Sellers v. State

The defendant failed to support his procedural double jeopardy motion because he failed to show that the state court solicitor who prosecuted his charge for a traffic offense actually knew of the other crimes arising out of the same conduct as the traffic offense.

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Charles Dewey Sellers allegedly fled from the scene of a traffic stop, leading the police on a high speed car chase in which he struck another vehicle, discarded cocaine from his car window, and attempted to bribe a police officer following his apprehension. After pleading guilty in state court to the traffic offense of following too closely, Sellers was indicted in superior court on charges of trafficking in cocaine, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, abandonment of drugs in a public place, bribery, and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer. Sellers filed a motion in autrefois convict and plea of former jeopardy the “procedural double jeopardy motion”, contending that all counts of the indictment returned in superior court should be dismissed as a result of his guilty plea in state court. Sellers also filed a motion to suppress the cocaine, contending, among other things, that the traffic stop had been unreasonably prolonged and that the cocaine allegedly discarded from his vehicle was the tainted fruit of his unlawful detention.

The superior court denied Sellers’s procedural double jeopardy motion, with the exception of the charge for fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, which the court found was barred as a result of Sellers’s prior guilty plea in state court. The superior court also denied Sellers’s motion to suppress. Sellers now appeals these rulings.1 We affirm the superior court’s partial denial of the procedural double jeopardy motion because Sellers failed to establish that the solicitor who handled his guilty plea in state court actually knew of the other crimes arising out of the same conduct as the traffic offense to which he pled guilty. We affirm the superior court’s denial of the motion to suppress because the discarded cocaine was not tainted by any alleged illegality in Sellers’s detention.

Sellers v. State

The defendant failed to support his procedural double jeopardy motion because he failed to show that the state court solicitor who prosecuted his charge for a traffic offense actually knew of the other crimes arising out of the same conduct as the traffic offense.

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