Smothers v. State

761 So. 2d 887, 2000 Miss. App. LEXIS 4, 2000 WL 15039
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedJanuary 11, 2000
DocketNo. 1998-KA-01299-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 761 So. 2d 887 (Smothers 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
Smothers v. State, 761 So. 2d 887, 2000 Miss. App. LEXIS 4, 2000 WL 15039 (Mich. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

LEE, J.,

for the Court:

¶ 1. The appellant, Quincy Smothers, was tried by jury in the Circuit Court of Hinds County and appeals his conviction for the crime of armed robbery in violation of Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-79 (Rev.1994). He was subsequently sentenced to twenty-five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said sentence to run consecutively to any other sentence being served. He asserts that he is entitled to a new trial, claiming that the trial court improperly refused an instruction on the lesser offense of larceny by trick, and that the verdict was contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

FACTS

¶ 2. On March 26, 1996, Detective Mike Russell, an officer of the narcotics division of the Jackson Police Department with twenty-four years of experience, along with a drug task force unit, set up an undercover drug purchase. Russell was equipped with a body wire so that conversations regarding the entire transaction and the robbery were recorded and entered into evidence. Detective Russell and Stanley Kennedy, a special agent with the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration, were the two witnesses called on behalf of the State.

¶ 3. Russell testified that he paged Quincy Smothers and an agreement was reached that Russell would purchase one ounce of cocaine for $1,100. This money had been appropriated as official government funds for the purchase of drugs by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The parties agreed to consummate the transaction in the K-Mart parking lot on Highway 80 in Jackson at 12:30 p.m. Russell and Smothers both testified that Russell arrived first in a pickup truck and that Smothers arrived a few minutes later driving a Cadillac. With Smothers were Danny Lowe in the front seat and Timothy Williams in the back seat. When Smothers drove into the parking lot he drove his car next to Russell’s truck and said, “Follow me.” Russell followed Smothers to the parking lot at Westgate Apartments and parked on Smothers’ side of the Cadillac.

¶ 4. Smothers got out of the Cadillac and went inside of Russell’s pickup truck to the front seat and closed the door while the other passengers stayed inside Smothers’ car. Russell testified that Smothers said to him, “What you need? A whole one?” and then asked Russell where his scales were. Russell then testified that Smothers, referring to Danny Lowe, the passenger in the front seat, voluntarily stated [889]*889that he did “not even know that guy.” Smothers then added, “I don’t even know that guy; he was just stranded on the highway.” According to Russell’s testimony, Smothers then handed him a bag of what was represented to be cocaine and upon weighing it, determined that it was short of the agreed upon ounce. Smothers got out of the truck to go to his Cadillac to get another piece. Russell’s testimony regarding what then happened is as follows:

When Quincy got out of the vehicle to go to his vehicle, once he opened my door he motioned like this, and then I observed the front right passenger get out of the vehicle, come around the trunk of the vehicle, and once he reached the trunk of the vehicle, I saw him reach in his waistband and pull out a weapon. He then came to my door, stuck the gun to my head and started hollering, Give me the money, give me the money, give it up. Quincy, who was standing beside him, said, You can have the dope, too. But at the same time Quincy reaches down, picks the dope up and puts it in his pocket, and Danny is still hollering, Give me the money, give me the money, get your hand up.
So I reached to get the money to give to Danny, and I’m looking at Quincy, and Quincy is grinning at him, just smiling. So — and then once I give him the money, they both turn and started trotting off to the breezeway of the apartment complex.

Russell testified that he saw Lowe and Smothers jump over a fence into a backyard after they had gone through the breezeway. Russell went on to say that the other passenger in Smothers’ truck had moved from the back seat to the driver’s seat and drove off to the back of the apartment complex in the same direction that Smothers and Lowe had gone.

¶ 5. The drug task force immediately came to Russell’s aid. The constituents looked for Smothers and Lowe but were not able to find them for several days. Neither the money, the package, nor the weapon was recovered. The testimony of Kennedy corroborated that of Russell in that Kennedy too saw Smothers and Lowe running through the breezeway and jumping over a fence into a backyard. Kennedy saw them turn and look toward him when he yelled as they ran.

¶ 6. Testifying on behalf of the defense was Danny Lowe as well as the defendant himself. Lowe had previously pled guilty to the armed robbery. Lowe said that the $1,100 was on the console and that he took it while he was holding a gun to Russell’s head. However, he testified that he was simply “protecting” himself and that what had occurred was not an “armed” robbery. Lowe said that when he approached Russell’s side of the truck that he saw Russell “slide his hand down beside that door, so my first reaction was he was going for a pistol, so that’s when I upped my pistol.” He also said that he took the dope and that he later gave Smothers $400 of the money because his car had been impounded. Lowe testified that Smothers did not know that Lowe had a gun or that a robbery was planned or contemplated. Lowe testified that he had not been stranded on the highway and picked up by Quincy Smothers and that he had known Smothers since he was small, having stayed at his house off and on.

¶ 7. As to whether the cocaine was counterfeit or not, on direct examination Lowe stated that he did not know whether it was good or not; on cross-examination, however, he stated that it was wax or counterfeit. At one point on cross-examination he said that his lawyer told him it was counterfeit; at another he said it was Williams who told him so.

¶ 8. According to Smothers, it was Timothy Williams who answered the initial page from Russell and set the deal up with Russell. Smothers said that Williams had an ounce of counterfeit cocaine, or “dummies,” and when Russell pulled up next to Smothers’ side of the car in the Westgate Apartments parking lot, Smothers asked Williams to pass the dummies to him. [890]*890Smothers got into the car with Russell and when Russell determined that the weight of the cocaine was off, Smothers got out of the truck. As Smothers was getting out of the truck Lowe came around Smothers’ car to the truck. Smothers said Lowe pulled the gun on Russell and said something like, “Give it up.” Smothers did not see Russell with a gun. He said that Lowe took the money from Russell. Contrary to Russell’s testimony that Smothers took the drugs and the testimony of Lowe that Lowe took them, Smothers said that he threw the dummies on the seat and ran from the truck.

ISSUES AND DISCUSSION

I. SHOULD THE TRIAL COURT HAVE GRANTED AN INSTRUCTION FOR THE DEFENSE FOR THE LESSER OFFENSE OF ATTEMPTED LARCENY BY TRICK?

¶ 9. The appellant claims that, since evidence was presented that Smothers did not know that a robbery was to occur, Smothers was attempting to trick Russell out of the money by delivering counterfeit cocaine and was therefore entitled to an instruction for the lesser offense of attempted larceny by trick.

¶ 10.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Strickland v. State
980 So. 2d 908 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2008)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
761 So. 2d 887, 2000 Miss. App. LEXIS 4, 2000 WL 15039, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smothers-v-state-missctapp-2000.