State v. Ennis

877 So. 2d 300, 3 La.App. 3 Cir. 1491, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 1777, 2004 WL 1496652
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 7, 2004
DocketNo. 03-1491
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 877 So. 2d 300 (State v. Ennis) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Ennis, 877 So. 2d 300, 3 La.App. 3 Cir. 1491, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 1777, 2004 WL 1496652 (La. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

hWOODARD, Judge.

The Defendant appeals his conviction for possession of 400, or more, grams of cocaine. For the following reasons, we affirm his conviction, amend his sentence, and remand the case to the trial court with instructions to amend the minutes of sentencing.

‡ sfí :fi ‡

On June 26, 2000, the Defendant, Mr. Ishmel Joel Ennis, and his passenger, Mr. Eric Lamont Summers, were driving on Interstate 10 in Jefferson Davis Parish when Officer Arthur Phillips pulled them over for an alleged traffic violation. After obtaining a written consent to search the vehicle, Officer Phillips and Deputy Monty Kirk Chevallier, who came to the scene to assist, discovered cocaine hidden under the vehicle’s hood. They arrested both men. Officer Phillips’ police car video camera recorded the search and arrests.

The State charged Mr. Ennis with possession of over four hundred grams of cocaine in violation of La.R.S. 40:967(C) and (F). A jury found him guilty. The trial court sentenced him to thirty years at hard labor, with at least fifteen years to be served without parole, along with a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine. He seeks review of his conviction.

ERRORS Patent

In accordance with La.Code Crim.P. art. 920, we review all appeals for errors patent on the face of the record. After reviewing the record, we find two.

First, the trial court imposed sentence immediately after denying Mr. En-nis’ “Motion for Post Verdict Judgment of Acquittal and/or Motion for a New Trial,” despite La.Code Crim.P. art. 873’s requirement that it delay sentencing for twenty-four hours after denying a motion for new trial. Nonetheless, Mr. Ennis neither challenges his sentence nor alleges any [304]*304prejudice because of the lack of a delay. Accordingly, we find the error harmless.1

However, the trial court imposed sentence under the version of La.R.S. 40:967(F)(l)(c) in effect at the time of trial rather than at the time of the offense. At the time of the offense, the statute provided for a minimum term of imprisonment of | ¡¡thirty years at hard labor, with a maximum term of sixty years. However, by the time of trial, the legislature had amended the statute, decreasing the minimum sentence to fifteen years at hard labor with a maximum of thirty years.

Thus, the trial court imposed a thirty-year sentence, at which time, the prosecutor informed the court that by statute “at least the first fifteen (15) years of the sentence are without benefit of parole,” to which the trial court responded, “[tjhat is correct. I think the statute provides for that.” Louisiana Revised Statute 40:967(G) mandates that the minimum sentence for possession of cocaine weighing 400 grams or more be served without benefit of parole. However, since the minimum sentence at the time of the offense was thirty years, Mr. Ennis’ sentence is illegally lenient, as all thirty years should be without benefit of parole. Because the term of parole ineligibility required in the present case is mandatory, leaving no discretion to the trial court, we need not remand for sentencing. Rather, we amend the sentence to reflect that the thirty years are without benefit of parole.

Additionally, the trial court ordered Mr. Ennis to pay a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine, but the minutes of sentencing do not reflect it. Thus, we remand the ease and order the trial court to amend the minutes of sentencing to correctly reflect the imposition of the two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar fine.

Motion to Suppress

Officer Phillips stopped Mr. Ennis’ vehicle for illegal lane usage because he claimed he crossed the fog line. Mr. En-nis contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence that the officers seized from his vehicle, in which he argued the officers did not have probable cause for the stop and detained him at the scene beyond the scope of a permissible traffic stop. However, this court has already exercised supervisory jurisdiction and affirmed the trial court’s denial of the motion in an unpublished writ opinion.2 Notwithstanding, we are not absolutely precluded from reaching another conclusion on appeal, now having the benefit of additional evidence adduced at trial.3 “Nevertheless, judicial efficiency demands that [we] accord great deference to [our] pretrial decisions on admissibility, unless it is 13apparent, in light of the subsequent trial record, that the determination was patently erroneous and produced an unjust result.”4

The only new evidence that Mr. Ennis offered at trial consisted of John Roger Sutherland’s testimony. Sutherland, an expert in vehicle alignment, testified that he examined Mr. Ennis’ vehicle and concluded that his front right tire could not have crossed the fog line on the highway without his right rear tire also crossing the line. Mr. Ennis offered Mr. Sutherland’s testimony in an attempt to diminish Officer Phillips’ credibility and [305]*305impeach his testimony that he pulled Mr. Ennis over when his right front tire crossed the line. When asked if the right front tire, only, crossed the line, Officer Phillips answered, “yes,” but we also recognize that Officer Phillips repeatedly testified that he got behind Mr. Ennis’ vehicle, initially, because he was riding the line, or straddling the line. This is consistent with the citation Officer Phillips issued which lists the violation as “improper lane usage.”

Apparently, the jury did not find Mr. Sutherland’s testimony sufficient to cast doubt on Officer Phillips’ credibility nor do we find it sufficient to render our previous decision patently erroneous. Furthermore, Mr. Sutherland did not examine the car until the day before trial and testified that he could not give an opinion about the condition of the vehicle at the time of Mr. Ennis’ arrest, approximately three years earlier.

Thus, we find no additional evidence in the record that would support a finding that our prior decision was patently erroneous.

Sufficiency of Evidence

Mr. Ennis contends that the verdict is contrary to the law because the evidence was insufficient to convict him of possession of cocaine. “It is unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to possess a controlled dangerous substance as classified in Schedule II....”5 “Cocaine is a Schedule II controlled dangerous substance.” 6 The State’s burden was to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Ennis possessed |4four hundred grams or more7 of cocaine and that he knowingly or intentionally possessed it; in other words, that he had “guilty knowledge.”8

When the issue of sufficiency of the evidence is raised on appeal, the critical inquiry of the reviewing court is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the role of the fact finder to weigh the respective credibility of the witnesses, and therefore the appellate court should not second-guess the credibility determination of the trier of fact beyond the sufficiency evaluations under the Jackson standard of review.9

Possession

In the instant case, police officers found the cocaine, not on Mr.

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

Related

State v. Griffin
139 So. 3d 14 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2014)
State v. Jacobs
74 So. 3d 884 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2011)
State of Louisiana v. Robert James Jacobs
Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2011

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
877 So. 2d 300, 3 La.App. 3 Cir. 1491, 2004 La. App. LEXIS 1777, 2004 WL 1496652, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ennis-lactapp-2004.