Rodger Dale Jones, Jr., was convicted of felony possession of methamphetamine.1 He appeals, arguing that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress. We affirm, for reasons that follow. While the trial court’s findings as to disputed facts in a ruling on a motion to suppress will be reviewed to determine whether the ruling was clearly erroneous, where the evidence is uncontroverted and no question regarding the credibility of witnesses is presented, the trial court’s application of the law to undisputed facts is subject to de novo appellate review.2 “Here, the relevant evidence is undisputed, and we therefore review the trial court’s legal rulings de novo.”3 So viewed, the record shows that officers of the Walton County drug enforcement team received complaints from neighbors that drugs were being sold out of a house at 4514 Yorktown Drive in Walton County. The team could not, however, establish sufficient probable cause to obtain a search warrant on the house. Instead, they performed a computer search and determined that one of the residents of the home, Tiffany Brown, had an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to appear before the magistrate court on August 3, 2010, on a charge of allowing an animal to run at large.
On August 12, 2010, Michael Stamey, a narcotics investigator, received information from a neighbor that Brown had just returned home in her vehicle and entered the house. Although they did not normally search for persons with outstanding warrants for failure to appear in magistrate court, five members of the narcotics unit went to the home and placed it under surveillance in an attempt to locate and arrest Brown.4 When the police arrived, the vehicle registered to Brown was parked in front of the house. Approximately one hour after beginning surveillance, Stamey knocked on the front door “to see if Brown was there . . . and would come to the door,” and a woman answered. In response to questioning, the woman denied that she was Brown, denied that Brown was in the residence, and refused to grant the police permission to enter the house. Stamey and the other five officers nevertheless entered the home to search for Brown, and they “swept the house,” checking the identities of the people they encountered inside. The police did not open drawers or cabinets or otherwise search for drugs.
