McAnnally v. State

897 S.E.2d 497

MCANNALLY

v.The STATE.

Byrd

v.The State.

A23A1239

A23A1242

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

January 18, 2024

Frances C. Kuo, Lawrenceville, for Appellant in A23A1239.

Jerry W. Chappell II, for Appellant in A23A1242.

Clayton McLean Fuller, Matthew William Moore, for Appellee.

Watkins, Judge.

[1, 2] Tamera Marie McAnnally and Philip Byrd appeal the denial of their respective motions for new trial following a joint jury trial. After observing Byrd’s un-safe driving, police pulled over a truck Byrd was driving with McAnnally as a passenger. As a result of this traffic stop, both Byrd and McAnnally were arrested. A jury found McAnnally guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and obstruction of a police officer.¹ Byrd was found guilty of several crimes, but appeals only his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. We discern no error and affirm the trial court in both cases.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption ofinnocence. We neither weigh the evidence nor determine witness credibility, which are tasks that fall within the exclusive province of the jury, but only determine if the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.²

So viewed, the evidence shows that in the early morning hours of January 30, 2022, two officers with the City of Ringgold Police Department witnessed a truck that was towing a boat run two red lights and drive back-and-forth across traffic lanes. The officers activated their lights and sirens, and the truck pulled over on the side of an entrance ramp to Interstate 75. Byrd, who was driving the truck, was acting erratically. He had looped his seatbelt through the steering wheel of the truck, laughed at odd times, and gnashed his teeth. McAnnally was sitting in the passenger seat of the truck.

One of the officers smelled alcohol on Byrd and instructed him to exit the truck; after a brief resistance, he complied. Prior to his exit from the truck, an officer noticed Byrd’s hand go down towards the center console area. Byrd completed the horizontal gaze nystagmus and walk-and-turn field sobriety tests and showed clues of impairment on both. Officers determined that Byrd was driving under the influence to the extent it was less safe for him to drive, and he was arrested. It was still dark outside and the truck with the boat still attached was parked around the shoulder of the highway entrance ramp. The officers believed this created an unsafe situation.³ McAnnally did not have a valid driver’s license, so she was unauthorized to drive the truck away. Byrd told the officer that the truck belonged to his mother, which was confirmed by officers, and that she could drive it away. McAnnally also claimed to officers that she had called Byrd’s mother and that his mother was on her way to pick up the truck. Officers decided, however, to call a tow truck and impound the vehicle.

While Byrd performed his field sobriety tests, McAnnally remained in the passenger seat of the truck and rolled up the windows and locked the doors. An officer instructed McAnnally to exit the truck multiple times, but she refused. The officer informed McAnnally multiple times that if she did not open the door, he would break the truck’s window and forcibly remove her, but she continued to refuse to exit. Ultimately the officer used his baton to break the driver side window, and McAnnally was removed and arrested for obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

After arresting McAnnally, the truck was searched and an officer located a loaded revolver in the crevice between the driver seat and center console. As a result of this traffic stop, McAnnally was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and obstruction of a law enforcement officer. Relevant to this appeal, Byrd was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. McAnnally and Byrd separately moved for a new trial, and following a joint evidentiary hearing, both motions were denied. These appeals followed.

Case No. A23A1239

1. McAnnally contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain either of her convictions. We disagree.

[3, 4] Georgia law is clear that

[w]hen evaluating the sufficiency of evidence as a matter of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the proper standard of review is whether a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. [The reviewing court] views the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, with deference to the jury’s assessment of the weight and credibility of the evidence.⁴

With this standard in mind, we will examine McAnnally’s convictions.

(a) Felon in Possession of a Firearm

[5–13] In Georgia, any person who has previously been convicted in this State of a felony "who receives, possesses, or transports a firearm commits a felony."⁵

The law recognizes that possession can be actual or constructive, sole or joint. A person has actual possession of a thing if [she] knowingly has direct physical control of it at a given time. A person who, though not in actual possession, knowingly has both the power and intention at a given time to exercise dominion or control over a thing is then in constructive possession of it. If one person alone has actual or constructive possession of a thing, possession is sole, but if two or more persons share actual or constructive possession of a thing, possession is joint.⁶

"Mere proximity to contraband, absent other evidence connecting a suspect with that contraband, is not enough to establish constructive possession."⁷ "Constructive possession can be proven — and very often is proven — by circumstantial evidence. Of course, as with any charge based on purely circumstantial evidence, in order to support a conviction the evidence must exclude every reasonable hypothesis, save that of constructive possession by the defendant."⁸ "[T]he evidence need not exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis — only those that are reasonable."⁹ "[Q]uestions as to the reasonableness of hypotheses are generally to be decided by the jury which heard the evidence and that finding will not be disturbed unless the verdict of guilty is unsupportable as a matter of law."¹⁰

[14] Here, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence that McAnnally constructively possessed the firearm. In addition to being proximately close enough to the firearm in the cabin of the pickup truck to access it, she behaved in such a way that a jury could determine demonstrated her knowing power and intent to exercise dominion or control over the firearm. When instructed by police multiple times to exit the dangerously parked vehicle, she resisted to the point of requiring the officer to smash a window and forcibly remove her. Just as a jury is authorized to find intent to exercise power and control over contraband by a suspect attempting to flee or elude police, the jury here was authorized to find that McAnnally’s suspicious conduct demonstrated knowledge by McAnnally of the firearm’s presence and her intention to prevent officers from discovering it.¹¹

(b) Obstruction of a Law Enforcement Officer

[15] "[A] person who knowingly and willfully obstructs or hinders any law enforcement officer … in the lawful discharge of his or her official duties shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."¹² McAnnally clearly obstructed the officer by refusing to exit the truck,¹³ but she contends that the officer was not in lawful discharge of his duties when he made such a demand and, accordingly, she was within her rights to disobey. We disagree.

[16–19] "In the interests of public safety and as part of what [the United States Supreme] Court has called ‘community caretaking functions,’ automobiles are frequently taken into police custody. The [S]tate may inventory the contents of a car that has been lawfully impounded."¹⁴

It is well established that cases supporting the State’s right to impound a vehicle incident to the arrest of a person in control of it are founded on a doctrine of necessity. Under that doctrine, while the police may not impound a car to search for contraband, they may impound a vehicle if they must take charge of it for some reason. And ultimately, the test for the validity of the police’s conduct is whether, under the circumstances then confronting the police, their conduct was reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. More specifically, the test is whether the impoundment was reasonably necessary under the circumstances, not whether it was absolutely necessary. Furthermore, subsequent to a reasonable impoundment, the contents of an impounded vehicle are routinely inventoried to protect the property of the owner, protect the officers against claims for lost or stolen property, and protect the police from potential danger.¹⁵

[20] Here, neither Byrd, who was impaired, nor McAnnally, who did not have a valid driver’s license, could legally drive the truck with the boat from the dark shoulder of the interstate entrance ramp. This made it reasonably necessary for the police to impound the vehicle to eliminate the danger it posed to the public in such a location.¹⁶ Police were not required to ask Byrd’s mother what she would like to do with the vehicle when Byrd was arrested as there was "no one present at the scene to take custody of the [truck] and safely remove it[.]"¹⁷ Indeed, "[p]olice officers are not required to ask whether an arrestee desires to have someone come and get the [vehicle], nor are they required to accede to an arrestee’s request that they do so."¹⁸

Given that officers were authorized to direct McAnnally to exit the vehicle so that it could be inventoried and impounded, they were engaged in the lawful discharge of their official duties, and the evidence supported McAnnally’s...