Turner v. State

3 So. 3d 742, 2009 Miss. LEXIS 71, 2009 WL 399438
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 19, 2009
Docket2007-KA-01539-SCT
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 3 So. 3d 742 (Turner v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Turner v. State, 3 So. 3d 742, 2009 Miss. LEXIS 71, 2009 WL 399438 (Mich. 2009).

Opinion

LAMAR, Justice,

for the Court.

¶ 1. Cora Ann Turner is before this Court appealing her conviction for the sale of cocaine. Turner argues that the trial court erred in admitting evidence, claiming the State failed to establish chain of custody. Finding no error, we affirm the trial court.

*743 FACTS

¶ 2. On July 17, 2007, a jury found Turner guilty of selling and delivering cocaine to a confidential informant, Joseph Anthony Kirkley. 1 Kirkley, a recovering drug addict, was working with the Warren County Sheriffs Department as a confidential informant. On September 15, 2005, Mike Traxler, an investigator with the Warren County Sheriffs Department, instructed Kirkley to attempt to purchase narcotics from Turner and her brother, Joe Joe Turner. Traxler and Kirkley met in Warren County at a pre-buy location. Traxler searched Kirkley and his car for drugs prior to Kirkley leaving the pre-buy location. However, Traxler testified that he did not search Kirkley’s Marlboro cigarette box for drugs.

¶ 3. Traxler testified that he gave Kirk-ley $170 for the purchase of narcotics, and he outfitted Kirkley with a button-hole camera that was also an audio-video recorder. Traxler stated that Kirkley did not have the ability to stop or start the recording. Traxler also testified that he was unable to monitor Kirkley’s actions during the drug buy, and that he did not see Kirkley again until they met at the post-buy location.

¶ 4. At the post-buy location, Kirkley gave Traxler the crack cocaine that he had purchased for $50, and returned $120, the remainder of the purchase money. Kirk-ley had transported the cocaine in a Marlboro cigarette box, from which Traxler took the cocaine, returning the box to Kirkley. Kirkley informed Traxler that he had purchased the cocaine from Turner.

¶ 5. Traxler then placed the cocaine in a plastic bag and transported the evidence to the Sheriffs Office. Traxler testified that he took the cocaine to the Mississippi Crime Lab and received an evidence submission form. 2 The evidence submission form was entered as an exhibit, and it verifies that Mike Traxler delivered one heat-sealed plastic bag containing a rock-like substance to the lab on September 16, 2005, at 10:28 a.m. Archie Nichols, a forensic scientist with the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, testified that he analyzed the evidence, which he found to be .3 grams of cocaine. Nichols’s test results were set forth in the Mississippi Crime Laboratory Certified Report. 3

¶ 6. At trial, the State introduced the video of the drug buy. Kirkley’s testimony was used to clarify conversations and explain events as they occurred on the videotape. Kirkley confirmed that Traxler had given him $170 “to hit another dealer and Cora Ann and just whoever I could get that day.” Kirkley testified that he went to Joe Joe’s house first, and then he drove to Turner’s house, where he purchased two rocks of cocaine from Turner for $50. Kirkley stated he put the cocaine in a cigarette box, but he could not remember if he placed the box in his console or in front of his console. Kirkley testified that after he left Turner’s house, he returned to Joe Joe’s house to wait for another dealer. Kirkley stated he left Joe Joe’s home when the dealer failed to meet him, and he returned to the post-buy location. Kirkley testified that he maintained control over the cocaine until he gave it to Traxler.

*744 ¶ 7. The video contains about a minute of footage taken when Kirkley returned to Joe Joe’s house for the second time; the tape then abruptly ends. Traxler explained that he first transferred the recording from the button-hole camera to a computer, and then he burned the recording onto a disc. On cross-examination, Traxler explained that he “burned the session that showed the buy onto a CD, and then everything else was discarded off [of the computer], and the recorder was erased and ready to go again.” Traxler further testified that the remaining portion of the video “had nothing to do with the purchase of the narcotics from Cora Turner.”

¶ 8. The defense also questioned Traxler about the portion of the video in which Kirkley interacted with Turner. When asked what Traxler saw on the video, he replied, “I saw Cora Turner standing there with her side to the informant, taking what appeared to be a white rock from her hand and handing it toward the informant.... The view of the camera is hard, and y’all will see that.”

DISCUSSION

The sole issue raised by Turner is whether the Trial Court abused its discretion in allowing the cocaine and the Mississippi Crime Lab Report into evidence.

¶ 9. This Court reviews the trial court’s admissibility of evidence under the abuse-of-discretion standard. Ellis v. State, 984 So.2d 1000, 1004 (Miss.2006). Furthermore, this Court will affirm the trial court’s ruling “ ‘[u]nless we can safely say that the trial court abused its judicial discretion in allowing or disallowing evidence so as to prejudice a party in a civil case, or the accused in a criminal case.’ ” Id. (quoting Jones v. State, 918 So.2d 1220, 1223 (Miss.2005)).

¶ 10. Turner contends the State failed to prove that the cocaine that was tested at the Mississippi Crime Lab was the same drug purchased from her. Therefore, Turner argues the trial court committed prejudicial error in allowing the State to admit into evidence the cocaine and Mississippi Crime Lab report. Turner’s argument is based on the following uncontested facts. First, Turner asserts Traxler did not search the Marlboro cigarette box prior to Kirkley leaving the pre-buy location. Second, Turner argues Kirkley did not immediately return to the post-buy location after he purchased the cocaine but went to the home of “a known drug dealer.” Third, Turner contends the Sheriffs Department failed to monitor or supervise Kirkley as the transaction occurred. Finally, Turner asserts the State failed to produce the entire video, which would have accounted for Kirkleys activities after he left her house. Turner argues that these facts create a reasonable inference the evidence was tampered with or substituted.

¶ 11. While Turner frames her assignment of error as a break in the chain of custody, she clearly argues a question of identification which arises under Rule 901(a) of the Mississippi Rules of Evidence. Pursuant to Rule 901(a), “[t]he requirement of authentication or identification as a condition precedent to admissibility is satisfied by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent claims.” Miss. R. Evid. 901(a) (emphasis added). This Court has ruled that the “proponent of the evidence must show no reasonable inference of material tampering with, or substitution of, the evidence; however, Mississippi law has never required a proponent of evidence to produce every handler of the evidence.” Ellis, 934 So.2d at 1005. *745 Furthermore, to determine a break in the chain of custody there must be an “indication or reasonable inference of probable tampering with the evidence or substitution of the evidence.” Spann v.

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

Related

Knight v. State
72 So. 3d 1056 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2011)
Pearson v. State
64 So. 3d 569 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2011)
State v. Hatcher
708 S.E.2d 750 (Supreme Court of South Carolina, 2011)
Minter v. State
64 So. 3d 518 (Court of Appeals of Mississippi, 2011)
Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz, P.C. v. Seay
42 So. 3d 474 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2010)
Kenneth Knight v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2010
Tate v. State
20 So. 3d 623 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2009)
Eric Tate v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 2008

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
3 So. 3d 742, 2009 Miss. LEXIS 71, 2009 WL 399438, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/turner-v-state-miss-2009.