Clifford Lovett Ware was tried and convicted of the sale of cocaine and sentenced to ten years, four to serve. He appeals following the denial of his amended motion for new trial. He contends the evidence was insufficient in that it only shows that he possessed or delivered cocaine but not that he sold it. He also contends the trial court committed a related error when charging the jury on the definition of the crime and that the court erred with regard to the admission of certain audio evidence. Construed in favor of the verdict, the evidence at trial shows that on September 27, 2007, an undercover officer assigned to the Hall County Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad received a call regarding a possible prostitute and went to the specified location —a high crime area —in an unmarked truck. When the officer arrived, the suspected prostitute walked away, but Ware, who was also in the area, approached the officer’s truck and asked him what he was looking for. The officer replied that he was looking “for some soft or hard, which would be either crack cocaine or powder cocaine,” and, at that point, Ware got into the officer’s truck. Ware gave the officer directions to a local hotel, and, when they arrived, Ware “said that he could go over there and he had a hook up over there at the hotel.” Ware got out, told the officer to wait in the truck, and headed for the hotel. At that point, the officer drove out of the parking lot in order to have time to get a recorder ready, call for backup, and arrange an open communication line so that agent Andy Smith could hear what was happening. From that point forward the officer’s conversations were recorded.
When the undercover officer returned, Ware was very upset about the officer driving off, and he said that they would now have to go somewhere else, which they did. But Ware was unsuccessful at the second location, and he recommended going back to the hotel. During their drive, Ware bragged about having the ability to get drugs and to avoid serving jail time because he had other people —”mules” —who “took all the heat, but tried to pin it on him.”
