Wardley v. State

760 So. 2d 774, 1999 WL 690171
CourtCourt of Appeals of Mississippi
DecidedSeptember 7, 1999
Docket1998-KA-00967-COA
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 760 So. 2d 774 (Wardley 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
Wardley v. State, 760 So. 2d 774, 1999 WL 690171 (Mich. Ct. App. 1999).

Opinion

760 So.2d 774 (1999)

Billy L. WARDLEY, Jr., a/k/a Billy Lewis Wardley, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Mississippi, Appellees.

No. 1998-KA-00967-COA.

Court of Appeals of Mississippi.

September 7, 1999.
Rehearing Denied May 2, 2000.

*775 Pamela A. Ferrington, Natchez, Attorney for Appellant.

Office of the Attorney General by Jeffrey A. Klingfuss, Attorney for Appellees.

BEFORE SOUTHWICK, P.J., BRIDGES, AND IRVING, JJ.

SOUTHWICK, P.J., for the Court:

¶ 1. Billy L. Wardley, Jr., was convicted in the Franklin County Circuit Court of one count of the sale of a controlled substance. He was sentenced as an habitual offender to a term of thirty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections. On appeal, Wardley contends that the identification given by the undercover agent was insufficient to sustain the verdict against him. Wardley further alleges that the State impermissibly exercised its peremptory challenges to exclude all blacks from the jury. Because his attorney failed to object to the State's discriminatory exercise of its challenges, Wardley claims he was denied effective assistance of counsel. Finally, in further support of his contention that his counsel was ineffective, Wardley points to his attorney's failure to submit an identification instruction. We find no error in the allegations and affirm.

FACTS

¶ 2. On November 22, 1994, agents from the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics arranged to make undercover drug purchases. Two agents from the Bureau, a McComb police officer, the Franklin County Sheriff, and a confidential informant met at the pre-arranged meeting place. Eric Allen, the McComb police officer, served as a contract agent with the Bureau. On this date, he was fitted with a body transmitter and given $50 with which to purchase drugs. After the confidential informant was searched, he and Allen departed in an undercover vehicle. The remaining *776 individuals listened to the subsequent events via the body transmitter.

¶ 3. Allen and the informant drove around Bude and saw Pete Smith. The informant told Smith that he and Allen wished to purchase some crack cocaine. Smith then got in the vehicle with them and helped them search for someone from whom they could purchase cocaine. Smith described one dealer's vehicle. They found it in the parking lot of an apartment complex. The informant went inside and returned with the defendant, Billy Wardley. Wardley got in his vehicle and indicated to Allen that he and the others should follow him.

¶ 4. Wardley drove to an area near a vacant lot and went inside a nearby residence. He returned within a couple of minutes and motioned for Allen to join him in his vehicle. Allen got inside Wardley's car and purchased three rocks of crack cocaine from him. He then went back to his own vehicle and along with the informant drove to the pre-buy meeting place. Along the way, Allen gave a description of the defendant over the transmitter. He stated that he had just purchased cocaine from "a black male wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and a rag on his head." Wardley's vehicle was described as a faded maroon 1979 or 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass, with four speakers sitting in the rear on top of the back seat. Allen later elaborated on his description of Wardley, describing him as "a black male, approximately 5'9, weighing approximately 175 pounds, with brown eyes and a thin mustache, light to medium complexion."

¶ 5. Wardley was indicted on April 18, 1995, for the illegal sale of a controlled substance. Following a trial held in the Franklin County Circuit Court, the jury found Wardley guilty. He was sentenced as an habitual offender to serve thirty years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

DISCUSSION

I. Sufficiency of the evidence

¶ 6. A challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a jury's verdict requires that we consider all of the evidence in the light consistent with the verdict. We give the prosecution the benefit of all inferences that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence. Only if the facts and inferences so considered points in favor of the accused with sufficient force that reasonable men could not have found beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty, reversal and discharge are required. Brooks v. State, 695 So.2d 593, 594 (Miss.1997).

¶ 7. Wardley points out that the State's only evidence against him was the identification given by the undercover agent, Eric Allen. According to Wardley, the identification is unreliable because it failed to include his more distinguishing characteristics, namely his gold teeth, extraordinarily long fingernails and the tattoos on his face.

¶ 8. A similar argument was raised by the defendant in Hall v. State, 546 So.2d 673, 678 (Miss.1989). There, the defendant claimed that the identification was questionable because it failed to mention the fact that two fingers of his right hand were missing and that he had facial hair. Id. The court rejected Hall's argument, noting that the agent testified that she was facing him when the transaction took place and could see him clearly despite low lighting. Further, her description of the defendant's height, weight, age, hair color and eye color was consistent with the defendant's general description at the time of his arrest. Id. Here, Agent Allen testified that he sat in the passenger seat of Wardley's car when he purchased the cocaine from Wardley, who sat in the driver's seat. He was sitting approximately eighteen inches from Wardley and had an opportunity to view him.

¶ 9. Wardley relies upon a precedent in which the confidential informant's description *777 of the defendant was erroneous by six inches and fifty pounds. Ashford v. State, 583 So.2d 1279, 1282 (Miss.1991). The court recognized that "[i]t is possible and indeed likely that witnesses will miss a person's height by a few inches and may miss a person's weight by a few pounds, maybe even ten or twenty ... It is not common, however, that a man, familiar with his own height and weight, will look at another—much taller and much heavier —and estimate a shorter height and a lesser weight." Id. The court basically rejected the description as incredible, a conclusion that does not follow from the alleged error here.

¶ 10. "The character and adequacy of evidence of identification of an accused in a criminal case is primarily a question for the jury, provided the evidence could reasonably be held sufficient to comply with the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Mamon v. State, 724 So.2d 878, 881 (Miss.1998). Allen's identification of Wardley was sufficient to sustain the guilty verdict.

II. Batson violation

¶ 11. Wardley was convicted by an all-white jury. He argues that this was a result of the State's discriminatory use of its peremptory challenges which eliminated the only potential black jurors in the jury pool. Wardley made no objection at trial to any of the State's peremptory strikes, and never asked that the State articulate race-neutral reasons for those strikes, nor did he object to the final composition of the jury. A party waives any and all claims regarding the composition of his jury if he fails to raise an objection before the jury is sworn. Smith v. State, 724 So.2d 280, 330 (Miss.1998).

¶ 12. Accordingly, Wardley claims that he was denied effective assistance of counsel due to his attorney's failure to object to the State's exercise of its peremptory challenges.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
760 So. 2d 774, 1999 WL 690171, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wardley-v-state-missctapp-1999.