State of Missouri v. Sheena Marr

499 S.W.3d 367, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 910
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 13, 2016
DocketWD78648
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 499 S.W.3d 367 (State of Missouri v. Sheena Marr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State of Missouri v. Sheena Marr, 499 S.W.3d 367, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 910 (Mo. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Karen King’Mitchell, Presiding Judge

., Sheena Marr. appeals, following a jury trial, her , convictions of first-degree trafficking, § 195.222, 1 and misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance, § 195.202, for which she was sentenced, as a--persistent offender, to a total of sixteen years’ imprisonment. On appeal, Marr claims that the trial court erred in: (1) overruling her motion to suppress because the investigating officer violated the Fourth Amendment by impermissibly extending the scope of his initial investigation; and (2) .failing to sua sponte strike the trial judge’s spouse from the venire panel for cause because allowing her to serve created the appearance of impropriety. We affirm.

Background 2

■ On August 20, 2014, between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m., Higginsville Police Officer Danny Logan (a K9 unit narcotics officer) received a dispatch indicating that there was a stranded motorist on Highway 13, just south of 1-70. When Officer Logan located the vehicle, he activated his emergency lights for safety reasons, ran the vehicle’s Kansas license plate, and then approached the vehicle to “check[ ] on them ... [and] make sure ... they weren’t broke down, didn’t need a tow truck, that sort of thing.” As he approached the car, Officer Logan noticed the driver reaching around down low, as if trying to hide something. For safety reasons, Officer Logan then walked up to the passenger side of the vehicle, where he first encountered Marr.

The first thing Officer Logan noticed was that Marr appeax-ed to be under the influence of a stimulant of some kind; she was very fidgety and her pupils were dilated—both common symptoms of ihetham-phetamine usage. Based on'his experience, Officer Logan believed Marr to be a methamphetamine addict in light of her general appearance, as she had sunken-in cheeks, she was skinny, and she had sores on her hands and face. Both Marr and the driver—later identified as Christopher Hubbard—appeared very nervous when Officer Logan first approached, more so than he would have expected with a typical citizen-police encounter. Hubbard stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact with Officer Logan, and his heart was pounding so hard that Officer Logan could see it thumping in his chest.

Officer Logan asked Hubbard and Marr what was going on, and they said they were working on the radio in the car. Because Marr appeared to be under the influence of an illegal substance, Officer Logan asked for identification. Marr told Officer Logan that she did not have any state identification, but she handed him identification from the Missouri Department of Corrections. In light of the form of identification Marr provided, Officer Logan asked what she had been incarcerated for. Marr said it was for forgery. The officer then asked if she was on probation or parole, and Marr stated that she was *371 currently on probation. Upon learning .that Marr was on probation, Officer Logan decided to investigate his suspicion that she was under -the influence. He returned to his patrol car and ran the identification for both Hubbard and Marr, which confirmed that Marr was, in fact, on probation. Officer Logan then asked Marr to step out of the car, asked about drug use, asked if there was anything in her purse, and sought consent to search it. Marr denied Officer Logan’s request to search her purse.

Officer Logan then approached Hubbard and asked whether the car contained anything illegal. Hubbard responded that there was not. But because of both Hubbard’s and Marr’s behavior and Officer Logan’s belief that Marr was under the influence, Officer Logan decided to deploy his drug-sniffing dog around the outside of the car. The dog alerted at the passenger-side door, where the window was rolled down.

After the dog alerted, Officer Logan returned the dog to the patrol vehicle and approached Hubbard, having him step out of the car. When Hubbard did so, a butane torch (a kind commonly used to smoke methamphetamine) fell out of his lap onto the ground. Hubbard then “got weird, got very, very nervous, fight or flight mode-type nervous,” so Officer Logan handcuffed him and conducted a search of the vehicle.

Upon searching the car, Officer Logan discovered a Crown Royal bag, containing approximately 36 grams of crystal-like substance, which field-tested positive for methamphetamine, lying in the middle of the passenger seat. 3 Also inside the bag was a “wood dugout” containing marijuana and a marijuana pipe, a digital scale, and numerous empty plastic baggies. 4 Officer Logan also located a Hi-Point semiautomatic pistol between the driver’s seat and the center console, concealed by a pillow that Hubbard had been sitting on, as well as a glass methamphetamine pipe in the back seat floorboard behind the passenger seat, and a briefcase containing ammunition and several cell phones. 5

Hubbard and Marr were both taken to the police station, where they were advised of their Miranda warnings and then questioned. Hubbard admitted that the gun and briefcase were his but ■ denied knowing anything about the drugs found in the car. Marr admitted that the marijuana was hers but denied knowledge of anything else found in the vehicle. They were then transported to the Lafayette County jail. On September 1, 2014, Marr contacted Officer Logan, indicating that she wished to speak with him again. After being advised of her Miranda warnings again, Marr admitted that she knew about the methamphetamine and had even concealed it inside of herself at one point.

Marr was charged as a persistent felony offender with one count of first-degree trafficking for acting in concert with Hubbard in an attempt to distribute, deliver, or sell the methamphetamine and one count of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance for the marijuana she admitted was hers. Before trial, Marr filed a motion to suppress the drugs, arguing that, once Officer Logan determined that Marr and *372 Hubbard were not in need of any assistance, the purpose of his investigation was completed and any actions taken after that point constituted ■ an impermissible extension of the investigation. The trial court denied Marr’s motion, and the case proceeded to trial.

During voir dire when the prosecutor asked the panel if anyone knew her, Juror 30 raised her hand indicating that she knew the prosecutor through “Democratic Club and the legal family here in Lafayette County.” The prosecutor then asked if there was anyone else in the courtroom that Juror 30 knew; Juror 30 responded, “I do. The Judge would be my husband.” The court then joked:. “I do want to point out that the instructions said, ‘Are there any of you who would not be willing to follow[ ] all the instructions the Court will give to the jury,’ and I kept waiting for her to raise her hand.” The prosecutor asked Juror 30: “[Kjnowing the Judge who would be sitting on the bench and obviously not back in the jury room, wouldn’t be discussing the case with you at all, is there anything about being married to him that would affect your ability to serve?” Juror 30 responded, “No. Absolutely not.” During defense counsel’s

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Bluebook (online)
499 S.W.3d 367, 2016 Mo. App. LEXIS 910, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-of-missouri-v-sheena-marr-moctapp-2016.