Court Opinion

ID: 9562135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:22:14.863433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:13.348946
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with the majority opinion there appears to me to be more than the presumption in favor of the inference based on Flake as a co-tenant of the apartment.
The dissenting opinion, in citing Mayo v. Owen, 208 Ga. 483, 488 (67 SE2d 709), written by Justice Bond Almand, deals with the dissipation and vanishing of certain presumptions and permissible inferences. A quote is given from the latter case: “... the presumption in favor of the [inference], in the parlance of the game of chess, was checkmated, and the burden was then upon [plaintiff] to show [the desired basic fact].” I would agree that if there is nothing more in the *745case there would be a stalemate or temporary draw resulting in a directed verdict of acquittal. However, where as here, additional evidence of observing both defendants several times a week at the apartment, plus the difficulty in concealing in the dwelling any individual enterprise such as the activity here charged from each other, would be a sufficient thrust against the parry as suggested as a requirement in the dissenting opinion which a jury could consider in arriving at a final verdict or, in the words of the cited case, a final checkmate.
The whole court case of Jones v. State, 126 Ga. App. 841 (192 SE2d 171) (1972), involving possession and control of marijuana, does not require a different result. In that case, the defendant was observed from outside the premises doing nothing more, along with two young men and a young woman, than “playing a game of chess by candlelight.” The police had obtained a warrant for some unknown person named “Barry” who was not the defendant. The officers found the marijuana on defendant’s person after searching him upon their arrival. He was not identified as residing in the dwelling in that case, and there was no evidence of his doing anything suspicious other than participating in the game of chess.
After the trial we must construe the evidence in favor of supporting the jury’s verdict of guilty. Flake paid the rent on the apartment. The landlord observed the roommates Flake and Lush almost every day during their five-week tenancy. The apartment’s total living area was only 650 sq. ft., making it almost impossible for one to hide anything from the other. Gallon jars were found; chemicals were present; the apartment was in disarray; and on the floor there was found a blue book entitled How to Manufacture Drugs. The jury could have disbelieved Lush as to the date when the equipment was brought in.