Vanessa Lynn Page v. State of Mississippi
Vanessa Lynn Page v. State of Mississippi
Opinion
¶ 1. After a bench trial, Vanessa Lynn Page was convicted of felony driving under the influence (DUI). Page appeals. Finding no error, we affirm.
FACTS
¶ 2. On August 14, 2015, around 7:00 p.m., Page was arrested near her home in Cedar Lake trailer park in Biloxi, Mississippi, after a tipster identified by first and last name called 911 and reported Page. The tipster called 911 shortly after the tipster and Page left the same Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting. The tipster expressed concern for Page's driving, and the tipster included specific details about Page's identity, vehicle, and destination. The tipster also told the dispatcher that someone had offered Page a ride home, but Page refused. The tipster described Page as a slightly belligerent and extremely intoxicated white woman who was approximately five-feet tall with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
¶ 3. Biloxi Police Officer Robert McKeithen received the call from dispatch. McKeithen was familiar with the trailer park where Page lived.
¶ 4. When McKeithen approached the area of the trailer park, he immediately noticed the described car at an intersection in front of him. As he made a turn onto South Cedar Lake, he saw Page's grey Nissan Versa turn left into the trailer park. He later testified that the driver matched the description originally provided in the tip. McKeithen followed Page for about an eighth of a mile before pulling her over. Traveling at ten miles an hour, McKeithen trailed Page for roughly forty-five seconds before he stopped her. McKeithen testified he did not observe any traffic offenses while he followed Page. He made the stop based on the confirmation of information he received from dispatch and also for the safety of the children in the area.
¶ 5. Page pulled over immediately. When McKeithen approached, he noticed that Page smelled like alcohol, her eyes were glassy, and her speech was slurred. Once she got out of the car, Page had trouble keeping her balance and she was unsteady on her feet. McKeithen ran her driver's license, which came back as suspended because of a prior DUI from earlier that year.
¶ 6. Shortly after McKeithen stopped Page, Officer Jason Cummings, a DUI officer, arrived on the scene and took over to administer field sobriety tests. Cummings noticed the same odor, appearance, and slurred speech that McKeithen observed. When Cummings attempted to administer the field sobriety tests, Page failed the first test. Citing a pre-existing injury, Page was physically unable to complete the remainder of the tests. Based on these observations, Cummings arrested Page for driving with a suspended license. After he properly Mirandized her, he took her to the police station to continue the DUI investigation.
¶ 7. At the station, Page agreed to an Intoxilyzer test, but she was unable to provide a sufficient breath sample. Page then verbally consented to provide a blood sample. She was taken to Merit Health Hospital, where she gave written consent in the presence of an officer and the phlebotomist who proceeded to draw her blood.
¶ 8. The blood samples were sent to the crime lab for testing. The results indicated that Page had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.19 percent. Thomas Graham, a crime lab analyst, conducted the test and prepared the report, which was then reviewed by the lab's technical reviewer, Maury Phillips. At trial, Phillips testified regarding Graham's findings. Phillips also described the standard process of analyzing blood samples, and the roles of a technical reviewer. Phillips explained that he personally reviewed Graham's work and all data generated by the testing. Once Phillips verified the results, he signed Graham's report. According to Phillips, the results would have been the same had he conducted the tests himself. The prosecution never entered the report into evidence.
¶ 9. However, the prosecution submitted evidence that Page had two previous DUI convictions within five years of the present case. The circuit court found Page guilty of felony DUI and sentenced her to five years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with three years suspended and two to serve, followed by three years of post-release supervision.
ANALYSIS
I. Whether there was reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop.
¶ 10. "This Court applies a mixed standard of review when considering Fourth-Amendment issues."
Cook v. State
,
¶ 11. Police officers may conduct a brief investigatory stop when they have "reasonable suspicion, grounded in specific and articulable facts that allows the officers to conclude [that] the suspect is wanted in connection with criminal behavior."
Eaddy
,
¶ 12. The Mississippi Supreme Court has addressed reasonable suspicion in DUI cases in
Floyd
and
Cook
. In
Floyd
,
¶ 13. Page argues that unlike the informant in
Floyd
, the tipster was essentially anonymous because the tipster had no prior working relationship with the Biloxi Police Department. However, there is no requirement that a tipster provide credible information in the past to be able to do so in the present. If that were the case, a first-time tipster could never establish credibility. Instead, as noted previously, the court takes a totality-of-the-circumstances approach when evaluating a tip and the tip's subsequent establishment of reasonable suspicion.
Alabama
,
¶ 14. In
Cook
, a driver was pulled over and arrested for DUI after a police officer followed the driver based on a tip from an unknown source who said Cook had been driving erratically.
Cook
,
¶ 15. Page relies on
State v. Sailo
,
II. Whether the admission of the blood-alcohol testing violated Page's Confrontation Clause rights.
¶ 16. "The standard of review for admission of evidence is abuse of discretion."
Debrow v. State
,
"However, when a question of law is raised, the applicable standard of review is de novo."
¶ 17. Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to confront witnesses against them. U.S. Const. amend. VI ; Miss. Const. art. 3, § 26. This applies to in-court testimony and out-of-court testimonial hearsay, unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine him.
Rubenstein v. State,
¶ 18. Here, Graham performed the test that determined Page's 0.19 percent blood-alcohol concentration. At the time of Page's trial, Graham was no longer employed by the crime lab, and he did not live in Mississippi. The prosecution called Phillips to testify regarding the test results. Although Graham's lab report was not entered into evidence, Phillips testified regarding the results. Accepted by the trial court as an expert in forensic toxicology, Phillips explained that he did not perform the test on Page's blood sample. But he clarified that as the section chief for the toxicology and implied-consent sections of the Mississippi Forensics Lab, he was the technical reviewer of Graham's test.
¶ 19. Claiming that the trial court erred by allowing Phillips's testimony, Page relies heavily on the outcome of
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts
,
¶ 20. Page also relies on
Bullcoming v. New Mexico
,
¶ 21. Such is not the case here. Phillips was the technical reviewer of the lab report at issue, and he testified. The supreme court has held that a supervisor, reviewer, or other analyst may testify in lieu of the primary analyst where the surrogate witness was "actively involved in the production of the report and had intimate knowledge of the analyses even though [he] did not perform the tests first hand."
McGowen v. State
,
¶ 22. Here, Phillips was a court-accepted expert in the field of forensic toxicology. He was actively involved in the production of the report, he had intimate knowledge of the tests that were performed and the process that was used to confirm the findings, and he reviewed Graham's work to ensure that the conclusions were correct and accurate. Phillips testified that when an analyst has completed the analysis, his work packet is submitted for review. Phillips explained that all reports issued by an analyst must be technically and administratively reviewed before they are released. As the technical and administrative reviewer in this case, Phillips verified that Graham followed protocol and used the proper scientific methods of toxicology. Moreover, Phillips stated that he received Graham's work packet "with all of the data" and examined it to ensure that the policies were followed and that Graham's conclusions were accurate and correct.
¶ 23. This case is consistent with
Jenkins v. State
,
¶ 24. While Phillips did not conduct the test himself, he was "actively involved in the production of the report and had intimate knowledge of the analyses even though [he] did not perform the tests first hand."
See
McGowen,
¶ 25. AFFIRMED .
LEE, C.J., IRVING, P.J., BARNES, CARLTON, FAIR, WILSON, GREENLEE, WESTBROOKS AND TINDELL, JJ., CONCUR.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.