Opinion ID: 662165
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Calles appeal--92-10590

Text: 3 The standard for reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence and the district court's denial of the motion for acquittal is whether, after reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979); United States v. Bishop, 959 F.2d 820, 829 (9th Cir.1992); United States v. Shirley, 884 F.2d 1130, 1134 (9th Cir.1989). Under this standard, the evidence against Calles was sufficient. Circumstantial evidence, and proper inferences drawn from it, may sustain a conviction. United States v. Restrepo, 930 F.2d 705, 709 (9th Cir.1991). 4 Calles owned all three of the recreational vehicles at one time or another. All three were specially customized with secret compartments for smuggling cocaine. Calles paid $10,000 for work on one of them even after he no longer owned it. Calles deposited over $700,000 in his bank accounts, despite a taxable income of under $10,000 shown on his tax return. The deposits came in structured form to avoid reporting and coincided with four border crossings by the recreational vehicles with secret compartments. The Harrises had a letter from Calles giving them permission to drive his recreational vehicle out of Mexico when they were caught coming back with three quarters of a ton of cocaine in the secret compartments. Another recreational vehicle was found parked in front of a business he owned with three tons of cocaine in the secret compartments. 5 When Calles was arrested, he said he had been expecting the police for quite some time. When told that he was being arrested for narcotics violations, he said I never saw that motor home again. Since no one had a said a thing about motor homes until that moment, the police asked him what he meant. He said, I gave it to them because they were going to buy it. This answered a question which had not been asked, and still did not explain why Calles happened to think of a motor home upon being told that he was being arrested for a narcotics violation. The wicked flee when no man pursueth. Proverbs 28:1. 6 Of course inferences consistent with innocence could be drawn. Maybe someone forged the note on the dashboard. Maybe Calles was just depositing other peoples' money in trust. Maybe he just happened to be thinking about motor homes when he was arrested, and had not yet begun thinking about a narcotics arrest when he made his spontaneous declaration. Maybe it was just a coincidence that some malefactor parked another recreational vehicle stuffed with cocaine outside his business. But under Jackson, we ask whether a rational trier of fact could have convicted, not whether an acquittal might also have been conceivable. The evidence was sufficient to sustain Calles's conviction. 7 Calles also claims that the jury should not have been allowed to convict him for constructive possession, because he was not present when the Harrises drove three quarters of a ton of cocaine across the border. But he did not object to the constructive possession instruction, and it was not plain error. Fed.R.Crim.P. 30, 52(b). The relevant part of instruction # 14 was, A person who, although not in actual possession, knowingly has both the power and the intention, at a given time, to exercise dominion or control over a substance, either directly or through another person or persons, is then in constructive possession of it. The key phrase, dominion and control, was the same as would apply under a joint venture theory, which Calles urges should have been used at trial. Compare United States v. Restrepo, 930 F.2d 705, 709 (9th Cir.1991) (defining constructive possession) with United States v. Smith, 962 F.2d 923, 929-30 (9th Cir.1992) (defining joint venture). The evidence entitled the prosecution to argue that Calles exercised dominion and control over the cocaine the Harrises drove across the border, apparently for Calles, in Calles's recreational vehicle. There was no plain error in giving this instruction.