Court Opinion

ID: 9641356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:29:43.944693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.803652
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The majority reverses this conviction on the ground that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction.
Officers armed with a search warrant on September 22, 1971, went to a trailer house located at 1307 Walnut Street in Austin. The appellant was in the kitchen area and the officers heard running water when they entered. Utilities for the trailer were registered in the name of the appellant and had been so registered since the 16th of September, 1971. During the search, officers found two containers of heroin on a *343dressing table and a “roach” or “butt” of what appeared to be a marihuana cigarette in a trash can in a bedroom. All of the five people found in the house were charged with the possession of heroin.
The majority reverses because the appellant was not found to have been in personal possession of the narcotics, appellant was not shown to have been in exclusive possession and the heroin was found on the dressing table in one bedroom of a trailer house and the kitchen was not shown to be in close proximity to the bedroom, and the needle marks on the appellant’s arms were not shown to be recent.
The record shows that Herman Williams made a deposit for the utilities at the trailer house some six days before the search and arrest and that he was in the trailer house at the time of search with needle marks that appeared to be like those of heroin addicts.
We should consider the evidence m the light most favorable to the court’s findings.
Collini v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 487 S.W.2d 132, is not in point on the sufficiency of the evidence. That conviction was reversed because the evidence did not connect the defendant with heroin found outside the house where he had a room. There the rule was correctly stated that it was not necessary to prove that the accused had exclusive possession or control over the contraband and that absent some direct testimony the proof must be made by circumstantial evidence, and that the various facts and circumstances surrounding a search and arrest may show that the accused and other persons acted together in the possession of heroin.
Does the reversal by the majority amount to a holding that, where one is in possession of a trailer house or an apartment and contraband is found therein and other people are present, no one may be found to be responsible for its possession?
In the present case, there appears to be no other evidence linking the others with the possession of heroin except their presence.1 The possession of the premises and appellant’s presence at the time of the search considered with the needle marks or tracks on his arm should be sufficient to support the conviction. Under the circumstances of this and similar cases the matter should be a fact question for the jury.
This conviction should be affirmed.

. One officer testified: “My source of information was that these other people were also staying there.” This apparently has as much probative force as the testimony adduced on cross-examination of the officer by appellant’s counsel that his informant had seen Herman Williams sell heroin in the trailer house with the other people present.