Opinion ID: 548347
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 6 The standard of review of a sufficiency claim is  'whether, taken as a whole and viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence and all legitimate inferences therefrom would allow a rational trier of fact to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.'  United States v. Molinares Charris, 822 F.2d 1213, 1218 (1st Cir.1987), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 233, 107 L.Ed.2d 185 (1989) (quoting United States v. Luciano Pacheco, 794 F.2d 7, 10 (1st Cir.1986)). 7 Appellant's sufficiency challenge focuses on the element of knowledge. He claims that the government failed to prove that he knew there was cocaine in the suitcase. According to his trial testimony, appellant had indicated to his new Colombian friend Daniel Avila that he was traveling to Madrid and was thinking of buying a suitcase there. Avila offered to lend him a suitcase that appellant could leave with Avila's son Christian once appellant arrived in Madrid. According to appellant, training and other work related to his job as assistant manager of a Panamanian television station required his travel to Spain. The trip on which he was arrested would have been his third to Spain in six months. The record albums in his suitcase, he claimed, were of a new Panamanian reggae singer named Renato, whom appellant planned to promote in Spain. 8 In contrast to appellant's testimony stood that of the government agents. Agent Nieves stated that the record albums were numerous, old, and in bad condition. 1 Based on his drug enforcement experience, Nieves testified that record albums were commonly used by traffickers as ballast to hide the excess weight of the cocaine. The strong odor of glue, he stated, was also consistent with drug traffickers' efforts to elude detection. In addition, whereas appellant maintained at trial that he had planned to leave the suitcase in Madrid with Avila's son Christian, Agent Fernandez remembered appellant's telling him that he had been told to take the suitcase to a Miguel in Barcelona. 9 The case thus turned on the credibility of the witnesses and the inferences to be drawn from the evidence. Proof of appellant's knowledge that he was carrying cocaine could be inferred from the circumstantial evidence, United States v. Mateos-Sanchez, 864 F.2d 232, 238 (1st Cir.1988), and it was for the jury to assess the credibility of the witnesses and decide what inferences could be fairly drawn. United States v. Molinares Charris, 822 F.2d at 1220. The jury apparently disbelieved appellant's story and believed the government's witnesses, drawing the same inferences as the agents had drawn from evidence of old record albums and the strong smell of glue--that appellant was knowingly participating in drug trafficking. This conclusion was not unreasonable in light of the evidence and was sufficient to convict.