The appellant brings this appeal from his conviction of trafficking in cocaine.
Captain Jerry Wolfe of the Milledgeville Police Department testified that while turning his patrol car around in a parking lot he observed the appellant seated in a parked car engaged in a discussion with two other individuals who were standing next to his car. Wolfe stated that he exited his patrol car, walked up to the trio, and stood there for a while listening to their conversation, until he heard the appellant, whom he had known for years, tell the other two, “ ‘I’ve got to go. ... I will see you later,’ or something like that.” Wolfe then said to the appellant, “Wait a minute, I want to talk to you,” and the appellant, who had just started his car, turned off his ignition. Wolfe testified that he then told the appellant he had heard reports he was dealing in drugs and advised him that, if he was, he needed to stop. He stated that the appellant denied he was dealing drugs, whereupon he asked the appellant, “Do you have any drugs on you now?” He said the appellant answered, “About a joint,” and that he (Wolfe) responded by telling the appellant he “was going to let him throw it away and he could leave.”
Following that exchange, according to the officer, the appellant took two paper bags out of his car, dumped the contents of one of them into some weeds, threw the other onto a pile of debris at the edge of the pavement, and asked, “Can I go?” Wolfe stated that he responded in the affirmative and that the appellant then drove away. Wolfe testified that he immediately examined the discarded items and observed that the bag left on the pile of debris contained a white powdery substance, while the material dumped on the ground consisted of “little bitty baggies”, of a type which, in his experience, were used to package crack cocaine. The white powdery substance was delivered to the State Crime Lab for analysis and was revealed to be almost nine ounces of 65 percent pure cocaine. The appellant was apprehended and taken into custody several hours after the seizure of the cocaine, pursuant to an arrest warrant.
The appellant’s account of his confrontation with Captain Wolfe was somewhat different from the latter’s. While he acknowledged that Wolfe had questioned him about drugs in the parking lot, he denied that Wolfe had asked him whether he was in possession of any drugs or that he had told him he was. He also denied having thrown anything out of the car or having had any cocaine in his possession. Held:
1. The appellant contends that the seizure of the cocaine was the product of an unlawful arrest and that the trial court accordingly erred in denying his motion to suppress the contraband. We disagree.
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“ ‘(A) person has been “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.’ ”
Moran v. State,
“On motion to suppress evidence, the trial judge sits as the trior of the facts, hears the evidence, and his findings . . . are analogous to the verdict of a jury and should not be disturbed by a reviewing court if there is any evidence to support [them].”
State v. Swift,
2. The trial court did not err in permitting Captain Wolfe to testify that he told the appellant he had heard reports that the appellant was dealing in drugs. While this statement certainly constituted hearsay and would not have been admissible as evidence that the appellant was in fact dealing in drugs, it was nevertheless relevant and admissible to establish the events leading to the discovery of the cocaine and to the appellant’s subsequent arrest. “Testimony of the arresting officer with reference to the legal investigation and circumstances surrounding the arrest is authorized as original evidence under OCGA § 24-3-2. . . .”
Moses v. State,
3. The appellant contends the trial court erred in allowing Captain Wolfe to testify that, on the only other occasion or occasions when he had seen small plastic baggies such as the ones seized in the present case, they were being used to store “crack,” a derivative of cocaine. However, the witness made this assertion twice before the appellant interposed any objection to it, and the appellant made no subsequent motion to strike that testimony. “In this [S]tate it is necessary to object to evidence at the time it is actually offered, and failure to do so amounts to a waiver of any objection which the appealing party might have.”
Bridgers v. State,
4. The appellant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce testimony and present argument to the jury that the cocaine seizure in this case was the largest in the history of Baldwin County, Georgia. While we agree with the appellant that this testimony had no relevance to the issues being tried, we conclude that in the context of the issues being tried its admission was harmless. See generally
Johnson v. State,
5. The appellant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the State’s attorney to characterize him during closing argument as “[a] man who’s willing to do, to sell this kind of stuff to our young people here in this community. ...” The appellant asserts that this argument was improper because there was no evidence that he was selling cocaine to anyone, much less to young people. However, it was clearly inferable, both from the amount of cocaine seized and from the appellant’s possession of numerous, extremely small zip-lock bags, that the cocaine was slated for distribution in smaller quantities. Moreover, we believe that the level of general public awareness concerning this nation’s cocaine problem has reached a point where it is
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common knowledge that a large part of the market for this drug is created by young people. “ ‘While counsel should not be permitted in argument to state facts which are not in evidence, it is permissible to draw deductions from the evidence, and the fact that the deductions may be illogical, unreasonable or even absurd is a matter for reply by adverse counsel and not rebuke by the court.’ (Cits.)”
Ladson v. State,
6. The appellant contends that the trial court erroneously allowed the State’s attorney to place his character in issue by asking him on cross-examination whether he had ever seen small plastic bags of the type seized in this case. As we do not agree that this question placed the appellant’s character in issue, we conclude that this enumeration of error is also without merit.
7. The appellant contends that the trial court erred during voir dire in allowing the State’s attorney to ask several prospective jurors such questions as whether they had ever served on a jury before, what jury they had served on, and whether they had served as foreman. While we recognize that “it has been held not to be error for the court to refuse to allow defense counsel to ask prospective jurors concerning their service as jurors in other cases, [cits.],”
Henderson v. State,
8. The appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to strike for cause a prospective juror who had taught a course for the Georgia State Patrol on the evils of alcohol and drugs and who made certain statements during voir dire indicating that he had such strong feelings against drug users that he would be more inclined to accept the State’s evidence in a drug case than he would in some other type of case. However, on further questioning by the State’s attorney and by the court, this juror asserted that he would be able to base his decision solely on the evidence presented in court and that he would not require “less evidence” to convict the appellant in the present case than he would to convict a defendant facing trial on, for example, a bad check charge. “A juror is not disqualified if he can lay aside whatever opinions or impressions he may have had and decide the case based upon the evidence presented in court.”
Spivey v. State,
9. The appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict, arguing that “the State’s contention that [he] voluntarily threw down
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grams of cocaine onto the ground while a policeman watched and then was allowed to drive away by the police officer and made good an escape before the policeman could walk seven or eight feet to pick up the cocaine is utterly fantastic and not credible.” The jury, of course, is the final arbiter of the credibility of the witnesses. See generally
Branch v. State,
Judgment affirmed.