Court Opinion

ID: 9464299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:30:24.604266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:34.079573
License: Public Domain

WISDOM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In United States v. Almendarez, 5 Cir. 1976, 534 F.2d 648, 649-50, we found that a driver of an automobile may be considered as having constructive possession of whatever illegal substance the vehicle contains. See United States v. Riggins, 5 Cir. 1977, 563 F.2d 1264. Today, the majority extends that rule to a nervous passenger who was with the driver-bailee of an automobile. I agree with the Court on the affirmance of the conviction of the driver-bailee, Montoya. I cannot agree, however, that the evidence of guilt of the passenger, Carrillo, is sufficient to sustain the judgment; I would reverse his conviction.
The majority, fairly and accurately, summarizes the evidence against Carrillo. The record shows that (1) Carrillo was in close proximity to the heroin; (2) he was nervous at the time of the search; (3) he was a user of heroin; (4) he had more than a passing acquaintance with Montoya, the driver of the car in which he was a passenger. Even if the jury believed all four allegations it could not reasonably conclude that the evidence was “inconsistent with the hypothesis *1327of the accused’s innocence”. United States v. Warner, 5 Cir. 1971, 441 F.2d 821, 825. See United States v. Cantu, 5 Cir. 1974, 504 F.2d 387, 390; Montoya v. United States, 5 Cir. 1968, 402 F.2d 847, 850.
In this circuit, “mere presence in the area where the narcotic is discovered or mere association with the person who does control the drug or the property where it is located, is insufficient to support a finding of possession”. United States v. Stephenson, 5 Cir. 1973, 474 F.2d 1353, 1355. Accord, United States v. Ferg, 5 Cir. 1974, 504 F.2d 914, 917; United States v. Gloria, 5 Cir., 494 F.2d 477, 483. “The line between knowing possession and guilt by association can be very thin.” United States v. Phillips, 5 Cir. 1974, 496 F.2d 1395, 1397.
The majority emphasizes Carrillo’s nervousness. In the circumstances this case presents, nervousness may be consistent with a state of mind unrelated to importation and possession of heroin. Here, Carrillo had a pistol in his boot at the time he and Montoya crossed the border. One may reasonably infer that he was concerned about the pistol’s being discovered, not with the heroin he was supposedly importing. Carrillo’s nervousness decreased as he removed himself from the area where his person would be searched. His nervousness is as consistent with fear of having the pistol found as it is with the majority’s theory that he was nervous about the heroin cache. See United States v. Duckett, 5 Cir. 1977, 550 F.2d 1027, 1030.
To be guilty of illegal possession of an object, one must not only know of the location or presence of the object, one must also have dominion and control over the object. See, e. g., Williams v. United States, 9 Cir. 1969, 418 F.2d 159, 162, aff’d, 1971, 401 U.S. 646, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 28 L.Ed.2d 388; United States v. Martin, 5 Cir. 1973, 483 F.2d 974, 975 (per curiam). It is possible that Carrillo knew that the heroin was in the car, but that the heroin was Montoya’s. See Amaya v. United States, 10 Cir. 1967, 373 F.2d 197, 199, in which the court held that “Mere knowledge of [the narcotic’s] physical location did not constitute possession”. Any person would be nervous if he knew that his companion was attempting to bring narcotics into the country. As far as the record goes, it is plausible that Carrillo went along for the ride.
In this Court nervousness combined with proximity to illegal conduct is not sufficient evidence to convict the defendant of the illegal conduct. In Vick v. United States, 5 Cir. 1954, 216 F.2d 228, the defendant was found 10 or 15 feet away from an illegal still. He fled. Although his brother and his nephew were found guilty of working at an illegal still, we reversed his conviction because there was a hypothesis consistent with his innocence: he could have been hunting. We found that his flight could have occurred because of nervousness; “he thought that his presence at the distillery was a suspicious circumstance which might lead to his indictment”. Id. at 233. Like flight, nervousness should be considered “weak evidence of guilt”. Id. We have held that flight taken in connection with proximity is insufficient to prove possession of narcotics. United States v. Lopez-Ortiz, 5 Cir. 1974, 492 F.2d 109, 115.
Even if Carrillo’s nervousness is probative, there is no evidence to show that he had dominion and control of the heroin other than his proximity to the drug. In United States v. Cantu, 5 Cir. 1974, 504 F.2d 387, we reversed the convictions of passengers in an automobile for possession of drugs even though they had to know of the presence of marijuana in the vehicle. A “strong” odor of marijuana emanated from the automobile, its back seat floor was strewn with marijuana debris, and white packages containing the drug were visible. We reversed; the driver admitted buying the drug at one point (a story he later retracted) and there was “no evidence upon which the jury could have excluded the hypothesis that Cantu [the driver] and Cantu alone exercised the ‘dominion and control’ over the marijuana that is requisite to a finding of possession”. Id. at 391. In this case, Montoya’s demand to know who told the Customs Agents of the presence of the drug indicates that it belonged to him. There is no evidence to dispel the inference that it was his alone.
*1328The majority opinion relies in part on the location of the bulk of the heroin under the console on the passenger side of the car. But we have held that the location of an illegal substance inside an automobile near one occupant or another is not a circumstance that “has any real weight”. United States v. Duke, 5 Cir. 1970, 423 F.2d 387, 392. In most vehicles more space is available on the passenger’s side than on the driver’s side. A passenger, however, has no more control over cavities in the vehicle that are close to him (such as the glove compartment) than over those that are more remote. Dragging in this factor as probative illustrates the weakness of the government’s case.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit faced a similar situation in United States v. Johnson, 2 Cir. 1975, 513 F.2d 819. There, it was the passenger-defendant’s nervousness that alerted Customs Agents who stopped the car in which he was riding. The defendant had been a close friend of the driver for many years. The illegal drug was secreted in the slot for housing the passenger’s window. The court reversed the conviction of the passenger, even though it was shown that his exculpatory statement at the time of his arrest was a fabrication. The court found that the Government had failed to prove the passenger’s participation in the crime of importation of cocaine. Id. at 823.
The jury could have believed that needle tracks on Carrillo’s arm meant that he was a user of heroin. This factor is entitled to little weight. The question is who controlled the heroin. In United States v. Harold, 5 Cir. 1976, 531 F.2d 704, 705, we reversed the conviction on a distribution charge of an addict who knew that a package in the car in which he was a passenger contained heroin. In United States v. Martin, 5 Cir. 1973, 483 F.2d 974 (per curiam), we held that prior use of mescaline by a defendant was “no evidence that [she] actually possessed the mescaline” in question. Id. at 975.
In short, reasonable minds could conclude that Carrillo did not have dominion and control over the heroin in the car in which he rode. See United States v. Warner, 5 Cir. 1971, 441 F.2d 821, 830. I respectfully dissent as to Carrillo’s conviction.