State’s case, Singleton moved for directed verdicts on all counts. His motions were denied by the trial court.

Destiny Smith, Singleton’s wife, testified that her husband had been a drug addict as long as she had known him; that he would be gone from their house for weeks; and that he would go to his son’s house at 4305 Maryland and smoke and “come home crazy.” However, she denied that he lived at 4305 Maryland, stating that they lived on North Chicot Road.

Singleton testified in his own defense. Though admitting he was at the Maryland Street house on July 15, 2009, he stated the house belonged to his son and his son’s girlfriend, and that he lived on North Chi-cot Road. According to Singleton, his son allowed him to get high for free, so he was at his son’s house all the time doing drugs, including all night on July 15, when someone came over the radio and said, “flush it” because the police were outside. Singleton said that another guy in the house gave him drugs to flush, but before he made it to the bathroom, the diversion device went off and scared him; he froze, threw the drugs in the toilet, and lay down. He said he had time to flush the drugs but did not do it. Singleton | ^admitted he was on the bathroom floor surrounded by drugs when the officers entered the residence. He denied that the drugs were his and claimed he was just there to get high. He denied selling drugs out of the house.

On cross-examination, Singleton admitted that he lied to both the police detective and the bail bondsman when he gave them his address as 4305 Maryland. He said that he gave the bondsman that address because he did not have all of the money for his bond, and if the bondsman looked for him at that address, he would not be there.

At the close of the evidence, Singleton renewed his motions for directed verdict, which were again denied. The jury found Singleton guilty of the charged offenses, and Singleton filed a timely appeal.

Standard of Review

A motion for directed verdict is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. Morris v. State, 2011 Ark. App. 12, 2011 WL 51462.

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Related

Reginald Featherston v. State of Arkansas
2024 Ark. App. 207 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2024)
Worsham v. State
2017 Ark. App. 702 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2017)
Singleton v. State
2013 Ark. 348 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2013)

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Bluebook (online)
2011 Ark. App. 145, 381 S.W.3d 874, 2011 Ark. App. LEXIS 150, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/singleton-v-state-arkctapp-2011.