Wendy Leeann Mitchell-Vrtis v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: April 5, 2011
• Docket: 14-10-00380-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

Affirmed and Memorandum Opinion filed April 5, 2011.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

NO. 14-10-00380-CR

Wendy Leeann Mitchell-Vrtis, Appellant

v.

The State of Texas, Appellee

On Appeal from the 337th District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 1212413

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury convicted appellant Wendy LeeAnn Mitchell–Vrtis of one count of possession of one to four grams of cocaine, see Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. § 481.115(c) (West 2010), and the trial court sentenced her to eight years’ imprisonment, suspended for eight years of community supervision.  In a single issue, appellant argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to sustain her conviction.  We affirm.

Background

One night in April 2009, Harris County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Kevin Stegint observed appellant’s truck traveling with a defective headlamp and missing a front license plate.  He initiated the stop by activating his emergency lights, and appellant pulled over immediately.  He noticed that there were two passengers in the vehicle, including one in the front passenger’s seat and one in the rear on the passenger’s side.  He saw no movement inside the vehicle.  With his vehicle-mounted spotlight activated and pointed at the driver’s side of the vehicle, Deputy Stegint approached the vehicle on the driver’s side and spoke to appellant through her open window.

Because appellant’s breath had a mild odor of alcohol when she spoke, Deputy Stegint asked appellant to exit the vehicle with the intent of performing a field sobriety test.  As she exited the vehicle, however, he observed an off-white rock substance located on the bottom doorsill closer to the edge of the door than the foot pedals.  He believed the substance was crack cocaine.  At that point, he handcuffed appellant and moved her to his patrol vehicle.  The driver’s side door remained open.

Appellant consented to a search of the vehicle, which she owned, and Deputy Stegint returned to the vehicle to perform the search.  He discovered six additional rocks of crack cocaine, wrapped in clear plastic, inside a map pocket of the open door on the driver’s side of the vehicle.  A forensic chemist with the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed that the rocks contained cocaine and weighed 1.35 grams.

After arresting appellant, Deputy Stegint learned there was an outstanding warrant for one of the passengers, Morgan Williams.  After he placed Williams into custody, she had a seizure, and she was brought to a hospital.  She confessed to using cocaine and tested positive for the substance.

Standard of Review

When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the conviction and determine, based on that evidence and any reasonable inferences from it, whether any rational fact finder could have found all of the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.  Isassi v. State, 330 S.W.3d 633, 638 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010); Williams v. State, 235 S.W.3d 742, 750 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007); see also Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979).  The jury is the exclusive judge of the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony.  See Isassi, 330 S.W.3d at 638.  Further, we defer to the jury’s responsibility to fairly resolve or reconcile conflicts in the evidence.  Id.  Finally, we draw all reasonable inferences from the evidence in favor of the verdict.  Id.

Analysis

Appellant argues that the evidence is insufficient to prove that she knowingly possessed a controlled substance.  To prove unlawful possession of a controlled substance, the State must show that the accused intentionally or knowingly possessed the substance—that is, the accused knew of its existence and exercised actual care, custody, control, or management over it.  See Evans v. State, 202 S.W.3d 158, 161 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006); Poindexter v. State, 153 S.W.3d 402, 405 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).  When, as here, the controlled substance is not in the exclusive control of the defendant in the place or premise where it is found, the State must make a showing of links between the accused and the controlled substance.  Evans, 202 S.W.3d at 162 (“Mere presence at the location where drugs are found is . . . insufficient, by itself, to establish actual care, custody, or control of those drugs.”).  The term links is used “merely as a shorthand catch-phrase for a large variety of circumstantial evidence that may establish the knowing ‘possession’ or ‘control, management, or care’ of some item such as contraband.”  Id. at 161 n.9.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has identified a nonexclusive list of links.  See id. at 162 & n.12.[1]  The State need not establish all of the links.  See Moreno v. State, 195 S.W.3d 321, 326 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2006, pet ref’d) (“[T]he number of factors present is not as important as the logical force the factors have in establishing the elements of the offense.”).  Fundamentally, the goal of the analysis of links is to protect an “innocent bystander—a relative, friend, or even stranger to the actual possessor—from conviction merely because of his fortuitous proximity to someone else’s drugs.”  Evans, 202 S.W.3d at 161–62.

Five of the factors provide strong links between appellant and the controlled substance.  First, appellant owned the vehicle in which the drugs were found.  Second, the drugs in the door compartment were in a quasi-enclosed space near appellant.  Third, appellant was in close proximity to the drugs—in fact, she was the person closest to the drugs.  She had access to the driver’s side-door compartment, and Deputy Stegint did not observe movement inside the vehicle.  Fourth, the first crack rock that Deputy Stegint discovered was in plain view near appellant.  Fifth, appellant was present when the search was conducted.  Moreover, once appellant exited the vehicle, her car door remained open, and the map pocket was less accessible to the passengers than it was before the initial stop.  The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the conviction, supports the reasonable inferences that (1) no one other than appellant initially accessed the area of the first rock of cocaine before or during the stop and (2) no one other than appellant accessed the other six rocks of cocaine during the stop.

In a case similar to this one, this court upheld a conviction for possession of cocaine, finding sufficient links to the defendant.  See Bailey v. State, No. 14-96-01059-CR, 1999 WL 212067, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Apr. 8, 1999, no pet.) (not designated for publication).  The defendant in Bailey challenged his conviction for legal insufficiency when police stopped him and a passenger for a missing license plate and later observed a rock of crack cocaine in the middle of the vehicle’s floorboard in plain sight.  Id.  There, as here, the defendant was completely cooperative.  See id. at *2.  There, as here, the cocaine was on the defendant’s side of the vehicle.  Id. at *1.  There, the defendant was a co-owner of the vehicle; here, appellant was the sole owner of the vehicle.  Id.

The only distinguishing evidence in this case is the fact that Williams, a passenger, was actually under the influence of cocaine at the time of this traffic stop.  However, this evidence does not operate to exonerate appellant.  Control over the cocaine can be jointly exercised by more than one person.  McGoldrick v. State, 682 S.W.2d 573, 578 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985).  Therefore, the fact that Williams was under the influence of cocaine does not break the link established by the circumstantial evidence that appellant exercised actual care, custody, control, or management over the cocaine.  Cf. McCowan v. State, No. 01-01-00268-CR, 2002 WL 221750, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Feb. 14, 2002, pet ref’d) (holding the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction for cocaine possession by the driver of a vehicle when cocaine was discovered in the driver-side door pocket, the police officer did not see either of the two passengers try to put anything in the driver-side door pocket, and one of the passengers had cocaine on her person and was also arrested for possession).

The logical force of the evidence supports the conclusion that appellant knew of the cocaine’s existence and exercised actual care, custody, control, or management over it.  Upon consideration of the links present and those absent, we conclude that a rational jury could have found the elements of this offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

We overrule appellant’s sole issue and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                                        /s/        Sharon McCally

                                                                                    Justice

Panel consists of Justices Anderson, Seymore, and McCally.

Do Not Publish — Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

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[1] These links are as follows: (1) whether the defendant was present when a search was conducted; (2) whether the contraband was in plain view; (3) the defendant’s proximity to and accessibility of the narcotic; (4) whether the defendant was under the influence of narcotics when arrested; (5) whether the defendant possessed other contraband or narcotics when arrested; (6) whether the defendant made any incriminating statements when arrested; (7) whether the defendant made furtive gestures or attempted to flee; (8) whether there was an odor of contraband; (9) whether other contraband or drug paraphernalia were present; (10) whether the defendant owned or had the right to possess the place where the drugs were found; (11) whether the place where the drugs were found was enclosed; (12) whether the defendant was found with a large amount of cash; (13) whether the conduct of the defendant indicated a consciousness of guilt.  Evans, 202 S.W.3d at 162 n.12.