State v Crawford, (02-922) 04/01/2003

Appeal by defendant from judgment entered 18 April 2002 by Judge Albert Diaz in Mecklenburg County Superior Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 24 March 2003.

Attorney General Roy A. Cooper, III, by Special Deputy Attorney General Richard E. Slipsky, for the State.

Reita P. Pendry for defendant-appellant.

HUNTER, Judge.

    On 18 April 2002, Nathan Jessrey Crawford (“defendant”) pled guilty to possession with intent to sell or deliver cocaine and being an habitual felon while reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. Defendant was sentenced to one term of sixty to eighty-one months imprisonment. Defendant appeals. We affirm.
    On 27 February 2001, Officer Lydia Cherry (“Officer Cherry”) of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department obtained a search warrant to search defendant's residence. Officer Cherry based her warrant application on a tip she received from a confidential informant. In the application for the search warrant, OfficerCherry described the residence as being at 4800 Firestone Drive, and described the subject as being a black male named “Fred,” forty to forty-five years of age, approximately 5'6"-5'9" and 190-200 pounds with long, black curly hair. Officer Cherry and nine other police officers searched the residence and found eight people at the home, including two children. Defendant was the only person at the residence who matched the description in the search warrant, although his name is not “Fred.”
    The next day, Officer Cherry realized that she had made errors in the application for the search warrant. First, she noticed that the street of defendant's residence was Fireside Drive, not Firestone Drive. She also realized that she had mistakenly written the name “Fred” down in the application, although her informant had told her the subject went by the name of Jeff.
    Prior to trial, defendant moved to suppress the evidence gathered during the search, arguing that the warrant was invalid due to the incorrect address listed as well as the mistake regarding the subject's name. The trial court denied the motion, finding that although the address of the home was misidentified in the warrant, Officer Cherry was familiar with the residence and had accurately described it in the warrant. Additionally, the trial court noted that Officer Cherry, who had conducted at least one prior surveillance of the residence, both applied for and executed the warrant, thus minimizing the likelihood of a mistaken search. Finally, while noting that defendant's name was incorrectly stated in the warrant, the trial court found that the physical descriptionwas accurate, and defendant was the only person at the residence who matched the description.
    Defendant's sole argument on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant. Defendant maintains the warrant failed to identify the persons or places to be searched with sufficient particularity in that the address was listed as “Firestone” and not “Fireside,” and an entirely different name, “Fred,” was given for the subject of the search. Additionally, defendant argues that Officer Cherry had never met him until she executed the warrant, had never been on the premises, and had conducted only minimal surveillance of defendant's home. Thus, defendant argues that the evidence compelled a conclusion that the warrant on its face permitted the search of a different premises than defendant's residence, and relying on this warrant, the police searched the wrong premises. Accordingly, defendant argues the evidence should have been suppressed.
    After careful review of the record, briefs, and contentions of the parties, we affirm.
            The scope of review on appeal of the denial of a defendant's motion to suppress is strictly limited to determining whether the trial court's findings of fact are supported by competent evidence, in which case they are binding on appeal, and in turn, whether those findings support the trial court's conclusions of law.

State v. Corpening, 109 N.C. App. 586, 587-88, 427 S.E.2d 892, 893 (1993). This Court has further stated that:            A search warrant must contain a “designation sufficient to establish with reasonable certainty the premises, vehicles, or persons to be searched,” and a “description or a designation of the items constituting the object of the search and authorized to be seized.”

State v. Moore, 152 N.C. App. 156, 159, 566 S.E.2d 713, 715 (2002) (quoting N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-246(4)-(5) (2001)).
    In the case sub judice, although the warrant mistakenly described the residence as being on Firestone, rather than Fireside, there was no possibility that the wrong residence would be searched because there was no 4800 Firestone Drive. See id.; State v. Walsh, 19 N.C. App. 420, 423, 199 S.E.2d 38, 41 (1973). Furthermore, Officer Cherry both drafted and executed the warrant, conducted surveillance of the residence, and testified that the home was the only home that was the subject of an investigation in relation to the warrant. See id. (“'the executing officer's prior knowledge as to the place intended in the warrant is relevant'”) (quoting 68 Am. Jur. 2d, Search and Seizure § 74, p. 729). Additionally, Officer Cherry described the house with particularity in the warrant, noting that the house was “constructed of red brick with white trim and white shutters.” Although the subject of the search was mistakenly named in the warrant as “Fred,” the description of the subject was very detailed, and defendant was the only person at the residence who matched the description. Thus, we conclude that there was competent evidence in the record to support the trial court's findings of fact, and that the trial court'sfindings of fact supported its conclusions of law. Accordingly, we affirm.
    Affirmed.
    Judges BRYANT and ELMORE concur.
    Report per Rule 30(e).

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