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Gaston v. State

Officers found approximately $77,500 worth of powdered and crack cocaine in defendant's vehicle when they stopped him for a missing tag light.

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Timothy Lee Gaston was indicted by a Chatham County grand jury for trafficking in cocaine and several traffic offenses, including no driver’s license and no tag light. He was tried before a jury, which found him guilty of all charges and his motion for new trial, as amended, was denied. Gaston appeals, raising 17 enumerations of error, including challenges to the denial of his motion to suppress, the trial court’s jury charge, the introduction of similar transaction evidence, the improper admission of evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and the general grounds. We find no merit in any of Gaston’s contentions, and we affirm the judgment.

Construed to support the jury’s verdict, the evidence presented at trial showed that in the early morning hours of May 12, 1999, Corporal Sean Wilson of the Savannah Police Department was training Officer Daniel Rhimes, a new police officer, to observe infractions and stop suspicious persons. The two officers were in their police car in an office parking lot in Savannah. As they left the parking lot and entered a main street, Rhimes noticed a car with a missing tag light. The officer turned on his emergency lights and the car pulled over. The driver, later identified as Gaston and who was alone in the car, emerged and came toward the police car “at a pretty high pace.” This concerned the officers for safety reasons, and Gaston was instructed three times to return to his vehicle before he complied.

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