A convicted Yazoo County drug dealer has lost his recent appeal in the Mississippi Supreme Court last Thursday.
Robert Fisher was convicted and sentenced for several drug possession and trafficking charges in April of 2021 after 31 kilograms of marijuana were found inside a local storage unit he was renting. Marijuana, an assortment of controlled substances and several firearms were also found inside his Yazoo City home.
Fisher was sentenced to two consecutive 25-year terms without the possibility of reduction, probation or parole in a Yazoo County Circuit Court.
Fisher appealed those convictions and his sentence, claiming that his right to testify was violated, that officers unlawfully searched a storage unit he was leasing and that the trial judge sentenced him as a habitual offender without sufficient evidence.
The Mississippi Supreme Court denied Fisher’s appeal, affirming its convictions and sentences.
According to court records, Fisher placed about 31 kilograms of marijuana in a storage unit that he was leasing in Yazoo City around May 20, 2019. Two days later, deputies were requested to the business after a customer reported “a strong odor of marijuana in the third climate-controlled building.” When the deputy entered the building, he stated that “he smelled the distinctive odor of what he knew to be marijuana…”
The business owner then gave the deputies permission to search the common area of the storage building.
“The officers walked the hallways and noticed that the smell was strongest among one set of units but would weaken as they moved beyond the units,” court records show. After climbing a ladder to rise above the streaming air of the air conditioner, it was determined the odor was coming from Unit 404.
“From that vantage point, (the deputy) could see several large bundles in black trash bags,” the court records report.
A search warrant was then acquired and executed when officers confirmed that the bags held marijuana. An arrest and search warrant for Fisher’s home was then obtained.
“There, officers found marijuana, hydromorphine tablets, amphetamine tablets, methamphetamine, cocaine and several firearms,” according to court records.
Fisher was then arrested and taken into custody.
“At his trial, Fisher offered no objections to the admission of the marijuana seized from the storage unit,” court records said. “After the state rested its case, Fisher rested his case and did not testify.”
A Yazoo County jury found Fisher guilty of two counts of possession marijuana, one count of aggravated trafficking of cocaine, one count of aggravated trafficking of Schedule II methamphetamine, one count of trafficking amphetamine and one count of trafficking hyrdomorphine. At sentencing, the judge considered him a habitual offender. He was then sentenced to two consecutive 25-year terms without the possibility of reduction, probation or parole.
Fisher appealed that “he was deprived of his constitutional right to testify in his own defense, whether looking into a ceiling less storage unit from a ladder constituted an unlawful search and whether the trial court erred by sentencing him as a habitual offender.”
“We find no basis to support Fisher’s argument that he was denied his right to testify on his own behalf,” according to the court records.
Concerning an unlawful search of the storage unit, “the officers remained in the common area and did not physically enter the unit until they obtained a search warrant,” court records said. “The only intrusion into the unit was from the officer’s eyes, which cannot commit a trespass. At the time of the seeing, the officers were positioned in an area where they had permission to be. The officers did not commit a trespass, and therefore, did not conduct a search under the trespassory test.”
Fisher’s claim that he was sentenced as a habitual offender was also denied by the court. Although the judge found him as a habitual offender, “he was not sentenced to the statutory maximum for his offenses. Instead, the trial judge departed downward in his sentencing…Fisher’s 25-year terms…are already the lightest sentences he could receive for those convictions…”
