Opinion ID: 340675
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 13 All appellants challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support their convictions on each count and claim that the lower court erred in refusing to grant any of their frequent motions for judgment of acquittal. But the evidence on each count so easily satisfies this circuit's test of sufficiency in reviewing a lower court's denying a motion for judgment of acquittal that reasonable minds could conclude that the evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis of innocence, see, e. g., United States v. Prout, 526 F.2d 380, 384 (5th Cir. 1976) that we feel obliged to discuss only Cook's argument that the prosecution proved no more than her presence on the scene. Although (m)ere presence at the scene of a crime . . . is not enough to prove participation in it, United States v. James, 528 F.2d 999, 1013 (5th Cir. 1976), Cook ignores not only evidence of the substantial nature of the narcotics-processing operation in her home, but also the presence of her fingerprints on most of the processing paraphernalia found in her bathroom and the discovery 6 of a number of packets containing cocaine and marijuana cigarettes in her bathroom, master bedroom, and living room. Viewing all this evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom in a light most favorable to the government, see Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 469, 86 L.Ed. 680, 704 (1942), we think that the government sufficiently proved constructive possession under section 841(a)(1). 7