PERRY v. STATE (2012)

Clarence Perry, Jr., while driving an SUV on April 3, 2008, was stopped for suspected illegal window tint. Shemika Williams was the sole passenger. During the stop, the police found marijuana and cocaine inside the SUV and on Williams's person. Perry was charged with window tint violation;¹ Perry and Williams were both charged with possession of less than an ounce of marijuana² and with cocaine possession.³ Perry was later also charged with the offense of influencing a witness⁴ —Williams, in connection with the drug charges. Williams entered a negotiated plea of guilty to the drug charges against her, then testified for the state at Perry's jury trial, at which all charges against him were joined. A mistrial was declared on Perry's cocaine possession charge; the jury found Perry not guilty of influencing a witness; and Perry was convicted on the charges of window tint violation and marijuana possession. In this appeal, Perry contends that the trial court erred by refusing to sever his trial on the drug charges⁵ from his trial on the charge of influencing a witness.⁶ For reasons that follow, we affirm.

Evidence at Perry's trial included the following. Before Williams pled guilty, Perry sent requests to her through her mother for Williams to “take” the drug charges. Williams rejected his requests, and her mother informed Perry that Williams would admit guilt only for her part in the crimes. At her guilty plea hearing, Williams testified that, when the officer initiated the traffic stop, Perry was smoking a primo blunt, which she described as “crack and weed together”; that Perry quickly handed her the blunt, along with crack cocaine rocks, and instructed her to throw it all out the window; that she did not do so because the officer had driven too close to them; that she did not smoke; and that the blunt and crack cocaine rocks were not hers, but belonged to Perry. Williams testified further at her guilty plea hearing that powder cocaine found in the back area of the SUV was hers.

At Perry's trial, Williams testified that she had pled guilty to both the marijuana and cocaine charges because both drugs had been found on her person and because she wanted to end the ordeal. Other witnesses at Perry's trial included the officer who initiated the traffic stop, who described the degree of the window tint and the confiscated suspected drug evidence; and experts in drug identification, who testified that certain confiscated evidence was determined to be marijuana or cocaine.

“Severance lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge since the facts in each case are likely to be unique.”⁷ Perry has demonstrated no abuse of discretion. Evidence of either crime would have been admissible at the trial of the other;⁸ moreover, the charged offenses were neither so numerous nor so complex that the jury was unable to parse the evidence and correctly apply the law with regard to each charge.⁹ Nothing in the case of Carter v. State,¹⁰ which Perry cites, controls this case to an outcome in his favor.¹¹ Indeed, Perry includes no argument as to how Carter entitles him to a reversal.¹²

Judgment affirmed.

PHIPPS, Presiding Judge.

ELLINGTON, C.J., and DILLARD, J., concur.