In September 2004, a jury found Larrion Dickerson guilty of trafficking in cocaine. He received a life sentence without parole. Dickerson timely filed a motion for new trial and filed a motion to modify his sentence. The trial court granted the motion to modify the sentence in October 2010 and resentenced him to 40 years to serve 20, then denied the motion for new trial in November 2010. Dickerson appeals his conviction, pro se, contending that the State presented insufficient evidence to support his conviction, his counsel was ineffective, and the trial judge erred by failing to charge on accomplice testimony and by admitting similar transaction evidence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. “On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption of innocence.” Hubbard v. State , 274 Ga. App. 184, 185 1 2005. We neither weigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of the witnesses, but only determine whether the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
Viewed in this light, the facts show that a police detective received information that crack cocaine was being sold from a house on Metropolitan Avenue in Atlanta. The officer recruited a confidential informant who met Dickerson on the front porch, followed him inside the house, and emerged with two “hits” of cocaine. On the basis of that information, the detective obtained a search warrant for the house, which Dickerson had recently rented using an alias. When the warrant was executed a few hours later, Dickerson was not present but the officers found James Riley in the kitchen throwing crack cocaine into a pot of boiling grease, with cocaine scattered on the stove, counter, and floor. Riley was arrested along with Frenchie Lemon, who had been staying in one of the bedrooms, and both Riley and Lemon were charged with trafficking.1 A drug dog found a bag containing individual packages of crack cocaine hidden in the basement. The individual packages were similar to the ones Riley was tossing into the grease pot. The total weight of cocaine seized from the house measured 83 grams.
