Court Opinion

ID: 9471471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:33:18.390563+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:25.633755
License: Public Domain

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The government certainly adduced evidence that tended to incriminate the defendant. But much was lacking to prove him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Perfume apparently could not be smelled from the driver’s seat or anywhere else unless someone crawled under the truck and probed a crack in a compartment with a clothes-hanger. Customs officials did not know whether or where to probe until their dog directed their attention to the compartment beneath the vehicle. That compartment was not visible to the driver or readily accessible by him. It was a factory-built unit, installed to reduce road noise. To get to it, the officials had to unbolt the seats, unscrew an aluminum strip holding down a rubber floor mat, remove the mat, and finally unbolt a metal floor plate.
The defendant’s lack of concern is as consistent with complete innocence and faith in fair adjudication as it is with a mask of guilt. Nervousness is frequently used as evidence of guilty knowledge;1 the majority would have us construe the absence of nervousness as affirmative evidence of culpability. The requirement that the government prove knowledge and intent cannot be nullified so easily. That Aguila-Reyes was driving a vehicle containing a secreted cargo of contraband does not alone suffice to prove either guilty knowledge or intent. It is perfectly possible that Aguila-Reyes was indeed the cat’s paw he claimed to be.
My brethren infer guilt from the value of the cargo and the supposition that the owner of so precious a store of contraband would not likely entrust it to an innocent. I do not know how the minds of narcotics dealers work, but the inference that dupes who are unaware that they carry valuable cargo are less likely to steal it than witting accomplices appears to me equally tenable. Of course, Toyotas could be purchased elsewhere than in Miami. The defendant may well have assumed that the price charged his employer by the Miami dealer was sufficiently lower than that sought by Texas dealers to warrant paying him the sum of less than $200 per automobile to travel the extra distance. The final straw of supposed circumstantial evidence my brethren rely on is the defendant’s misstatement concerning his brother’s prior activities. After the hidden packages were found, the defendant might be as likely to shield his brother from whatever accusation might follow as he would to attempt to exonerate him from actual conviction.
The government cites seven of our cases in which the driver of a vehicle was convict*159ed for possession of its contents. My brethren do not cite them, so I suppose the majority opinion does not rely on them, but it should be noted that in each there was evidence that the driver had some connection with the cargo beyond his chauffeuring of the vehicle or at least some reason to be suspicious that his mission was illegal. Thus, in United States v. Moreno, 579 F.2d 371, 372 (5th Cir.1978), the compartment containing drugs had been welded onto the truck’s exterior and was partly visible to a person simply inspecting the back of the truck. The defendant in United States v. Legeza, 559 F.2d 441, 442 (5th Cir.1977), was driving a car that smelled of marijuana, testified that he knew pillow cases had been concealed and that they felt peculiar, and acknowledged that the car’s owner was using him in some kind of illicit scheme. The odor of marijuana was about the vehicle in United States v. Maspero, 496 F.2d 1354, 1356-68 (5th Cir.1974), as well, and seeds were in plain view on the trailer’s floor. Moreover, the defendants in Máspe-ro engaged in a variety of suspicious activities while under surveillance. Again, the odor of marijuana was present about the automobile in United States v. Rodriguez, 556 F.2d 277, 278 (5th Cir.1977). The defendant in United States v. Fonseca, 490 F.2d 464, 466 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1072, 95 S.Ct. 660, 42 L.Ed.2d 668 (1974), had previously been stopped in the same automobile, and marijuana seeds and rolling papers were discovered in that earlier inspection. A strong odor of heroin was present in the ear in United States v. Gonzalez, 700 F.2d 196, 204 (5th Cir.1976), and the defendant had been present during several veiled discussions of the drug transaction.
Perhaps knowledge of contraband can be inferred from a cargo so large as to be obvious. It is difficult to imagine that the defendant whose conviction we affirmed in United States v. Almendarez, 534 F.2d 648 (5th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 977, 97 S.Ct. 486, 50 L.Ed.2d 585 (1976), did not know of the 3000 pounds of marijuana he was carrying. But no uninformed driver is likely to suspect the existence of a cargo completely concealed in a factory-built compartment under the floor of a vehicle. Mere possession of a vehicle being transported in an overtly legitimate commercial enterprise cannot alone support an inference of knowledge of the presence of contraband.2
In short the scent of guilt my brethren detect is as faint as the perfume from the cocaine. It requires such probing that it can, in my opinion, scarcely defy reasonable doubt.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. See, e.g., United States v. Moreno, 579 F.2d 371, 372 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 908, 99 S.Ct. 1217, 59 L.Ed.2d 456 (1978).

. United States v. Castillo, 524 F.2d 286 (10th Cir.1975); United States v. Martinez, 514 F.2d 334 (9th Cir.1975).