Opinion ID: 865951
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Johnson’s Connection to the Vehicle

Text: ¶34. Johnson and the majority correctly note that neither Johnson nor the car that he was found next to was at the scene when the informant was purchasing the marihuana from Teddy. 15 Johnson and the vehicle both arrived in the five-to-seven-minute interval before the agents arrived, but there is no direct evidence that Johnson drove the car or rode in it as a passenger to the gas station. ¶35. However, there was evidence as to the vehicle’s ownership. Agent Harless testified that either Johnson’s father or another family member took custody of the vehicle after Johnson’s arrest. As to the owner, Harless stated “I believe going from memory, and I could be incorrect, that the owner was Johnson’s mother.” The majority describes these statements as merely speculative. ¶36. I disagree with this characterization. The statements both relied on a faulty memory, but that does not make them speculative. See, i.e., Dietz v. Consol. Oil & Gas, Inc., 643 F.2d 1088, 1094 (5th Cir. 1981) (“Yancey's testimony may have been sketchy, it may have been based on poor memory, and it may have been wrong but being based on recollection rather than mere hypothesis and conjecture, it was not speculative.”) Agent Harless testified that the car was collected by, and thus presumably owned by, a member of Johnson’s family. The jury had no reason to doubt this testimony, and the defense offered no contradictory testimony. Coupled with Johnson’s presence next to the vehicle, the shortness of the interval during which the MBN agents were not observing the gas station, and the absence of any other purported driver of the vehicle, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to draw a reasonable inference that Johnson had driven the car to the gas station.