Court Opinion

ID: 9778519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:10:58.384243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:11.082056
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding. As stated in their opinion, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and consider whether any rational trier of fact could have found essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. State, 672 S.W.2d 801, 803 (Tex.Crim.App.1984). However, a conviction based on circumstantial evidence cannot be sustained if the circumstances do not exclude every other reasonable hypothesis except of guilt of the defendant. Johnson v. State, 673 S.W.2d 190, 195 (Tex.Crim.App.1984).
The State has to clear two hurdles in order to sustain the present conviction because it involved the possession of a controlled substance. First, they must show the accused exercised care, control, and management over the substance, and secondly, the accused knew that what he/she possessed was contraband. Humason v. State, 728 S.W.2d 363, 364 (Tex.Crim.App.1987). Under Deshong v. State, 625 S.W.2d 327, 329 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1981), the State had the additional burden to present independent facts and circumstances which affirmatively linked her to the contraband since she was not in exclusive control or possession of the residence where the amphetamines were found.
The State, in its brief, enumerates a long list of evidence produced at trial to affirmatively link the defendant exclusively to the drugs. The evidence which the State brought to our attention was the following:
(1) appellant was at the place searched at the time of the search;
(2) appellant was seen coming and going from the residence;
(3) the amphetamines were found in a clothes hamper in a bathroom connected to appellant’s bedroom, the bathroom could only be reached by going through appellant’s bedroom;
(4) the hamper contained mostly women’s clothing, while appellant’s roommate was a male;
(5) both appellant’s and her co-tenant’s signatures were on the lease;
(6) both lived at the residence;
(7) appellant used the master bedroom exclusively;
(8) women’s cosmetics were found in the bathroom;
(9) women’s clothing was in the closet of the master bedroom;
(10) drugs and drug paraphernalia were found all over the house;
(11) heavy drug trafficking was occurring at the. house;
(12) one person leaving the residence (while appellant was inside) was armed;
(13) appellant had $293 on her person when she was arrested;
*217(14) sizable amounts of narcotics were kept at the residence; and
(15) it was a sizable amount of amphetamine that was seized.
None of these factors, if considered in isolation, would be sufficient to establish an affirmative link between appellant and the amphetamine, but when considered as a whole, the evidence is convincing. It is not necessary that every fact point directly and independently to the guilt of the accused; it is enough that the conclusion of guilt is warranted by the combined and cumulative force of all the incriminating circumstances. Hooker v. State, 621 S.W.2d 597, 601 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1980); Vaughn v. State, 607 S.W.2d 914, 921 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1980). The affirmative links between appellant and the amphetamines eliminate any reasonable hypothesis that appellant was unaware that the amphetamines were in her bathroom. It is not plausible to think that appellant was not aware that narcotics were kept in the house with the amount of activity that was occurring in the residence. Compare Pigg v. State, 760 S.W.2d 330, 331 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1988, no pet.).
The jury is the exclusive judge of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony. TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC.ANN. art. 38.04 (Vernon 1979); Johnson v. State, 571 S.W.2d 170, 173 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1978). More than one person may be in possession of the same narcotic drug. Enriquez v. State, 501 S.W.2d 117, 120 (Tex.Crim.App.1973). The jury did not accept defense counsel’s contention that appellant did not know about the drugs in her house. In this case the fact finder chose to resolve the disputed issue against appellant’s contention.
In DeGarmo v. State, 691 S.W.2d 657, 661 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 973, 106 S.Ct. 337, 88 L.Ed.2d 322 (1985), it was held that evidence presented at the punishment stage of the trial may be considered in determining whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict for the primary offense. The Court of Criminal Appeals also reaffirmed that if a defendant does testify at the guilt stage of the trial and admits his guilt to the crime for which he has been found guilty, he has for legal purposes, entered the equivalent of a plea of guilty. The defendant therefore, not only waives a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, but he also waives any error that might have occurred during the guilt stage of the trial. In Winter v. State, 725 S.W.2d 728, 730 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1986, no pet.), the Houston court made the distinction that if. the defendant testified only at punishment and did not admit guilt to the crime for which he had been found guilty, then the defendant did not waive the error complained of, nor did he waive his challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. They thus considered only evidence introduced at the guilt stage of the trial to determine if there was sufficient evidence to support the verdict.
In analyzing the Winter case, I do not find a prohibition against looking at the evidence presented at the punishment phase of the trial in determining the sufficiency of the evidence, only that it does not waive this point of error presented by a defendant. Since appellant testified at the punishment phase that the master bedroom was exclusively used by her, I feel that this evidence tightens what was already a fair determination by the jury that appellant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for the offense charged. The evidence was more than sufficient to establish that there was an affirmative link between appellant and the narcotics. Any rational trier of fact could have found appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of knowingly possessing a controlled substance. I feel that the majority has looked at the points which they have highlighted, in isolation, to arrive at an incorrect conclusion, thus reversing a conviction which should have certainly been affirmed. The majority strains to reverse, when a total review of the evidence of the facts would easily eliminate this possibility.