Taylor v. State

• Decision Date: 01 September 1996
• Docket Number: No. 101,101
• Citation: 697 A.2d 462,346 Md. 452
• Parties: Richard Jamison TAYLOR v. STATE of Maryland. ,
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 452

346 Md. 452

697 A.2d 462

Richard Jamison TAYLOR v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 101, Sept. Term, 1996.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 29, 1997.

Mark Colvin, Assistant Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for Petitioner.

Celia Anderson Davis, Assistant Attorney General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, on brief), Baltimore, for Respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, KARWACKI, RAKER and WILNER, JJ.

RAKER, Judge.

Petitioner, Richard Jamison Taylor, was convicted of possession of marijuana in violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, § 287. ¹ He argues that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. We agree and therefore shall reverse.

We shall set forth the evidence in some detail as our holding is based on the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction. Petitioner was charged with possession of marijuana. A co-defendant, Kristopher Klein, was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia. They were jointly tried in the Circuit Court for Worcester County in a bench trial. Klein was acquitted. ²

The charges arose from the following incident. On the morning of June 10, 1995, Petitioner, along with four friends, rented a room at the Days Inn Motel in Ocean City, Maryland. On that morning, Ocean City Police Officer Bernal and another officer went to the motel in response to a complaint about a possible controlled dangerous substance violation. The manager told the officers that the problem was in Room 306, the room occupied by Petitioner and four other people. The two officers and the manager went to the room, where they smelled marijuana coming from the room. While the officers were standing outside of the door, two of the occupants of Room 306 arrived, Kristopher Klein and a juvenile named Brandy. ³ At Officer Bernal's direction, Klein knocked on the door to the room and Chris Myers, one of the occupants, admitted them. Officer Bernal asked if marijuana was being smoked in the room and Myers said no. The officer then requested permission to search for "dope;" Myers told him that he could search, but he would not find anything. When they entered the room, Taylor was lying on the floor with his head turned away from the door. Officer Bernal testified that he could not tell whether Taylor was asleep or awake. In addition to Taylor and Myers, the officers also found Jessica, another juvenile female, in the room. ⁴ There were clouds of smoke in the room that smelled like marijuana.

Officer Bernal told Myers that he intended to search the room thoroughly, and again asked if there was any marijuana in the room. Myers walked over to a carrying bag, pulled out a baggie of marijuana, and told the officer that it was his marijuana. Officer Bernal asked Myers if that was all the marijuana in the room, and Myers told him yes. Myers was then arrested.

Officer Bernal then began to search the room. Contrary to his prior statement that there was no more marijuana in the room, Myers told Officer Bernal that there was also marijuana located in a multi-colored bag, and Officer Bernal found another baggie of marijuana in the multi-colored bag. Inside Klein's wallet, which was secreted in another bag that did not belong to Petitioner, the officers also found rolling papers.

Officer Bernal then asked everyone in the room if they were smoking marijuana. He testified that Petitioner and the other occupants told him that friends who were not staying in the room had come by earlier and had smoked marijuana in their presence. ⁵ Although Officer Bernal smelled a strong odor of marijuana in the room, he did not see anyone smoking marijuana, the ashtrays were clean, and no marijuana was visible.

Petitioner was charged with possession of marijuana in violation of § 287. The trial court found that Petitioner was in close proximity to the marijuana; that, because people were smoking marijuana in Petitioner's presence, Petitioner "knew" there was marijuana in the room; that, because he was on the premises asleep or pretending to be asleep, he had some possessory right in the premises; and that the circumstances were sufficient to draw a reasonable inference that Petitioner was participating with others in the mutual enjoyment of the contraband. Accordingly, the trial court found Petitioner guilty and sentenced him to fifteen days in the Worcester County jail, all suspended, with two years probation and a fine.

Petitioner appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, contending that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed in an unreported opinion. That court held that Petitioner not only knew of both the presence and illicit nature of the marijuana, but that "the discovery of marijuana in Myers's bags allowed for the inference that appellant knew of and had shared that supply when he was sharing the room with ... Myers." The court further concluded that "appellant's presence in a room where marijuana had recently been smoked leads to the inference that appellant had himself smoked marijuana." We granted Taylor's petition for writ of certiorari challenging the sufficiency of the evidence.

In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a criminal conviction, it is the duty of this Court to determine "whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L.Ed.2d 560, 573 (1979); State v. Albrecht, 336 Md. 475, 479, 649 A.2d 336, 337-38 (1994); Dawson v. State, 329 Md. 275, 281, 619 A.2d 111, 114 (1993). We do not measure the weight of the evidence; rather, our concern is only whether the verdict was supported by sufficient evidence, direct or circumstantial, which could fairly convince a trier of fact of the defendant's guilt of the offenses charged beyond a reasonable doubt. Albrecht, 336 Md. at 478-79, 649 A.2d at 337. The judgment of the circuit court will not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, with due regard given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge the credibility of the witnesses. Md. Rule 8-131(c); Albrecht, 336 Md. at 478, 649 A.2d at 337; West v. State, 312 Md. 197, 207, 539 A.2d 231, 235-36 (1988).

Petitioner was convicted of possession of marijuana in violation of § 287. Possession is defined in § 277 as "the exercise of actual or constructive dominion or control over a thing by one or more persons." "Control" of a controlled dangerous substance has been defined as the exercise of a "restraining or directing influence over" the thing allegedly possessed. See Garrison v. State, 272 Md. 123, 142, 321 A.2d 767, 777 (1974); BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 329 (6th ed. 1990) ("To exercise restraining or directing influence over"). Possession may be constructive or actual, exclusive or joint. See State v. Leach, 296 Md. 591, 595, 463 A.2d 872, 874 (1983). Whether the possession is actual or constructive, exclusive or joint, the "evidence must show directly or support a rational inference that the accused did in fact exercise some dominion or control over the prohibited ... drug in the sense contemplated by the statute, i.e., that [the accused] exercised some restraining or directing influence over it." Garrison, 272 Md. at 142, 321 A.2d at 777.

The State's case against Petitioner for possession of a controlled dangerous substance rested on circumstantial evidence of joint and constructive possession. A conviction can rest on circumstantial evidence alone. A conviction resting on circumstantial evidence alone, however, cannot be sustained on proof amounting only to strong suspicion or mere probability. See Wilson v. State, 319 Md. 530, 535-36, 573 A.2d 831, 834 (1990). Circumstantial evidence may support a conviction if the circumstances, taken together, do not require the trier of fact to resort to speculation or conjecture, but

[c]ircumstantial evidence which merely arouses suspicion or leaves room for conjecture is obviously insufficient. It must do more than raise the possibility or even the probability of guilt. [I]t must ... afford the basis for an inference of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

1 UNDERHILL, CRIMINAL EVIDENCE § 17, at 29 (6th ed. 1973). If upon all of the evidence, the defendant's guilt is left to conjecture or surmise, and has no solid factual foundation, there can be no conviction. Commonwealth v. White, 422 Mass. 487, 663 N.E.2d 834, 840 (1996); see also WHARTON, WHARTON'S CRIMINAL EVIDENCE § 12, at 21-22 (14th ed. 1985). In this regard, this Court has held that when the evidence equally supports two versions of events, and a finding of guilt requires speculation as to which of the two versions is correct, a conviction cannot be sustained. Hebron v. State, 331 Md. 219, 234, 627 A.2d 1029, 1036 (1993); West, 312 Md. at 211, 539 A.2d at 237-38. This, of course, does not preclude a conviction based on a credibility determination emanating from disputed evidence.

We agree with Taylor that, under the facts of this case, any finding that he was in possession of the marijuana could be based on no more than speculation or conjecture. The State conceded at trial that no marijuana or paraphernalia was found on Petitioner or in his personal belongings, nor did the officers observe Petitioner or any of the other occupants of the hotel room smoking marijuana. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, Officer Bernal's testimony established only that Taylor was present in a room where marijuana had been smoked recently, that he was aware that it had been smoked, and that Taylor was in proximity to contraband that was concealed in a container belonging to another.

The record is clear that Petitioner was not in exclusive possession of the premises, and that the contraband...