State v. Blahowski

499 N.W.2d 521, 1993 Minn. App. LEXIS 459, 1993 WL 138146
CourtCourt of Appeals of Minnesota
DecidedMay 4, 1993
DocketNo. C6-92-1756
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 499 N.W.2d 521 (State v. Blahowski) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Blahowski, 499 N.W.2d 521, 1993 Minn. App. LEXIS 459, 1993 WL 138146 (Mich. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

OPINION

HARTEN, Judge.

Appellant Scott Michael Blahowski challenges his conviction of the fifth degree controlled substance crime of possession with intent to sell marijuana in violation of Minn.Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(2) (1990). Blahowski challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that he intended to sell marijuana for remuneration. Blahowski also contends that the state had the burden to prove that he possessed more than a “small amount” of marijuana, which is less than 42.5 grams excluding the weight of any mature stalks pursuant to Minn.Stat. § 152.01, subds. 9 and 16 (1990). We affirm.

FACTS

At 1:45 a.m. on October 1, 1991, St. Paul Police Officer Rhodes was on patrol in a squad car. He checked the parking lot of a high-rise apartment building; on Edgerton Street. Eventually he saw a car containing four people parked on the west side of Edgerton. There were single family homes and duplexes across from the high-rise, but no businesses in the immediate area that the people in the car might be patronizing.

Officer Rhodes previously had received information about drug activity in this general area. His suspicions aroused, he stopped his squad car in an alley, turned off the lights and watched the car.

Officer Rhodes saw a man emerge from the car’s front passenger door, walk north on the west side of Edgerton, go behind a house on the corner of the alley and Edger-ton, and then return after a very short time and get back in the car’s front passenger door. Shortly thereafter, the same man repeated those movements. Officer Rhodes could not see what the people inside the car were doing.

Officer Rhodes called for backup assistance before he approached the car to investigate. Within a minute, Officers Malmberg and McDonald came from the south and parked so that their headlights shone into the car. Officer Rhodes pulled forward, stopped in the alley, and aimed his [523]*523headlights at the car. No one exited or approached the car.

The three officers got out of their squad cars and simultaneously walked toward the suspect car. As Officer Rhodes approached the passenger side of the car, the man who had exited the car twice before, later identified as Paul Matheny, again emerged from the right front door and began to walk away. Officer Rhodes called him back. As Matheny got out of the car, Officer Rhodes thought he saw him throw something. A later search disclosed nothing.

Officer Rhodes walked Matheny back to the car. In a pat-down search, Officer Rhodes discovered in Matheny’s left jacket pocket a bulky, soft object that Officer Rhodes suspected was a baggy containing marijuana. When Officer Rhodes asked him what it was, Matheny replied that he got it from Blahowski and was supposed to throw it.

Blahowski was seated in the driver’s seat of the car. Officer Malmberg checked Bla-howski’s driving record and learned that his license was revoked. Blahowski was then arrested for driving after revocation. The car was registered in Blahowski’s wife’s name.

Before having the car towed, the officers inventoried its contents. In the trunk, Officer Rhodes found a clear baggy with more small baggies inside, each of which contained marijuana, and an Ohaus centigram scale.1 Blahowski was told that the car’s interior would be searched.

Officer Malmberg searched Mark Block, one of the back seat passengers, and seized from Block’s jacket pocket a vial that apparently contained cocaine. Robert Zimmerman, the other back seat passenger, was searched and released.

To complete the car inventory, Officer Rhodes used his canine partner, Buddy, who is trained in detecting controlled substances. Buddy gave indication that there were drugs under the right front seat. Officer Rhodes’ search of that area revealed a White Castle hamburger box containing three small baggies, each, in turn, containing uniform amounts of marijuana, and three $1,000 bank money bands.

Blahowski had more than $1,000 in cash on his person when he was booked at the police station. The money was seized as evidence of Blahowski’s intent to sell marijuana. Officer Rhodes and Sergeant Zasa-da, who interviewed Blahowski at the jail, both testified that the baggies of marijuana found in the trunk and in the hamburger box were comparable and resembled packages for sale. The apparent marijuana seized from the trunk and inside the ear was analyzed and determined, to a reasonable scientific certainty, to contain marijuana. The total gross weight of the confiscated marijuana was 21.6 grams.

When interviewed by Sergeant Zasada, Blahowski said he had been at a bar on Payne Avenue at midnight when three men asked him for a ride. He claimed that Paul Matheny took the car keys in'order to put something in the trunk. Blahowski also claimed that the car was stopped because one of the men wanted to smoke a “joint” but the police came before he could light up. He denied knowledge of the scale, the marijuana in the trunk and the marijuana on the car floor.

Blahowski identified the three people riding in the car with him as Matheny, Block and Zimmerman. He gave no indication that there was a fifth person in the car. At trial, Block and Zimmerman both testified that there was a fifth person who had been driving the car, but who left and never returned. Block and Zimmerman claimed that the police came just as they started to smoke a “joint.”

The trial court admitted evidence and testimony that Blahowski had been arrested and convicted for selling cocaine on July 8, 1988. Blahowski does not challenge the introduction of that evidence.

A jury found Blahowski guilty of the fifth degree controlled substance crime of possession with intent to sell marijuana in violation of Minn.Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(2) (1990). Blahowski made post-trial motions [524]*524for a new trial and to vacate judgment.2 At a June 30, 1992 sentencing hearing, the trial court denied Blahowski’s motions, but stayed execution of a 23-month sentence pending appeal. Blahowski appeals.

ISSUES

1. Was the evidence sufficient to show Blahowski intended to sell marijuana for remuneration?

2. In order to prove the fifth degree controlled substance crime of possession with intent to sell marijuana, did the state have the burden to prove that Blahowski possessed more than 42.5 grams of marijuana excluding the weight of any mature stalks?

ANALYSIS

1. Blahowski was convicted of violating Minn.Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(2) (1990). That statute makes it a fifth degree controlled substance crime to unlawfully possess “one or more mixtures containing marijuana * * * with the intent to sell it, except a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration.” Id. We find no merit in Blahowski’s argument that the evidence was insufficient to show he possessed marijuana with the intent to sell it for remuneration.

Where there is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, our review on appeal is limited to a painstaking analysis of the record to determine whether the evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to the conviction, was sufficient to permit the jurors to reach the verdict which they did.

State v. Webb, 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn.1989).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Minnesota v. Trevon Fuller
Court of Appeals of Minnesota, 2015
City of Jamestown v. Dardis
2000 ND 186 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 2000)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
499 N.W.2d 521, 1993 Minn. App. LEXIS 459, 1993 WL 138146, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-blahowski-minnctapp-1993.