Facts
On March 24, 2017, the Narcotics Division of the Madison County Sheriff’s Office obtained a warrant to search a pool hall in Canton run by Robert Smoots. They obtained the warrant based on an affidavit stating that a confidential informant (CI) purchased cocaine at the pool hall for forty dollars using marked bills the previous day.
Officers executed the search warrant around 3 p.m. on March 24. They announced their presence at the front door of the pool hall, knocked loudly, and demanded entry, but no one answered the door. Additional officers stationed at a side door to the pool hall then entered by forcefully opening that door. When they entered, they found three men sitting around a table. Officers noticed that a toilet in the pool hall was running as though it had just been flushed. They suspected that one of the men at the table might have flushed drugs down the toilet, so they checked the sewer cleanout outside the pool hall. There officers found a wad of toilet paper wrapped around approximately ten rocks of crack cocaine. The officers then flushed the toilet inside the pool hall to confirm that it drained through the sewer cleanout, which it did.
The three men that officers found sitting at a table inside the pool hall were Robert Smoots, Smoots’s nephew Demario, and Jerome Hodges. Smoots had more than $200 in cash in his pockets. By checking the serial numbers on the bills, officers determined that Smoots had one of the two marked twenty-dollar bills their CI had used to purchase cocaine at the pool hall the previous day.
Smoots was indicted for possession of more than two grams but less than ten grams of cocaine with the intent to distribute within 1,500 feet of a church and tampering with evidence. See Miss. Code Ann. § 41-29-139(a)(1) & (b)(1)(B) (Supp. 2016); Miss. Code Ann. § 41-29-142 (Rev. 2013); Miss. Code Ann. § 97-9-125 (Rev. 2014).
The trial court ruled that the State could offer evidence that Smoots possessed the marked bill when he was arrested on March 24 but could not offer hearsay testimony that the CI purchased cocaine from Smoots on March 23 (CI did not testify).
The manager of the pool hall, Jasmine Cross, testified that Smoots leased the pool hall and also drove dump trucks and did construction work. Cross managed the pool hall for Smoots, ran the bar, and handled all the money. She had worked there for four and a half years. Cross testified that she gave Smoots the cash receipts from the bar between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. on March 24, 2017, after the bar closed for the night. She stated that the cash receipts consisted of all kinds of bills, including twenty-dollar bills. On cross-examination, Cross testified that there was no cash register or accounting system in the pool hall, which also had a kitchen and served burgers, wings, etc. Cross kept the cash that she received and turned it over to Smoots at the end of the night or the next day. Cross also testified that the water in the pool hall’s toilet stayed running all the time.
Demario testified that he drove dump trucks for Smoots and that he met Smoots at the pool hall on March 24, 2017, to pick up a paycheck. Demario testified that he sat down at a table in the main part of the pool hall with Smoots and Hodges. He testified that none of the three men got up from the table or flushed anything down the toilet while he was there. A few minutes later, law enforcement banged on the side door, which enters into the kitchen, and broke in through that door. Demario claimed that the officers never knocked or announced themselves at the front door to the pool hall. Demario also claimed that the toilet in the pool hall ran constantly.
Smoot was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in MDOC. MCOA reverses.
Analysis
The relevant evidence in this case is relatively simple. When officers entered the pool hall, they found Smoots and two other men sitting at a table. The officers heard a toilet running and found about ten rocks of crack cocaine wrapped in toilet paper in the sewer cleanout outside. The State’s evidence probably was sufficient for a rational juror to infer that one of the three men in the pool hall flushed the cocaine down the toilet just before the officers entered. But that is all it could prove. The evidence was not sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Smoots—and not one of the other two men—was guilty of possessing and flushing the drugs.
The State argues that the jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Smoots possessed and flushed the cocaine because he had a marked twenty-dollar bill from a prior drug deal in his pocket when he was arrested. However, this does not prove that he possessed or flushed the cocaine.
As discussed above, Cross testified that she gave Smoots the pool hall’s cash receipts from March 23 when the pool hall closed around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. on March 24. Smoots’s attorney argued that the marked bill was among the cash that Smoots received from Cross. There is no evidence that Smoots, as opposed to Demario or Hodges, possessed and flushed the cocaine found outside the pool hall. The evidence permitted only an inference that one of the three men was guilty, and the jury could only guess as to the guilty party.
A criminal conviction cannot rest on such substantial guesswork, speculation and conjecture. Therefore, the evidence was insufficient to convict Smoots of possession of the cocaine with the intent to distribute and tampering with evidence. Therefore, we must reverse and render Smoots’s convictions.