Opinion ID: 2383635
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: M.I.W. maintains that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of the charges set forth in the petition. We review the sufficiency of the evidence in a light most favorable to the government, giving it the benefit of all reasonable inferences. Patterson v. United States, 479 A.2d 335, 337-38 (D.C.1984) (citing Morrison v. United States, 417 A.2d 409, 412 (D.C.1980), and Hooks v. United States, 373 A.2d 909, 912 (D.C.1977)). It is only where the government has produced no evidence from which a reasonable mind might fairly infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that this court can reverse a conviction. Gayden v. United States, 584 A.2d 578, 580 (D.C.1990) (quoting Frendak v. United States, 408 A.2d 364, 371 (D.C.1979)). Since there is nothing in the record to indicate that M.I.W. ever possessed or owned the machine gun, the government had to prove constructive possession. Constructive possession of a weapon requires proof that a defendant (1) knew of the weapon's location; (2) had the ability to exercise dominion and control over it; and (3) intended to exercise such dominion and control. Hood v. United States, 661 A.2d 1081 (D.C.1995) and Taylor v. United States, 662 A.2d 1368 (D.C.1995). We focus on the first and third elements. Since the gun was in easy reach of M.I.W., he had the ability to exercise dominion and control over it. However, the critical questions are whether he knew of the gun's location and whether he intended to exercise dominion and control over it.
The trial court concluded that M.I.W.'s feet were on top of [the] gun and [t]here was nothing covering the gun where it's appearance there would have been obliterated to [M.I.W.]. Neither officer testified to seeing M.I.W.'s feet on top of the gun. Nor did either officer testify that he sat in the back seat behind the front passenger seat prior to the removal of the gun to test whether M.I.W.'s feet had to rest on the gun which protruded less than one inch into a rear corner of the vehicle. In Burnette v. United States, 600 A.2d 1082, 1083 (D.C.1991), a passenger in the rear of the vehicle was charged with possession of an unregistered firearm and other crimes after a .9 millimeter handgun was found under the floormat where he was seated. An officer testified that the handgun was bulging upwards from beneath the mat. The court concluded that the jury could properly infer that appellant must have placed his feet on the mat, felt a large hard object, lifted up the mat, and seen the gun. Moreover, he clearly was able to exercise dominion and control since the gun lay directly at his feet and far closer to him than to either of the other two occupants of the jeep. Id. M.I.W.'s situation is different; less than one inch of the gun protruded into a rear corner of the car. Most of the gun was under the front passenger seat. There was no testimony regarding how large the rear of the car was, or how far the adjustable front passenger seat extended forward while M.I.W. was seated in the back. Moreover, it was dark and Officer Richard had to use a flashlight to search the car. Neither officer recalled whether there was a functional interior light in the car. At first sighting, Officer Richard could not even tell that it was a gun, and even when he bent all the way down to look under the seat, he thought at first it was a toy. The record contains no direct evidence that M.I.W. knew where the gun was located. When the officer asked M.I.W. and the front seat passenger whether the gun was real, they said: They didn't know what it was about. The trial judge inferred M.I.W.'s knowledge of the gun based upon his conclusion that: After the car was stopped, [M.I.W.], for unknown reasons seemed to be beating a hasty retreat.... While we have recognized that flight sometimes indicates consciousness of guilt, we have also held that it may be innocent conduct. Leaving a scene hastily may be inspired by innocent fear, or by a legitimate desire to avoid contact with the police. Smith v. United States, 558 A.2d 312, 316 (D.C.1989) (en banc). Furthermore, in those cases in which we have found that flight indicated a consciousness of guilt, the accused clearly knew that the police were present and reacted by immediately running from the scene of the alleged crime. Id. at 316-17. In Cauthen v. United States, 592 A.2d 1021, 1022, 1024 (D.C.1991), in which an accused began to walk away `at a brisk pace' as officers arrived on the scene, we reiterated what we said in Smith: For flight to suggest consciousness of guilt  a mentality other than a legitimate desire to avoid the police  that flight must not only be very clearly in response to a show of authority but also must be carried out at such a rate of speed, or in such an erratic or evasive manner that a guilty conscience is the most reasonable explanation. [2] The two officers testified that the three males jumped out of the vehicle or quickly stepped from the vehicle after it reached the curb. However, on cross-examination one officer stated: [M.I.W.] was in the back seat and he had to get out from the back. When we first saw [M.I.W], he was closing the door to the car and started to walk forward. By the time we called to them, the driver and passenger were about 15 feet in front of the car, respondent was at about the front of the car, maybe a little further. In our cases, we have looked for more than walking away to find manifestation of a consciousness of guilt. In United States v. Bennett, 514 A.2d 414, 416 (D.C.1986), two men bolted when police officers arrived. In Tobias v. United States, 375 A.2d 491, 492 (D.C.1977), defendant increased his pace from that of a fast walk to that of a run after someone shouted that the police officers were behind him. Here, M.I.W. did not bolt or start to walk faster when the officers issued the command to return to the car. He obeyed the command.
Even if we assume that M.I.W. knew that the gun was located under the front passenger seat and that M.I.W. had the ability to exercise dominion and control over it, there can be no conviction on the basis of constructive possession unless it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that M.I.W. intended to exercise dominion and control over the gun. The government maintains that M.I.W.'s case is identical to In re F.T.J., 578 A.2d 1161 (D.C.1990), where we found that the evidence was sufficient to show constructive possession. There, appellant was a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle which had gone through a red light and which had unlawfully high beams. After three persons were told to get out of the car, the police found a semi-automatic rifle partly concealed beneath the driver's seat behind which appellant had sat. Id. In F.T.J., [b]etween six and nine inches of the gun, including the stock and the trigger, protruded out from behind the driver's seat. Id. In addition to the rifle, two revolvers were found, one under the driver's seat, and one under the front passenger seat. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to convict appellant because (1) the machine gun was clearly visible, (2) appellant would have seen the gun upon entering the vehicle due to an interior dome light, (3) appellant had been in the car for fifteen or twenty minutes and at some point would have, virtually, kicked the machine gun, (4) since there were three guns in the car, it was reasonable to infer that there was one gun per person, and 5) appellant, by his own account, had been shot in the stomach a month earlier, ... [and] `had a motive to have some weapons on him.' Id. (footnote omitted). M.I.W. is a vastly different case, with a vastly different evidentiary record. The machine gun here protruded less than one inch into the rear corner of the car. There is no evidence that M.I.W. had been in the car for a substantial period of time before it stopped on O Street, or that the vehicle had a functional interior light. The officer had a flashlight when he searched the car. There was only one gun found and three occupants. The record reveals no evidence that M.I.W. had been shot or had any reason to possess a weapon out of fear for his life. In addition here, as in Taylor, supra, the government presented no evidence connecting [M.I.W.] to the car..... [N]o evidence was presented concerning the car registration or any other information showing that [M.I.W.] owned the car. Nor was there any evidence showing that [M.I.W.] regularly used the car (or that he had ever used it prior to the night of his arrest) even if he did not legally own it. 662 A.2d at 1373. Furthermore, large quantities of crack cocaine were found on the driver and the passenger, not on M.I.W. Even on the facts of Burnette, supra, where the feet of the passenger in the rear of the car had to have come into contact with the weapon, we held that intent to exercise dominion and control could not reasonably be inferred. First, we were unwilling to infer such intent based upon the plain feel doctrine, and further concluded that the inference of a car passenger's intent to exercise control drawn solely from evidence of the passenger's convenient access to contraband... in a car should not be extended beyond situations where the evidence shows the contraband was in plain view of that passenger defendant. 600 A.2d at 1084. Here it is not reasonable for the court to infer beyond a reasonable doubt that M.I.W. had the intent to exercise dominion and control over the gun based on the plain view doctrine, since the gun protruded less than one inch into a rear corner of the car. Second, in Burnette, we concluded that proof of constructive possession may be furnished `by evidence linking the accused to an ongoing criminal operation of which that possession is a part.' Id. (citing Davis v. United States, 564 A.2d 31, 44 (D.C.1989)). Burnette's conviction was reversed because there was no evidence of a criminal venture on the defendant's part centering around possession of the gun, Id. Here there was no evidence that M.I.W. was engaged in any criminal activity whatsoever. Although large amounts of crack cocaine were found on the driver and the front seat passenger, nothing of an untoward nature was found on M.I.W. Furthermore, as the court observed in Burnette, the government did not present any evidence as to the relationship between appellant and the other two occupants of the car. Id. [3] In sum, the record here does not contain the requisite evidence from which a reasonable mind might fairly infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Gayden v. United States, supra 584 A.2d at 579.