Court Opinion

ID: 9884266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:50:26.934063+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:37.144583
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with respect to the validity of the search warrant issued in this case and in the affirmance of the trial court's ruling upon the defendant's Motion to Suppress. I write separately to set forth a caveat with respect to the degree of deference we must accord to the issuance of a warrant and to the review of that warrant issuance by the trial court in ruling upon a Motion to Suppress.
The standard of review when the initial reviewing court validates the issuance of the warrant is clear as stated in Judge May's lead opinion. It is not quite clear, however, what deference we give at the appellate review stage if the trial court review has resulted in granting a defendant's Motion to Suppress. See Allen v. State, 798 N.E.2d 490, 503 (Ind.Ct.App.2003) (Sullivan, J., concurring), and Breitweiser v. State, 704 N.E.2d 496, 502 (Ind.Ct.App.1999) (Sullivan, J., concurring).
Furthermore, I concur that the evidence was sufficient to support Massey's convietion of Dealing in Cocaine as a Class A felony and his conviction of Possession of a Handgun by a Serious Violent Felon as a Class B felony. Massey's appellate argument, however, is not restricted to those two disparate convictions. Rather, he asserts that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate his knowing possession "of the large amounts of cocaine found in the Pepsi machine and the jacket pocket of the black jacket...." Appellant's Brief at 17 (emphasis supplied). Additionally, as to *992the firearms recovered by police in the bedroom closet and under the mattress, Massey challenges the sufficiency of the evidence not only as to a single firearm essential to the Class B felony conviction, but rather as to the "firearms recovered as a result of the search warrant." Id. (emphasis supplied).
Nevertheless, Massey makes no challenge to any one or more of the five convie-tions upon grounds that the jury might possibly have looked to the same evidence with regard to the multiple cocaine convictions or with regard to the two separate convictions which rested upon possession of a handgun. See Richardson v. State, 717 N.E.2d 32 (Ind.1999). Accordingly, I concur in the affirmance of the convictions upon Counts I, III, IV, V, and VI.12
I also concur that Massey's possession of a handgun and possession of the large amount of cocaine involved in his Dealing Cocaine conviction arose out of the same criminal episode and that therefore, his consecutive sentences may not exceed fifty-five years. I write separately upon this issue however, to express my view that even if Ratliff v. State, 741 N.E.2d 424 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. denied, was correctly decided under the facts of that case, Ratliff is distinguishable. Nevertheless, my assessment of Indiana case law tells me Ratliff was wrongly decided. As Judge May's lead opinion in this case notes, the crimes in Ratliff did not occur simultaneously. That fact, however, does not justify a conclusion to the effect that in order to have a single criminal episode all the crimes under analysis must have been committed simultaneously.
If such were the case we would have to hold that Ballard v. State, 715 N.E.2d 1276 (Ind.Ct.App.1999) and Purdy v. State, 727 N.E.2d 1091 (Ind.Ct.App.2000), trans. de-mied, both discussed in Ratliff are not merely distinguishable but were erroneously decided. In Ballard, the defendant committed a residential entry and only after that offense had been consummated did he batter the two persons who were in the apartment he entered. Clearly the crimes were not simultaneous. Yet the panel of this court held the offenses to be a single criminal episode.
Similarly, in Purdy, the defendant battered his girlfriend during a domestic dispute. When police were dispatched, he resisted and after being subdued, he threatened to kill one of the officers while being placed in the paddy wagon. He was convicted of battery, resisting law enforcement, and intimidation. All sentences were consecutive. This court reversed, holding the offenses, though disparate and not simultaneous, were part of a single criminal episode.
The facts in the case before us are clearly more reflective of a single criminal episode than those in Ballard, and Purdy. For this reason I agree that the aggregate sentences in this case may not exceed fifty-five years.

. Although the jury found Massey guilty under Count II alleging a separate Class A felony for possession of cocaine, the trial court did not enter a judgment of conviction upon that verdict.