United States v. Mixon

979 F. Supp. 1386, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16896, 1997 WL 625188
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedSeptember 24, 1997
DocketNo. 96-40065-01-RDR
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 979 F. Supp. 1386 (United States v. Mixon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Mixon, 979 F. Supp. 1386, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16896, 1997 WL 625188 (D. Kan. 1997).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ROGERS, District Judge.

This matter is presently before the court upon defendant’s motion for new trial and renewed motion for judgment of acquittal. Having carefully reviewed the arguments of the parties, the court is now prepared to rule.

On June 11, 1997, the defendant was found guilty by a jury of possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). In his renewed motion for judgment of acquittal, defendant argues that there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to sustain his conviction. In his motion for new trial, defendant asserts that the court erred in allowing certain evidence under Fed.R.Evid. 404(b).

RENEWED MOTION FOR JUDGMENT OF ACQUITTAL

The court considers the sufficiency of the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, and determines whether any rational trier of fact could have found, from the direct and circumstantial evidence presented to it, together with the reasonable inferences therefrom, the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Mitchell, 113 F.3d 1528, 1530 (10th Cir.1997). The evidence must do more than raise a mere suspicion, but it need not conclusively exclude all other reasonable possibilities. United States v. Johnson, 42 F.3d 1312, 1319 (10th Cir.1994), cert, denied, 514 U.S. 1055, 115 S.Ct. 1439, 131 L.Ed.2d 318 (1995). In order to sustain a conviction for possession with intent to distribute under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), the government must prove that the defendant (1) possessed a controlled substance; (2) knew he possessed a controlled substance; and (3) intended to distribute the controlled substance. United States v. Mains, 33 F.3d 1222, 1228 (10th Cir.1994).

The evidence at trial, when viewed in the light most favorable to the government, showed the following. On March 11, 1996, the defendant drove his girlfriend’s ear to the Midas Muffler Shop in Salina, Kansas to have some repair work done. Francisco Rodriguez was a passenger in the car. The defendant and his passenger had food items and drinks from Sonic Drive-In when they arrived at Midas Muffler. The car was pulled into the service area and employees of the shop began to work on it. The type of service that was being performed was under warranty, so Mark Taddiken, the manager of the shop, searched in the glove compartment for the warranty documentation. Upon opening the glove compartment, he discovered a large roll of money in a plastic sandwich bag. He was “suspicious” about the money, and he called the Salina Police Department to report what he had found. He was told they would investigate.

The police arrived shortly and talked with the defendant and his passenger. The defendant was asked for consent to search the car. He agreed and the officers found the money in the glove compartment. The roll of money contained denominations of 20’s, 50’s and 100’s, and amounted to $2,470.00. The amount of money, the denominations of the money, and the fact that it was contained in a plastic sandwich bag, were all consistent with drug activity. The defendant denied that the money belonged to him. The owner of the car was then telephoned and asked if the money belonged to her. She denied that it was hers. The money was then confiscated.

After the officers had talked with the defendant and Rodriguez for a few minutes, Taddiken came outside and stood with the defendant and one of the officers. The defendant handed Taddiken a styrofoam cup from Sonic Drive-In and told him to throw it away. Taddiken placed the cup into a trash can in the shop. The defendant and Rodriguez later left.

On the morning of March 12,1996, Taddiken received a telephone call from an anonymous female. The caller told him to look in the Sonic cup and that someone had been digging through his trash. Taddiken looked in the trash can where he had placed the cup [1388]*1388and found that it was still there. He retrieved the cup and called the police. Crack cocaine was discovered in the cup. Taddiken also observed the area around his trash dumpster and determined that it looked as if someone had been rummaging through the garbage because trash was strewn around the dumpster.

At trial, the owner of the car denied that the money found in her car on March 11, 1996 belonged to her. Rodriguez, the passenger in the car, denied that either the money or the crack cocaine belonged to him. Rodriguez also testified that after the defendant’s arrest he received a phone call from the defendant in which the defendant told him that he should claim that the crack cocaine was his because he is a juvenile.

The defendant contends that the government failed to introduce sufficient evidence to establish each element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The defendant focuses, however, on the issue of whether there was sufficient evidence of the defendant’s knowledge of the contents of the cup. This issue was the key issue in this case, and we shall focus on it as well.

A careful review of the evidence reveals that the evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew crack cocaine was in the cup. Circumstantial evidence may be sufficient for a rational jury to infer knowledge. Here, the defendant held the cup containing the crack cocaine and gave it to the manager of the Midas Muffler shop to be thrown away. In other contexts, courts have determined that knowledge can be inferred from the defendant’s possession of an object that contains controlled substances. See, e.g., United States v. Quintero-Barraza, 78 F.3d 1344, 1351 (9th Cir.1995) (“[Knowledge may be reasonably inferred where the defendant drives a car ‘laden’ with illegal substances.”), cert, denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 135, 136 L.Ed.2d 83 (1996). There was other circumstantial evidence that tended to show knowledge, including: (1) $2470.00 found in the glove compartment of car that defendant was driving; (2) expert testimony that the money was packaged in a way consistent with drug activity; (3) no one other than the defendant was seen with the cup containing the crack cocaine; (4) the trash dumpster at Midas Muffler was searched by someone on the night of March 11, 1996; (5) testimony by Rodriguez that neither the money nor the crack cocaine belonged to him; and (6) testimony by Rodriguez that Mixon sought to have him take the rap for the crack cocaine. “Although it is possible to hypothesize from circumstantial evidence that another individual may have possessed the cocaine ..., the evidence required to support a verdict need not conclusively exclude every other reasonable hypothesis and need not negate all possibilities except guilt.” United States v. Parrish, 925 F.2d 1293, 1297 (10th Cir.1991).

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Bluebook (online)
979 F. Supp. 1386, 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16896, 1997 WL 625188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-mixon-ksd-1997.