Criminal Practice – Habitual Felon – Controlled Substances

The trial court lacked jurisdiction over the habitual felon charge and erred by accepting Defendant’s habitual felon guilty plea.

The trial court did not commit error by denying Defendant’s motion to dismiss. However, we are bound by existing case law to vacate and remand this matter to the trial court for resentencing.

Defendant appealed from judgments entered in 2022 after a jury found him guilty of trafficking in opioids by possession, trafficking in opioids by transportation, possession of drug paraphernalia, and maintaining a vehicle for keeping or selling controlled substances—for which Defendant was sentenced following his guilty plea of attaining habitual felon status. On appeal, Defendant argued the trial court committed error by failing to dismiss his charge for maintaining a vehicle for keeping or selling controlled substances. Defendant also filed a motion for appropriate relief challenging his plea to attaining habitual felon status.

There is no evidence that Defendant “had title to or owned the vehicle, had a property interest toward the vehicle, paid toward the purchase of the vehicle, or paid for repairs to or maintenance of the vehicle.” Therefore, there is no evidence Defendant “maintained” the car, and we must determine if the State provided sufficient evidence that he “kept” it. While police only observed Defendant driving the vehicle for a short period of time, several items were found inside, tending to show Defendant controlled the vehicle for a longer period. Officers found a hotel receipt from the day before, as well as mail and a social security card with Defendant’s name on them. This evidence is sufficient to give rise to a valid inference that Defendant possessed the vehicle to an extent sufficient to satisfy the statute’s requirement that he kept the vehicle.

We discerned no error from the trial court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to dismiss because reasonable inferences can be drawn that Defendant also “kept” the vehicle for the purposes of keeping or selling controlled substances. Defendant principally relied on whether the controlled substances were hidden in the vehicle to control our analysis. We agreed that whether the controlled substances are hidden in the vehicle is a factor to consider; however, such a factor standing alone is not dispositive. A reasonable jury could find that Defendant used the vehicle to keep controlled substances. The evidence located about the vehicle, including the bookbag and its contents, and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, based on the totality of the circumstances, support that Defendant was using the vehicle for keeping or selling drugs. The trial court correctly denied Defendant’s motion to dismiss the charge of keeping or maintaining a vehicle for keeping or selling controlled substances.

Finally, we considered Defendant’s motion requesting resentencing “because the habitual felon indictment pre-dated the offense date of all the substantive offenses [he] was tried for.” Defendant contended since the habitual felon indictment predates the offense date of the felonies for which he was being tried, the trial court thus lacked subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to a prior panel’s decision from this Court. Since we are bound by precedent, after careful consideration, we granted his motion.

Defendant was indicted for his habitual felon status on January 14, 2020. However, the principal felony with an enhanced sentence due to Defendant’s habitual felon status was committed on October 12, 2020. Defendant was not indicted for this underlying felony until January 14, 2021. Thus, at the time the habitual felon indictments were returned, there was no pending prosecution to which the habitual felon proceeding could attach as an ancillary proceeding because the crimes had not yet happened. Consequently, on account of the ruling by a prior panel of this Court, we are compelled to hold that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the habitual felon charge and erred by accepting Defendant’s habitual felon guilty plea.

We vacated Defendant’s habitual felon guilty plea and remanded to the trial court for resentencing within appropriate sentencing ranges.

No error in part, vacated in part, remanded for resentencing.

State v. Charles Leon Garmon (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 011-289-24, 23 pp.) (Michael Stading, J.) Appealed from Union County Superior Court (Keith O. Gregory, J.) Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney General Zachary K. Dunn, for the State; Jarvis John Edgerton, IV, for defendant-appellant. North Carolina Court of Appeals