Court Opinion

ID: 9689548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:40:07.521489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:50.273442
License: Public Domain

BURDICK, Supreme Court Commissioner,
concurring specially.
I concur with the opinion authored by Justice Pederson so far as it goes, but I believe that our decision deserves further elucidation.
“Possession” of controlled substances under statutes forbidding their possession may take several forms, all of which imply knowledge of the presence of the contraband, an essential element of the offense. See cases digested under West’s Centennial Digest, Poisons, Key # 4.
Possession may be actual or constructive, joint or exclusive. Cases involving actual or exclusive possession pose little difficulty. If the heroin had been found on the person of the appellant, rather than under the rear seat of his vehicle, it is unlikely that his conviction would have been challenged.
The difficulty arises in cases, such as the case at bar, where the accused claims, through witnesses other than himself, that he did not have actual physical control of the contraband. The appellant relies heavily on the uncontradicted testimony of Matthias Lee. According to Lee, the appellant had transferred the heroin to him in Moor-head, Minnesota, just shortly before they drove to Valley City, North Dakota, under an arrangement whereby Lee would sell the heroin and pay the purchase price out of the proceeds of the sales.
If the jury gave no credence to Lee’s testimony, the appellant was then in a position of having to refute the inference of exclusive, “actual” possession of the heroin that the jury could draw from the other incriminating circumstances noted by Justice Pederson. The fact that the appellant chose not to testify does not relieve him from the necessity of refuting inferences of fact that the jury may draw from incriminating circumstances. State v. Mathews, 4 Wash.App. 653, 484 P.2d 942 (1971).
On the other hand, if the jury gave credence to Lee’s testimony that the appellant sold him the heroin shortly before they drove to Valley City, we then have a case where the appellant, as the owner and driver of the motor vehicle, was aware of the presence of the heroin in his vehicle and transported the heroin without objection from him. This is “constructive” possession. People v. Rogers, 5 Cal.3d 129, 95 Cal.Rptr. 601, 486 P.2d 129 (1971); People v. Cirilli, 265 Cal.App.2d 607, 71 Cal.Rptr. 604 (1968).
If the jury gave credence to all of Lee’s testimony, it could then have found that the appellant and Lee had become joint ventur-ers through the sale of the heroin to Lee under an agreed arrangement whereby appellant would be paid for the heroin from sales made by Lee. That is a classic case of “joint” possession. State v. Grabowski, 206 Kan. 532, 479 P.2d 830 (1971), cert. denied, 403 U.S. 918, 91 S.Ct. 2228, 29 L.Ed.2d 695 (1971).
Accordingly, it makes no difference whether the uncontradicted testimony of Lee should have been given any credence, some credence, or full credence. The evidence was sufficient to support a finding of willful possession of heroin under one of several well-recognized theories of possession.
SAND and VANDE WALLE, JJ., concur.