### IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE AT JACKSON STATE OF TENNESSEE v. HOWAR D LANIER Direct Appeal from the Circuit Court for Dyer County No. C98-221 J. Steven Stafford, Judge

No. W1999-01146-CCA-R3-CD - Decided June 28, 2000

The defendant was convicted of sale of cocaine in excess of .5 grams. In this appeal, the defendant asserts that the evidence is insufficient to su pport his convictio n because he ac

ted merely as a procuring agent

for the buyer. Because the procuring agent defense was abolished by the Criminal Reform Act of 1989, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. Tenn. R. App. P. 3; Judgment of the Trial Court Affirmed

. W ADE , P.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM S and O GLE , JJ., joined.
C. Michael Robbins (o

n appeal), Memph

is, Te nnessee, Jim W. Horner (on appeal and at trial), District Public Defender, and John W. Derington (on appeal and at trial), Assistant D

istrict Public Defender, Dyersburg, Tennessee, for the appellant, Howard Lanier. Paul G. Sum mers, At torney General & Reporter, R. Steph

en Jobe, Assistant

Attorney Genera

l, C. Phillip Bivens, District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee. OPINION The defendant, Howard Lanier, was convicted of sale of cocaine in exce

ss of .5 grams and sentenced as a Range I offender to nine years in the Department of Correction. In this appeal of right, the defendant's sole contention is thatthe evidence is insufficient to sustain his conviction. We affirm the jud

gment of the trial c

ourt. On February 13, 1998, Katina Cruz, acting as an undercover narcotics agent for the Dyersburg Police Department, and Angie Garner, a confidential informant, drove to the west side of Dyersburg to purchase drugs. The defendant approached Garner's pickup truck, which was being driven by Cruz, and Garner asked the defendant to "hook [them] up" with drugs. The defendant asked Garner what they needed, and when Garner responded that they were in search of "rocks," the defendant advised them that they would have to "go somewhere." Because there was no room in the cab of the truck, the d

efendant got into

the bed and direc

ted Cruz to

drive to a house on

Fair Street. The defendant went

to the house, but returned and advised Cruz and Garner that no one was at home. The defendant then d

irected Cruz to dr

ive to the intersec

ti on of Compress and Farrell. There, the

### -2-

defendant went i

nto a house and re

mained inside for

five to ten minutes.

When he returne

d to the truck, he handed six crack cocaine rocks to Garner through the window. Garner handed the crack cocaine to Cruz, who plac ed it i n cellophane and then handed $100 to the defendant through the window. Cruz and Garner left the defendant at the house.

The defendant took the stand at trial and testified that

he is addicted to crack cocaine and that he occasionally connects persons seeking to purchase the drug with d eale rs. After such transactions,

the dealers invol

ved usually provid

e him with crack c

ocaine for his

personal use. After the sale to Cruz an

d Garner, the de

fendant receiv

ed four crack c

ocaine rocks. On appeal, the state is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all inferences which might be drawn therefrom. State v. Cabbage , 571 S.W.2d 832, 836 (Tenn. 1978). The credibility of the witnesses, the weight to begiven their testimony, and the reconciliation of conflicts in the evidence are matters entrusted exclusively to the jury as the trier of fact. Byrge v. State , 575 S.W.2d 292, 295 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1978). The relevant question is wh et her, after reviewing the evidence in th e light most favora

ble to the state, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential ele

ments of the crime beyond a re asonable doubt. Te

nn. R. App. P. 13(e) ; State v. Williams , 657 S.W.2d 405, 410 (Tenn. 1983). This court may neither reweigh nor reevaluate the evidence; nor may this court substitute its inferences for those drawn by the trier of fact. Liakas v. State , 199 Tenn. 298, 286 S.W.2d 856, 859 (Tenn. 1956). The evidence is sufficient when a rational trier of fact could conclude that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt

. Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307 (1979). When there is a challenge to the s u fficiency of the evidence, the defendant has the burden of demonstrating that the evidence is not sufficient. Statev. Tuggle , 639 S.W.2d 913, 914 (Tenn. 1982).

The applicable s

tatute provides, i

n pertinent part,

as follows: (a) It is an offense for a defendant to knowingly: (1) Manufacture a controlled substance; (2) Deliver a controlled substance; (3) Sell a controlled substance; or (4) Possess a

controlled substance with intent to manufacture, deliver or sell such controlled substance. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-417(a).

The defendant

c ontends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction because it fails to show that he was anything more than a "pr ocuring agent." O ur supreme court

, however, recently determined that the procuring agent defense was abolished by the Criminal Reform Act of 1989:

We hold that the procuring agent defense was aboli shed by Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-11-203(e)(2) which expressly states that "[d]efenses available under common law are hereby abolished."

### -3- * * * With the passage of the Criminal Reform Act of 1989, the legislature made procuring or delivering a controlled substance the sam e crime as selling a controlled substance. . . . It is illogical to surmise that the legislature intended the same activity – procuring or delivering a controlled substance – to be both a violation of and a defense to the samecrime. The common law defense simply cannot be reconciled logically with § 39-17-417 beca use the legislatur e has chosen to punish delivering or pro

curing a controll

ed substance in the

same manner and as the same crime as selling a controlled substance.
Statev. Porter , 2 S.W.3d 190, 191 (Tenn. 1999) (citations omitted). Moreover, even if the procuring agent defense had not been abolished, it would not be available to the defendant in this case becaus

e he personally benefitted from the transaction at issue by receiving four crack cocaine rocks from the dealer after the consummation of the sale. See id. at 191-92 ("Prior to the Criminal Reform Act of 1989, the common la w procuring agent defense required that the defendant/agent was in no way interested in the transaction and did not derive a benefit from the transaction.").

At trial, undercover agent Cruz testified that the defendant approached the truck in whi ch she an d the confidentia l informant were

riding, that the inf

ormant asked the d

efendant to "hook [them] up," and that the defendant then got into the back of the truck and directed agent Cruz to drive to

two different addresses in search of crack cocaine. At the second address, the defendant entered the residence and subsequently returned to the truck with six rocks of crack c ocai ne. He delivered the crack rock

s to the confidenti

al informant and a

ccepted $100 in pa

yment from a

gen t Cruz. Lisa Mays, a spec

ial agent with the T

ennessee Burea

u of Investig ation crime laboratory in Jackson, Tennessee, con

firmed that the substance delivered to agent Cruz by the defendant was indeed crack cocaine, and further testified that the total weight of the substance was .62 grams. This evidence is more than sufficient to support a finding by a rea

sonable jury that t

he defendant is g

uilty of sale of cocaine in excess of .5 grams. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-417(a). Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.