Court Opinion

ID: 9609618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:29:13.07415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:08.863242
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Presiding
Judge, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The only hypothesis the defendant offered, other than his constructive possession of the cocaine, was that the driver/owner of the car was the sole owner of the cocaine. This hypothesis is excluded by defendant’s own testimony, that he had not seen the driver/owner with any cocaine that day. Yet it was within view. See OCGA § 24-4-6. The officer, considering all the circumstances within his knowledge, including the information from the informant and his interview of the driver whom he knew by name, did not charge him or seize the car. The officer was experienced in such *790cases, having made about 200 narcotics cases, and was specially trained in the conduct of the narcotics trade.
There was circumstantial evidence which, together with reasonable inferences derived therefrom and a lack-of-credibility rejection of defendant’s trial testimony denying knowledge and ownership of the cocaine, that defendant was in constructive possession. “ ‘A person who, though not in actual possession, knowingly has both the power and intention at a given time to exercise dominion or control over a thing is then in constructive possession of it.’ ” Allen v. State, 191 Ga. App. 623, 624 (2) (382 SE2d 690) (1989). As in Allen, wherein the passenger’s conviction was affirmed, passenger Reid “had access to the contraband and thus the power to exercise control over it” even if the driver was also implicated. Id. at 625.
Here the cocaine was even more easily accessible by Reid than it was to the passenger convicted in Shropshire v. State, 201 Ga. App. 421 (411 SE2d 339) (1991). There it was found behind the passenger’s seat, on top of the carpet and under the floormat. In this case, Reid did not even have to turn around to get it; he just had to put his hand down.
Appellant contends that his case is similar to that of the passenger in Tharpe v. State, 166 Ga. App. 456 (1) (304 SE2d 468) (1983). To the contrary, in Tharpe the drugs were concealed in a gym bag which the driver had brought from his apartment, which gym bag was on the floor in front of the rear seat where another passenger was riding. There was no evidence that Tharpe even knew the bag was in the car. The proximity in this case is immediate, access was close, and the cocaine was in a typical drug container through which it could be seen easily.
Intent to exercise control over it may be inferred from the circumstances. Allen, supra at 625. In Chitwood v. State, 166 Ga. App. 62 (1) (303 SE2d 307) (1983), the passenger’s conviction was affirmed even though the marijuana was found on the floor in the middle of the floorboard on the driver’s side. The driver, Chitwood’s wife, testified that it was hers. The court applied the law, that the question of Chitwood’s intent became a question for the jury where it could be inferred from the circumstances. The circumstances permitted an inference of intent, even though, as the court pointed out, the marijuana was closer to the driver than to the passenger.
Here the ziplock plastic bag of cocaine was not only closer to the defendant passenger and within the view of the officer when he looked down, but it was not within reach of the driver. The jury could see the bag, filled with 28 rocks of crack cocaine valued at about $300 and weighing 1.7 grams, and get a good idea of how it must have looked on the floor of the car. The bag was between the front bolt-down place of the bench seat and the passenger door, about six inches *791from that door. Thus it was inferentially between defendant’s feet and the door, from which only the defendant exited.2 No other evidence of cocaine involvement, such as paraphernalia, was found in the car.
Even without the evidence that the officer was looking for defendant because of reliable information that he was from Atlanta, was selling cocaine, had a ziplock bag of it, and was in the car of a named driver (see OCGA § 24-3-1; Teague v. State, 252 Ga. 534 (1) (314 SE2d 910) (1984)), whom the officer knew, the evidence is sufficient.
In Harris v. State, 236 Ga. 242, 244 (1) (223 SE2d 643) (1976), the rule applicable here was quoted: “ ‘Whether or not in a given case circumstances are sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save the guilt of the accused, is primarily a'question for determination by the jury. This of necessity is so, for we have no legal yardstick by which we can ordinarily determine what in a given case is a reasonable hypothesis, save the opinion of twelve upright and intelligent jurors. After having heard the witnesses and having observed them testify, they are more capable of judging of the reasonableness of a hypothesis produced by the evidence, or the lack of evidence, and the defendant’s statement, than is a court of law.’ ” It is only where there appears a hypothesis pointing to innocence, “and which tested by all human experience is a reasonable one,” that the court may declare it so as a matter of law. Id. at 245. We cannot do so here, and I am even more persuaded to this view by the fact that the trial judge, who was acquainted with more evidence than appears to us in words on a written page alone, reviewed the evidence and denied a new trial on this same ground. On a motion for new trial, the court sits as a thirteenth juror, and the discretion to grant a new trial should be invoked only where the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict. Ricketts v. Williams, 242 Ga. 303, 304 (248 SE2d 673) (1978).
The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to have found Reid guilty of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). Whether the driver was also in constructive possession, so that it was joint instead of sole, is irrelevant to defendant’s guilt. By electing not to charge the driver, the State did not take on, as a matter of law, the burden of proving sole constructive possession in defendant.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge McMurray, Judge Andrews, and Judge Johnson join in this dissent.
*792Decided March 16, 1994
Reconsideration denied April 1, 1994.
Henry C. Johnson, Jr., for appellant.
Tommy K. Floyd, District Attorney, Charles E. Rooks, James L. Wright III, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.

 Although defendant testified that the driver exited on the passenger side, we must take the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict. See generally Avans v. State, 207 Ga. App. 329 (1) (427 SE2d 826) (1993).