Drug Tax Stamp

In OCCA case No. F-2013-812, Alphie Phillip McKinney appealed his conviction for multiple drug-related offenses, including Trafficking in Illegal Drugs (Cocaine). In an unpublished decision, the court decided to affirm some of his convictions but also reversed two of them. A dissenting opinion was provided on one of the points regarding multiple punishments. The case involved McKinney being found guilty by a jury of various drug crimes. The jury's recommended punishment included many years of imprisonment and fines. The trial court sentenced him accordingly. McKinney raised several arguments in his appeal, seeking to challenge the fairness of his trial and the legality of his sentences. One major point of contention was whether the prosecutor unfairly excluded certain jurors based on race, claiming violation of equal protection rights. The court decided that McKinney did not prove purposeful discrimination and upheld the decisions made by the trial court regarding jury selection. Another argument was about the prosecutor's questioning related to McKinney’s past drug possession case during the trial. The court found that since McKinney had already spoken about his past, the prosecutor's questions did not harm his case. McKinney’s attempt to argue that his multiple convictions for possession of different drugs should be treated as one was considered. The court found that having several drugs at once can still lead to multiple charges under the law. However, they also concluded that McKinney’s convictions for possession in some counts were in error because he could only be punished once for a single action of possession involving multiple drugs. The court further ruled on McKinney's claims that his punishments for different crimes related to the same act went against legal protections against being punished multiple times for the same behavior. The court agreed with some points raised by McKinney about this and decided to reverse two of his possession convictions. However, they maintained that his trafficking conviction and another possession charge did not violate those protections because they fell under different legal conditions. Lastly, McKinney argued that his attorney did not do a good job representing him during the trial. The court reviewed this claim but decided that he did not show that he had suffered any harm from his attorney’s actions and thus did not grant relief based on this argument. In summary, the judgments in Counts I, II, IV, and VI were upheld, while the judgments in Counts III and V were reversed and sent back with instructions to dismiss those charges. One judge agreed with most of the decision but disagreed on how some arguments about multiple punishments were handled. Another judge also showed support for the prosecution's handling of certain charges but felt differently regarding the evaluation of potential double punishments.