Court Opinion

ID: 9477012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:11:06.690975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:37.947376
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In my view, the government correctly contended and the trial court did not err in agreeing that venue was properly laid in New Mexico under the doctrine of constructive possession.
The defendants boarded the train together in California, each carrying a suitcase. They boarded on a joint ticket destined to Chicago. The defendants thus intended to travel into New Mexico en route to Chicago. When the defendants were removed from the train at Needles, California, they had the ability to control the suitcase left on the train by simply requesting of the railroad officials that the suitcase be removed and returned to them.
The defendants argued in the trial court that they had abandoned the suitcase after they were removed from the train at Needles and after being asked whether they did not have another suitcase on the train. The trial court ruled, as a matter of law, that no abandonment had occurred. While I am troubled by that ruling, I nevertheless accept it for purposes of the constructive possession analysis.
The defendants, not having abandoned the suitcase after their removal from the train at Needles, had the means to reduce the suitcase to their possession even when the train traveled into New Mexico without them on board. The defendants had the power to identify the suitcase and its contents and to request its return, and this power existed until the suitcase was delivered to government agents by the train agent in New Mexico who observed the kilo of cocaine inside a plastic shoe bag in the suitcase while attempting to verify the ownership of the suitcase.
If a defendant should mail a package containing cocaine to a post office box in another state under his control, certainly he would not prevail on an argument that he lacked constructive possession of the package en route and when it reached its destination, even though the defendant did not travel. Further, if a baggage claim is sufficient to connect a defendant with contraband within a state, why should it not be so between states? We have painted with a brush too broad by declaring that “It follows that the locus of the constructive possession, cannot be a place where the defendant has never been, personally or by *879a person whose acts are attributable to him.”