Dillard, Presiding Judge. Following trial, a jury convicted Avery Davis on one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Davis now appeals his conviction and the denial of his motion for new trial. Specifically, Davis argues the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court erred in (1) denying his motion to suppress statements that he made while in custody but prior to being informed of his right to remain silent, (2) admitting evidence of other acts, and (3) refusing to instruct the jury on misdemeanor possession of marijuana as a lesser-included offense of possession with intent to distribute. But for the following reasons, we affirm Davis’s conviction and the denial of his motion for new trial. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict,[1] the record shows that around 9:00 p.m. on the night of April 12, 2022, a patrolling deputy with the Jeff Davis County Sheriff’s Office observed a vehicle driving with one of its headlights out. And as a result, the deputy illuminated his vehicle’s blue lights and initiated a traffic stop. As the deputy exited his vehicle and approached the stopped vehicle, he recognized the driver as Davis, with whom he was familiar. The deputy also observed Abigail Yarborough-Bryant—Davis’s girlfriend—sitting in the front passenger seat of Davis’s vehicle. The deputy asked Davis for his license and registration, but Davis immediately admitted that his license was suspended. After confirming that Davis’s license was suspended, the vehicle was registered to him, and it was not insured, the deputy asked Davis to exit his vehicle. Davis complied with this request, and as he did so, the deputy smelled the odor of burnt marijuana, while also noticing that Davis handed Yarborough-Bryant some money. When asked about the odor, Davis replied that he had just smoked some marijuana and the deputy might find a small “roach” in the vehicle if he searched it. The deputy then searched Davis’s person and found a small bag that appeared to contain a tiny amount of marijuana, after which he placed Davis in the backseat of his patrol vehicle. The deputy then turned his attention to Yarborough-Bryant and asked her if he would find anything if he searched her. Immediately, Yarborough-Bryant exited the vehicle and handed the deputy a large bag, which contained several smaller bags of marijuana and a set of scales. Based on the drugs he found, the deputy called a drug investigator from the sheriff’s office to take over the investigation. And while waiting for the investigator and another deputy to transport Yarborough-Bryant, the deputy returned to his patrol vehicle, at which point Davis proclaimed that all of the marijuana belonged to him. A short time later, as Davis and Yarborough-Bryant were being escorted to the local detention center (having been transported there separately), Davis assured his girlfriend “[D]on’t worry baby, I’m going to take it all. I’m going to say it’s all mine.” Thereafter, the State charged Davis and Yarborough-Bryant, via the same indictment, with one count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. And a short time later, Davis filed a motion to suppress the statements that he made while in custody, arguing he was improperly questioned without being informed of his right to remain silent. A few weeks before trial, the trial court conducted a hearing on the motion, in which the deputy who initiated the traffic stop testified. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court denied Davis’s motion, finding that the statements he made—while admittedly in custody—were spontaneous and not the result of interrogation. And on the same day as the suppression hearing, the State filed a notice of its intent to introduce two of Davis’s prior drug convictions into evidence, which—following a response brief from Davis—the trial court granted a week before trial. The case against Davis only then proceeded to trial, during which the State presented the foregoing evidence, as well as Davis’s prior convictions for the sale of cocaine and the sale of marijuana. Additionally, the State called the investigator who took over the case from the deputy. After being qualified as an expert in the area of drug investigations, he confirmed the deputy had recovered three bags of marijuana (totaling 50.31 grams) and a set of scales. The investigator also testified that a person possessing marijuana solely for personal use would usually only have 4 or 5 grams, and he further opined that based on the amount seized, the scales, and the separate bags, Davis intended to distribute the marijuana in his possession. In further support of its case, the State called a GBI forensic chemist, who explained that tests on the substance in the three bags recovered at the scene confirmed it as marijuana. Davis did not testify in his own defense, but Yarborough-Bryant testified on his behalf. Specifically, she claimed the marijuana in Davis’s vehicle was hers, that it was solely for her personal use, and that the scales were to ensure she was not cheated when purchasing the drugs. On cross-examination, Yarborough-Bryant acknowledged that she had pleaded guilty the previous day to a charge of possession of more than one ounce of marijuana, rather than possession with intent to distribute as originally charged. Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Davis guilty of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Shortly after his conviction, Davis filed a motion for new trial and later an amended motion in that regard. The trial court held a hearing on the matter but refrained from issuing a ruling at the conclusion of the hearing in order to allow the State to file a response. And one week after the State filed its response, the trial court denied Davis’s motion for new trial. This appeal follows. 1. Davis contends the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. We disagree. When a criminal conviction is appealed, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the appellant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence.[2] And in evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence, we do not “weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility, but only determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty of the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.”[3] The jury’s verdict will be upheld, then, so long as there is “some competent evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the State’s case.”[4] Bearing these guiding principles in mind, we turn to Davis’s specific challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction. OCGA § 161330 (j) (1) provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to possess . . . with intent to distribute marijuana.” As a result, to support a conviction for this offense, the State “must prove more than mere possession or intent for personal use.”[5] Indeed as the text of the statute plainly implies, the evidence “must show an intent to distribute.”[6] Of course, there is no bright-line rule “regarding the amount or type of evidence sufficient to support a conviction for possession with intent to distribute.”[7] And significantly, when a conviction hinges on circumstantial evidence, the evidence “must exclude every reasonable hypothesis except guilt.”[8] Even so, the State may demonstrate such intent in a number of ways, including the packaging of the contraband, possession of certain amounts or denominations of currency, a prior possession with intent to distribute conviction, and expert testimony that the amount of contraband possessed was consistent with larger amounts usually held for sale rather than for personal use.[9] In summary, there must be “competent evidence linking the possession of the drugs to the enterprise of sale.”[10] Here, the State presented evidence that Davis was at least in joint possession of 50.31 grams (approximately 1.77 ounces[11]) of marijuana, which was packaged in at least three smaller bags. In fact, at the scene of the traffic stop and a short time later at the detention center, Davis made statements claiming ownership of the marijuana.[12] And although no large amount of cash was recovered, the large bag containing the smaller bags of marijuana also included a set of scales. In addition, the State presented evidence that Davis had twice been convicted of selling controlled substances. Finally, the investigator with the sheriff’s office testified as an expert and opined that, given all the circumstances, Davis possessed the marijuana with the intent to distribute it rather than for personal use. Consequently, the evidence was sufficient to support Davis’s conviction.[13] 2. Davis also contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress statements that he made while in custody but prior to being informed of his right to remain silent. Again, we disagree. When a trial court rules upon the admissibility of a defendant’s custodial statement following a Jackson-Denno[14] hearing, as the trial court did below, it must determine whether, “based upon the totality of the circumstances, a preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that the statement was made freely and voluntarily.”[15] And when the facts material to a motion to suppress are disputed, it “generally is for the trial judge to resolve those disputes and determine the material facts”[16] In this regard, our Supreme Court has identified three corollaries of this principle, which “limit the scope of review in appeals from a grant or denial of a motion to suppress in which the trial court has made express findings of disputed facts”[17] First, appellate courts generally must “accept those findings unless they are clearly erroneous.”[18] Second, we must construe the evidentiary record “in the light most favorable to the factual findings and judgment of the trial court.”[19] And third, we generally must limit our consideration of the disputed facts to “those expressly found by the trial court.”[20] In his motion to suppress, and now on appeal, Davis argues that because he was in custody—i.e., sitting in the backseat of the deputy’s patrol vehicle and just outside the detention center—when he made the statements asserting ownership of the marijuana, the statements were inadmissible because he had not yet been read his Miranda[21] rights. But although Davis was indeed in custody and had not been read his Miranda rights when he made his statements, he is nonetheless incorrect. As the Supreme Court of Georgia has explained, Miranda warnings “must be administered when the accused is in custody and is subjected to interrogation or its functional equivalent, but a spontaneous and unsolicited statement is admissible without Miranda warnings if it was not elicited by questioning or made in response to any form of custodial interrogation.”[22] Furthermore, the question of whether a statement was “made in response to interrogation or was volunteered is a question of fact, and the trial court’s resolution of this issue will be upheld unless it is clearly erroneous.”[23] Here, the deputy’s unrebutted testimony at the motion-to-suppress hearing revealed that he did not ask Davis anything to elicit a response about who owned the marijuana recovered minutes earlier from Yarborough-Bryant. Instead, when the deputy returned to his patrol after recovering the contraband, Davis—entirely unprompted—proclaimed “that’s all my shit.” Then, when he and Yarborough-Bryant were entering the detention center, again unprompted, Davis told his girlfriend, “[D]on’t worry baby, I’m going to take it all. I’m going to say it’s all mine.” Suffice it to say, the deputy was “under no obligation to stop listening to the spontaneous statements that [Davis] chose to make, and, because the statements were not elicited by interrogation, they were properly admissible at [Davis's] trial.”[24] Moreover, although difficult to discern from his appellate brief, to the extent Davis argues the deputy’s initial questions immediately after initiating the traffic stop amounted to a custodial interrogation requiring a reading of his Miranda rights, he is again mistaken. As we have previously held, initial inquiries upon arriving on the scene, including requests for identification, do not amount to a custodial interrogation requiring the administration of Miranda warnings.[25] Accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying Davis’s motion to suppress. 3. Davis also maintains the trial court erred in admitting evidence of his two previous convictions for selling drugs, primarily arguing that because those convictions were quite temporally remote, their probative value was substantially outweighed by their prejudicial effect. Once again, we disagree. Rule 404 (b), codified at OCGA § 24-4-404 (b), provides: Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts shall not be admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, including, but not limited to, proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident. . . .[26] And the Supreme Court of Georgia has adopted a threepart test by which we are to evaluate the admissibility of socalled “other acts” evidence: “(1) the evidence must be relevant to an issue other than defendant’s character; (2) the probative value must not be substantially outweighed by its undue prejudice; [and] (3) the government must offer sufficient proof so that the jury could find that defendant committed the act.”[27] As to the first factor, relevant evidence is “evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.”[28] As to the second factor, even if Rule 404 (b) evidence is relevant, we must still decide whether “the probative value of the other acts evidence is substantially outweighed by its unfair prejudice, i.e., the evidence must satisfy the requirements of Rule 403.”[29] Importantly, application of the Rule 403 balancing test is “a matter committed principally to the discretion of the trial courts,” but as we have explained before, “the exclusion of evidence under Rule 403 is an extraordinary remedy which should be used only sparingly.”[30] Indeed, this Court reviews the admission of Rule 404 (b) evidence “for a clear abuse of discretion,” a deferential review requiring us to make “a common sense assessment of all the circumstances surrounding the extrinsic offense, including prosecutorial need, overall similarity between the extrinsic act and the charged offense, as well as temporal remoteness.”[31] Turning to Davis’s specific claim, a few weeks before trial, the State filed a notice of its intent to introduce his two prior convictions into evidence for the purpose of proving intent, which the trial court granted shortly before trial. And just prior to the introduction of the evidence, the trial court provided the jury with a limiting instruction, explaining that the State was offering evidence of the two prior convictions solely to the extent it could be considered in determining Davis’s intent to commit the offense being tried. Thereafter, a law-enforcement officer testified regarding Davis’s 2006 arrest and conviction for selling cocaine, and another officer testified regarding Davis’s 2010 arrest and conviction for selling marijuana. The State also submitted certified documentation of both convictions into evidence. And later, the trial court repeated its earlier limiting instruction in its charges to the jury. Davis does not dispute committing the earlier offenses, but nevertheless argues the trial court erred in admitting this evidence. Specifically, Davis claims that because even the most recent conviction occurred more than ten years prior, the prejudicial effect of the evidence far outweighed its probative value. But the Supreme Court of Georgia recently explained that “as to intent, a defendant puts his intent in issue when he pleads not guilty unless he takes affirmative steps to withdraw intent as an element to be proved by the State.”[32] Of course, here, Davis pleaded not guilty to the charge. And although, given Yarborough-Bryant’s testimony, his defense was seemingly that the marijuana was not his but hers, we have held that unequivocally denying any involvement in a charged crime does not remove the element of intent from a case.[33] Furthermore, the two prior convictions were quite similar to the charge for which he was being tried in that all three required the State to prove not only possession of illegal drugs but an intent to do so for reasons other than personal use.[34] And indeed, evidence of prior drug activity is “highly probative of intent to sell a controlled substance.”[35] As to Davis’s assertion that the probative value of the evidence was substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect, we are not persuaded. Although Davis claimed ownership of the marijuana at the scene of the traffic stop and while entering the detention center, at trial—given Yarborough-Bryant’s testimony—his defense clearly shifted to denying possession. And even without this more recent denial of possession, the State was still tasked with proving that Davis intended to distribute the marijuana. Consequently, the State had a compelling need for the extrinsic acts evidence of intent.[36] Furthermore, although the most recent conviction was nearly ten years before the arrest, Davis received a sentence of five years to serve for that conviction, and as our Supreme Court has explained “the prior crime need not be very recent, especially [when] a substantial portion of the gap in time occurred while the defendant was incarcerated.”[37] Finally, the trial court gave limiting instructions regarding the other acts, both before their admission and during the general jury charge, thus reducing any risk of unfair prejudice.[38] Given these circumstances, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding the probative value of Davis’s two prior drug-related convictions was not substantially outweighed by their prejudicial effect and, therefore, admitting them into evidence. 4. Davis further claims the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on misdemeanor possession of marijuana as a lesser-included offense of possession with intent to distribute. Yet again, we disagree. It is well established that for a requested jury instruction to be warranted, it must be “legal, apt, and precisely adjusted to some principle involved in the case.”[39] And to authorize a jury instruction on a lesser included offense, there “must be some evidence in the record that the defendant committed that offense.”[40] But when the evidence “shows either the commission of the greater offense as charged or the commission of no crime at all, an instruction on a lesserincluded offense is not required.”[41] And significantly, whether the evidence “was sufficient to warrant the requested instruction is a legal question, which we review de novo.”[42] In this matter, Davis filed written requests for jury instructions, which included a request for the trial court to charge the jury on misdemeanor possession of one ounce or less of marijuana as a lesser-included offense of possession with intent to distribute. And during the charge conference, Davis repeated this request. Specifically, Davis argued that the amount of suspected marijuana found on his person was certainly less than one ounce and that the GBI chemist only tested 31.235 grams (approximately 1.1 ounce[43]) out of the 50.31 grams recovered from his vehicle to confirm that the contraband was, in fact, marijuana. The State countered that there was no evidence Davis possessed one ounce or less of marijuana to warrant the misdemeanor instruction, and the trial court ultimately agreed. But the trial court added that it would instruct the jury that it could not consider the suspected marijuana found in the search on Davis’s person, as that substance was never tested. Thereafter, following closing arguments by the parties, the trial court charged the jury as outlined during the charge conference, instructing on the law of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute with the caveat that any conviction could not be based on the suspected marijuana found on Davis’s person, as it was never tested. Davis subsequently reasserted his objection. In considering Davis’s argument, we first look to the relevant statutes defining the offenses. As previously noted, OCGA § 161330 (j) (1) provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to possess . . . with intent to distribute marijuana.” And OCGA § 16-13-2 (b) notes that “any person who is charged with possession of marijuana, which possession is of one ounce or less, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor . . . .” But here, contrary to Davis’s argument, there was no evidence that he possessed only the one ounce or less of marijuana required for a finding that he was guilty of misdemeanor possession under OCGA § 16132 (b). Rather, the evidence presented by the State—even if one only considered the amount tested by the GBI chemist rather than the entire amount recovered—showed that Davis possessed more than one ounce. Furthermore, Davis’s defense at trial, given Yarborough-Bryant’s testimony, was that he did not own any of the marijuana recovered from his vehicle. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in refusing to charge the jury on the lesser-included offense of misdemeanor possession of marijuana.[44] For all these reasons, we affirm Davis’s conviction and the denial of his motion for new trial. Judgment affirmed. Brown and Padgett, JJ., concur.
