State v. Salyer

884 S.W.2d 354, 1994 Mo. App. LEXIS 1393, 1994 WL 474266
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 31, 1994
Docket18960
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 884 S.W.2d 354 (State v. Salyer) 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 v. Salyer, 884 S.W.2d 354, 1994 Mo. App. LEXIS 1393, 1994 WL 474266 (Mo. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinion

CHARLES B. BLACKMAR, Senior Judge.

The defendant was convicted in a bench trial of possession of marijuana in excess of five grams with intent to distribute, in violation of § 195.211, RSMo 1993 Supp., and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Seeking reversal, he contends (1) that his motion to suppress the marijuana found in his house should have been sustained as the fruit of an unlawful arrest, and (2) that the conviction is not supported by substantial evidence. We affirm. We accept and state the facts the trial judge could have found in *356 support of his rulings on the motion to suppress and on the defendant’s guilt. State v. Burkhardt, 795 S.W.2d 399 (Mo. banc 1990); State v. Villar-Perez, 835 S.W.2d 897 (Mo. banc 1992). The defendant’s brief trespasses on Rule 30.06(e) by stating conflicting versions of the evidence and failing to include some of the evidence supportive of the judgment.

On December 21, 1993, a deputy sheriff answered a disturbance call by one David Holder, who claimed that the defendant, his landlord, had assaulted and injured him while attempting to collect rent and some bills. The officer went to the defendant’s residence some two blocks away and knocked on the front door. The defendant came to the door and confirmed his identity, whereupon the officer said that he would like to talk to him about the assault which had been reported. The defendant, without speaking, opened the screen door, stepped to the side, held the door open, and allowed the officer to enter.

The defendant told the officer that he had manhandled Holder because Holder owed him rent and other bills. The officer then informed him that the reasons given did not justify the use of physical force', and said that he was placing him under arrest. The defendant, in response to the officer’s question, said that he had no weapons on his person. The officer conducted a pat-down search and located a hard object in the left front trousers pocket, which he removed and which turned out to be a wooden pipe, found on analysis to contain burned marijuana residue.

The defendant then requested that he be allowed to take a pack of cigarettes to the jail, and asked the officer to retrieve them from a coffee table in an adjoining room. A man and a woman were in this room. They left the house at the officer’s request. He located the cigarettes, and also observed a partially consumed marijuana cigarette in an ashtray on the table. He requested permission to search the house, which was denied, and then took the defendant to the jail.

The officer next obtained a search warrant for the residence and returned, together with the sheriff and a drug sniffing dog. The search turned up approximately 300 grams of marijuana, in three different rooms and also in a closet designed for access to the attic. Some of the marijuana was packaged in zi-plock bags of uniform size, and some in sacks containing small baggies. Unpackaged marijuana was found in a bag on the floor near a desk containing the defendant’s bank statements for the three months preceding the search. The search also turned up three pipes, one apparently complete and similar in design to the pipe found on the plaintiffs person, and the other two in various stages of completion. Wood and tools, usable in the making of pipes of this kind, were found in the garage. The dog alerted on a closed tin in the living room which, on being opened, yielded three film canisters, one containing seeds, one loose marijuana, and one roaches. Also found in the tin were hemostats, rolling paper, and numerous empty baggies.

The court overruled the motion to suppress and found the defendant guilty of possession with intent to distribute, as charged in Count I of the information. The court dismissed Count II, charging simple possession of more than 35 grams of marijuana in violation of § 195.211, RSMo 1993 Supp.

Motion to Suppress

The defendant argues that the officer gained entry into his residence unlawfully because he had no arrest warrant, and that the arrest, the search warrant, and the ensuing search were unlawful. It is argued that the marijuana should be suppressed as evidence because it is “fruit of the poisoned tree.”

We reject the claim. It was quite proper for the officer to seek an interview with the defendant as soon as he heard Holder’s complaint. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). He could elect to visit the defendant’s home, rather than asking him to stop by the station. The trial judge could have found that the defendant, by opening the door, invited the officer to enter for the requested discussion, whether he spoke any words of invitation or not. State v. Berry, 526 S.W.2d 92 (Mo.App.1975). The invited entry was not unlawful.

The officer did not mention arrest until the defendant told him that he had *357 shown force in an attempt to collect rent and bills, thus admitting an unlawful assault. No objection was made to the receipt in evidence of the defendant’s statement about his visit to Holder, and no charge of assault is made in the present proceedings. The arrest was lawful under the circumstances.

The search of the defendant’s person incident to the arrest was entirely lawful, Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969); State v. Vitale, 801 S.W.2d 451 (Mo.App.1990), and the “hard object,” even though a pipe rather than a weapon, was properly removed from the defendant’s pocket. The cigarettes were retrieved at the defendant’s request, and the marijuana cigarette was in plain view on the table with the cigarette pack. The finding of the pipe and the marijuana cigarette gave probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant. State v. Jeffries, 858 S.W.2d 821 (Mo.App.1993).

The officer, therefore, followed lawful procedures and the trial court’s overruling of the motion to suppress is well supported by the record.

The Merits

The defendant argues that the conviction is not supported by the evidence (1) because the record does not demonstrate exclusive possession so as to establish that the defendant’s possession was “knowing,” and (2) because there is no substantial evidence of “intent to distribute.” We reject both claims.

The officer testified, without objection, that he went to the defendant’s house. Even though others may have been present while the officer’s investigation was in progress, there is no showing that any person other than the defendant lived in the house. The clothes found in the house were those of the defendant. The two people who were in the house when the officer entered apparently departed without objection. Although one of them was a woman, only a man’s clothes were found in the house.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
884 S.W.2d 354, 1994 Mo. App. LEXIS 1393, 1994 WL 474266, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-salyer-moctapp-1994.