Court Opinion

ID: 9776275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:29:21.943739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:36.479596
License: Public Domain

AKIN, Justice,
dissenting.
I cannot agree that the evidence is insufficient to prove that the appellant was in exclusive control of the motel room and to prove that the appellant had knowledge of the heroin as well as control over it. Instead, I would hold that the evidence is sufficient to prove that appellant had possession and control of the heroin. Consequently, I must dissent.
The majority’s conclusion rests upon whether the appellant was in exclusive possession of the motel room in which the heroin was found. In this respect, the evidence is undisputed that room 289 was rented to a man named Dan Guitón from Los Angeles, California. It is also undisputed that Guitón went to room 289 and retrieved the key to the room which was concealed on a ledge above the door to room 289. After retrieving the key, Guitón opened the door. Before either Guitón or his female companion entered the room, Guitón permitted police officers to search the room where they found within a cushion of a chair a paper bag containing heroin. According to the police officer, a large hump in the chair’s cushion was obvious. Neither clothes nor personal possessions were in the room nor was any luggage there apart from a small black suitcase, similar to the one which police officers had observed Guitón carrying at the air terminal shortly after his arrival from Los Angeles. From this evidence, I con-elude that Guitón was in exclusive possession of the room containing the heroin.
Of significance is the small black suitcase which Guitón had with him at the terminal and which he carried when he departed from the terminal in a taxi cab. Later when he was next seen by police officers at the terminal, he did not have this black case with him. Furthermore, he drove a Buick automobile into the motel parking lot and parked it immediately in front of room 289, before retrieving the key to this room to enter. Within the room was the black suitcase, which Guitón had with him earlier at the terminal. From this evidence, a rational fact-finder could have concluded, as the jury did, that Guitón knowingly possessed the heroin in room 289. Accordingly, the jury’s verdict of guilty should be upheld.