Ryon ONeil Michael v. the State of Texas

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

NO. 03-24-00266-CR

Ryon ONeil Michael, Appellant

v.

The State of Texas, Appellee

FROM THE 483RD DISTRICT COURT OF HAYS COUNTY
NO. CR-20-5851-A, THE HONORABLE TANNER NEIDHARDT, JUDGE PRESIDING

ME MO RAN DU M O PI N I O N

Appellant Ryon ONeil Michael appeals his conviction for possession of

methamphetamine in an amount of “four grams or more but less than 200 grams” with intent to

deliver and his 30-year sentence. See Tex. Health & Safety Code § 481.112(d). He challenges

(1) the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction; (2) the sufficiency of the evidence

supporting enhancement to a habitual level; and (3) the trial court’s admission of the booking

report. Finding the evidence sufficient to support the conviction and sentence and that the trial

court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the booking report, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

After watching Michael have “short-stay traffic” at two San Marcos hotels, which

is, “typically, indicative of a drug transaction,” the Hays County Narcotics Task Force had patrol

officers conduct a traffic stop. They followed him out of Room 213 at the Motel 6 in San Marcos
before initiating the stop. Michael initially cooperated but, within minutes, tried to flee out of the

passenger side window. Because Michael is a large, muscular man, it took two patrol officers, two

undercover officers, and a taser to subdue him. During the struggle Michael spat out a baggie

containing a white, crystal-like substance. Afterwards, officers obtained a search warrant for

Room 213 and found baggies of methamphetamine; baggies of marijuana; sandwich bags; a small

digital scale; a .22-caliber revolver; Michael’s credit card with methamphetamine residue on it;

and men’s and women’s clothing and sneakers. Officers found the contraband in multiple places,

including inside a fake Arizona Iced Tea can with a screw top; a “Marijuana Jar”; a “Smelly Proof”

bag; a duffle bag; and a shoe box. They found the gun in an otherwise empty drone box.

A grand jury indicted Michael on counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a

felon, possession of marijuana, and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. At trial,

several law enforcement officers involved in the traffic stop and the search of the motel room

testified. The State offered several exhibits, including body and dash cam recordings of the traffic

stop and photographs of the contents of Room 213 taken during the search. The jury heard that

the methamphetamine Michael had spat out weighed 3.02 grams and that officers recovered 9.92

more grams from Room 213. The jury found Michael not guilty on the firearm count, but guilty

on the other two counts. At the punishment hearing before the trial court, the State abandoned the

marijuana count, and, after hearing evidence supporting the enhancement paragraphs, the trial

court sentenced Michael as a habitual offender to 30 years’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

ANALYSIS

Sufficiency to Prove Possession over Four Grams and Intent to Deliver

Michael argues that although he was adequately linked to the methamphetamine he

spat out during the traffic stop, the State did not adequately tie him to the larger quantity found
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in Room 213 nor to the instruments of delivery found there. He notes that he was not the sole

occupant of Room 213; no fingerprints tied him to the items seized; there was no evidence he had

rented the room; and the only evidence suggesting he might have had possession or control of the

items in Room 213 were the facts that he had been in the room and that a credit card bearing his

name was found in the room.

Standard of Review

The due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that a conviction

be supported by sufficient evidence. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 315–16 (1979). In

assessing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction, “we consider all the

evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that evidence

and reasonable inferences therefrom, a rational juror could have found the essential elements of

the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007).

“This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve

conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic

facts to ultimate facts.” Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319.

To prove possession with the intent to deliver a controlled substance, the State

must show the defendant (1) knowingly exercised care, custody, control, or management over the

controlled substance and (2) intended to deliver the controlled substance to another. Tex. Health

& Safety Code § 481.112(a), (d); Tex. Penal Code § 1.07(a)(39) (“Possession” means “actual care,

custody, control, or management.”).

“When the contraband is not in the exclusive possession of the defendant, a fact

finder may nonetheless infer that the defendant intentionally or knowingly possessed the

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contraband if there are sufficient independent facts and circumstances justifying such an

inference.” Tate v. State, 500 S.W.3d 410, 413–14 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016).

Application

In this case, the contraband in the motel room was not in Michael’s literal physical

possession. Nor was his constructive possession, if any, exclusive. On the day of the arrest and

search, officers observed Michael leave the room and drive off. Officer Lee Harris, who continued

watching the room, observed a female go in and out of the room to do laundry. Later, when she

walked out of the room again, she was detained. No one was in the room at the time the search

warrant was executed. But there are sufficient independent facts and circumstances justifying an

inference that Michael intentionally or knowingly exercised actual care, custody, control, or

management over the contraband. In Tate, the court of criminal appeals reiterated a non-exclusive

list of factors that may indicate a link connecting the defendant to the knowing possession of

contraband. Id. at 414. The State presented evidence of many, but not all, of these factors:

• Some of the contraband was “in plain view”—Officers found most of the contraband in
Room 213 in closed opaque containers, but the clear “Marijuana Jar” containing marijuana
was visible on a shelf before the room was searched.

• Michael had “access” to it—Officer Benjamin Haverda testified he saw Michael and a
female move from one motel into Room 213 of the Motel 6. He observed that, at both
motels, the female mainly stayed in the room during the “short-stay traffic” while Michael
responded to the visitors. Officer Haverda acknowledged that he “did not physically see
money exchange hands” or “see drugs change hands.” He “just saw interaction within the
car.”

• Michael was under the “influence of narcotics when arrested”—Camera footage captured
a paramedic, who had come to check on Michael’s physical state after being tased, ask him,
“What did you take?” Michael answered, “Meth.”

• Michael “possessed other contraband or narcotics when arrested”—Officer David
Maddocks testified that Michael threw a marijuana cigarette out the driver’s side window,

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spat out the baggie of methamphetamine, and stored a “small bag of marijuana” in the
driver’s side door pocket of the vehicle.

• Michael made “incriminating statements when arrested”—Camera footage captured
Michael asking, “Do you think that they’d be willing to work with me?” Officer Maddocks
testified “that’s verbiage I’ve heard before from individuals asking if they would be able
to cooperate with law enforcement as a confidential informant.”

• Michael “attempted to flee”—Camera footage captured Michael’s attempt to escape
through the passenger door window.

• Michael made “furtive gestures”—Officer Maddocks testified that instead of stepping out
of the vehicle, Michael “reached over into an area where we could not see one of his
hands.”

• There was an “odor of contraband”—Officer Maddocks testified that he “detected the odor
of marijuana coming from the vehicle,” and Officer Lee Harris testified that the “Smelly
Proof” bag in the motel room, which contained marijuana and methamphetamine, did
not work.

• Other “contraband and drug paraphernalia” were present in the motel room—Officer Lee
Harris showed photos he had taken of the sandwich bags, small digital scale, and the
.22- caliber revolver found there during the search.

• Michael had “the right to possess” the motel room—Again, officers testified that Michael
and the female moved into Room 213. Officer Harris testified the room contained “both
male and female garments” and, as acknowledged by Michael, his credit card. Officer
Harris’s photographs support an inference that the occupants of the room lived out of it.

• The motel room where the drugs were found was “enclosed”—Room 213 is a regular motel
room, and its curtains had been drawn.

• Michael’s conduct “indicated a consciousness of guilt”— he initially tried to flee, and then
inquired as to whether he could be an informant.

We conclude that the circumstantial evidence, when viewed together, constituted

sufficient evidence connecting Michael to the actual care, custody, control, or management of

the methamphetamine found in the motel room that he shared with the female. See Evans v. State,

202 S.W.3d 158, 166 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (“It is the logical force of the circumstantial evidence,

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not the number of links, that supports a jury’s verdict.”). We turn to the sufficiency of the evidence

of intent to deliver.

Intent to deliver, like possession, can be established by circumstantial evidence.

Certain factors may be relevant to the question of intent to deliver. See, e.g., Biggers v. State,

634 S.W.3d 244, 253 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2021, pet. ref’d). And again some—including “the

nature of the location” of arrest, “the quantity of controlled substance” possessed, its “manner of

packaging,” “the presence of drug paraphernalia,” and “the defendant’s status as a drug user”—

are present here. See id.

• Michael was arrested on Mill Street; Officer Haverda testified that the plain-clothes officers
conducting surveillance had followed Michael from the motel parking lot to “Jackson Lane
where he proceeded to Thorpe Lane. And then . . . he proceeded to Mill Street” where the
uniformed officers conducted the traffic stop.

• Forensic Scientist Tres Guerra testified that the bag associated with Michael contained
methamphetamine and weighed 3.02 grams. Officer Tommy Villanueva testified this was
a purchaser “quantity”; “[t]ypically, a user would purchase anywhere between an eight ball
[3.5 grams or 1/8 of an ounce] and a gram worth, maybe even less than a gram.” Guerra
testified that the bag associated with Michael and the female contained methamphetamine
and weighed 9.92 grams. Officer Villanueva testified this was a “quantity” indicative of
narcotic sales.

• Officer Villanueva testified that the “individually packaged amounts of drugs” also
indicated narcotic sales.

• Officer Lee Harris testified about the significance of the drug paraphernalia in the motel
room including the digital scale (“they all use digital scales in order to appropriately deal
out the narcotics that they’re selling”), and the sandwich bags (“sandwich bags are what
the drug dealers use to distribute the product to their customers”).

• Again, Michael admitted to the paramedic that he had taken methamphetamine. He can
also be heard, earlier in the stop, telling officers he has a problem with it. He later attributed
his attempted flight and fighting the officers to the fact that he was “high.”

Although the State presented no evidence that Michael had rented the room or was

tied to the room by fingerprints, it presented evidence that: he moved into the room with the female;
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they alone came and went from the room; he responded to short-stay traffic; the room contained

his credit card; and when he left the room he possessed the same type of narcotics officers later

found during the search of the room. The logical force of the combined pieces of circumstantial

evidence in this case, coupled with reasonable inferences from them, is sufficient to establish,

beyond a reasonable doubt, that Michael possessed the methamphetamine with the intent to deliver

it. See Anderson v. State, 416 S.W.3d 884, 890 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (“From the 8.51 grams of

methamphetamine that were strewn throughout the truck, it appears that Appellant and Sherber

intended to sell smaller amounts of methamphetamine to other people in the future.”). We overrule

Michael’s complaints about the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction.

Sufficiency to Prove Enhancements

Michael next argues that no competent evidence connected him to the prior

convictions in the State’s Exhibits.

Applicable Law and Standard of Review

“To establish that a defendant has been convicted of a prior offense, the State must

prove beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) a prior conviction exists, and (2) the defendant is linked

to that conviction.” Flowers v. State, 220 S.W.3d 919, 921 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). “No specific

document or mode of proof is required to prove these two elements.” Id. “While evidence of a

certified copy of a final judgment and sentence may be a preferred and convenient means, the State

may prove both of these elements in a number of different ways, including (1) the defendant’s

admission or stipulation, (2) testimony by a person who was present when the person was

convicted of the specified crime and can identify the defendant as that person, or (3) documentary

proof (such as a judgment) that contains sufficient information to establish both the existence of a

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prior conviction and the defendant’s identity as the person convicted.” Id. at 921-22. Whatever

the evidence, the factfinder engages in a deductive, discrete fact-finding process to determine

whether the State has proved that the enhancement allegations are true. Jordan v. State, 256 S.W.3d

286, 291 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008). In a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a

finding of true to enhancement allegations, we apply the sufficiency standard of review set out in

Jackson. Henry v. State, 509 S.W.3d 915, 919 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016); Wood v. State, 486 S.W.3d

583, 589 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016).

Application

At the punishment hearing, the State introduced, and the trial court admitted, State’s

Exhibits P1, P2, and P3. P1 is the Hays County Sheriff’s Office Booking Report; P2 is the certified

pen packet containing the 2015 judgment of conviction for second-degree possession of a

controlled substance; and P3 is the certified pen packet containing the 2005 judgment revoking

community supervision for third-degree failure to stop and render aid, the 2005 judgment of

conviction for second-degree burglary of a habitation, the 2008 judgment of conviction for state

jail forgery, and the 2008 judgment of conviction for second-degree aggravated assault.

The State used P1 as a reference to prove that Michael was the person in the

judgments. Investigator John Paul Garza testified that he compared P1 to P2 and P3 and found the

information matched. They contained the same name (Ryon) or alias (Ryan), the same date of

birth, and the same FBI number. All contained photographs of Michael. Investigator Garcia, a

certified expert in ink-to-ink fingerprint comparisons, also compared the fingerprints in P1 to those

in P4, which matched the cause number in P2, but contained legible fingerprints, and found a

match. He also found the cause numbers in the exhibits appear in Michael’s criminal history, and

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the same SID number appeared in P2, P3, and the criminal history. Finally, Michael stipulated to

the judgment in P2.

Considering the above evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s

finding, we hold that a rational trier of fact could have found the two elements proving the

enhancements (the prior convictions exist and Michael is linked to them) beyond a reasonable

doubt. Flowers, 220 S.W.3d at 921; Henry, 509 S.W.3d at 919; Wood, 486 S.W.3d at 589. We

overrule Michael’s complaint about the sufficiency of the evidence to prove the enhancements.

Admission of the Jail Packet

As noted above, the State used P1, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office Booking

Report, to tie Michael to the prior judgments. Michael argues that the trial court erred in admitting

the booking report over his objection that the State failed to prove a chain of custody on it.

Applicable Law and Standard of Review

Authentication of evidence is a condition precedent to its admissibility. Tienda v.

State, 358 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). Texas Rule of Evidence 901(a) provides that

“the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the

proponent claims it is.” Tex. R. Evid. 901. The ultimate question whether an item of evidence is

what its proponent claims then becomes a question for the fact-finder. Tienda, 358 S.W.3d at 638.

Texas law recognizes that certain documents are self-authenticating. Rule 902 identifies certain

evidence as self-authenticating and dispenses with Rule 901’s requirement of extrinsic evidence

of authenticity for that evidence. Tex. R. Evid. 902. A document may be authenticated under

either Texas Rule of Evidence 901 or 902 and need not be authenticated under both. Reed v. State,

811 S.W.2d 582, 586 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). The sufficiency of an evidentiary predicate is within

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the trial court’s discretion, and appellate courts will not overturn the decision to admit evidence

unless the trial court abused its discretion. Butler v. State, 459 S.W.3d 595, 600 (Tex. Crim.

App. 2015).

Application

Investigator John Paul Garza testified that another investigator picked up the packet

from the jail. Michael argues that while a document under physical seal may be safely presumed

to lack tampering, “a document bearing no more than a certification by a records custodian

provides no such safe presumption when the person who accepted the documents from the

certifying official is not present to testify receiving the documents in the form presented to the

court.” But a proper certification by the custodian of records at a government institution is

sufficient authentication under Rule 902(4) of a copy of a public document contained in that

institution’s files. See Flowers, 220 S.W.3d at 922; State v. Handsbur, 816 S.W.2d 749, 750 (Tex.

Crim. App. 1991). Here, the booking report was sufficiently authenticated; it contained a

certification (“that the attached documents, consisting of 11 page(s), and attached hereto are true

and correct copies of the original public documents filed and recorded with this department”) from

the county sheriff’s office that was signed by the custodian of records. Absent evidence of

tampering or other fraud, which was not presented here, problems in the chain of custody of an

otherwise authenticated document do not affect the admissibility of the evidence. See Druery v.

State, 225 S.W.3d 491, 503 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). “Instead, such problems affect the weight

that the fact-finder should give the evidence.” Id. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its

discretion in admitting the booking report over Michael’s chain-of-custody objection. Butler,

459 S.W.3d at 600. We overrule Michael’s evidentiary complaint.

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CONCLUSION

Having overruled Michael’s appellate complaints, we affirm the trial court’s

judgment.

__________________________________________
Chari L. Kelly, Justice

Before Chief Justice Byrne, Justices Kelly, and Ellis

Affirmed

Filed: February 4, 2026

Do Not Publish

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