Court Opinion

ID: 9466826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:29:25.186326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:59.263376
License: Public Domain

FLETCHER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the court’s result in all respects. I concur with the reasoning in parts I and III of the opinion. As for part II, I agree that neither Batimana’s nor Nogu-era’s participation rose to a level that would make them aiders and abettors. Even if their participation had reached that level, however, accessorial liability, like other theories of vicarious liability, requires a guilty principal. The only person who could have committed the crime of possession was Ni-canor. The evidence in this case was insufficient to establish that Nicanor was guilty of possession.
This case presents a “controlled delivery” situation in which Lavadia was under close police direction from the time he purchased the heroin through the time he handed it over to Nicanor. Although Nicanor might have actually been physically holding the heroin at the time of his arrest, it does not establish that he was in either actual or constructive possession of the drugs. The defendant must be able to exercise “dominion and control” over the contraband in order to establish actual or constructive possession. Arellanes v. United States, 302 F.2d 603 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 371 U.S. 930, 83 S.Ct. 294,9 L.Ed.2d 238 (1962). This transaction was so tightly controlled by the police that Nicanor never had power to control the disposition of the drugs in any way.1 In such a circumstance, and despite the fact that he had the drugs in his physical possession, it cannot be said that he had possession of the drugs for purposes of section 841.2 Because the evidence was insufficient to convict Nicanor of possession, it is necessarily insufficient to support the convictions of Batimana and Noguera.

. This conclusion is not altered by the possibility that Nicanor might have subjectively believed that he had dominion over the heroin. If he did not in fact have such dominion, he did not violate the statute. His belief to the contrary is a classic example of legal impossibility — the defendant thinks his actions are illegal, but in fact they are not.

. The Tenth and Second Circuits have held, in cases presenting the “controlled delivery” fact pattern, that shipments of contraband accomplished under government auspices never left the “dominion and control” of the authorities, and that subsequent warrantless seizures of the contraband were thus not subject to the fourth amendment. United States v. Andrews, 618 F.2d 646, 653-54 (10th Cir. 1980); United States v. Ford, 525 F.2d 1308, 1312 (10th Cir. 1975); United States v. DeBerry, 487 F.2d 448, 450-51 (2d Cir. 1973). Paradoxically, the defendants in these cases were convicted of crimes of possession, despite the fact that the government had “dominion and control” of the contraband.