Chambers v. State, 63422
| Decision Date | 25 June 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 63422,63422 |
| Citation | 162 Ga.App. 722,293 S.E.2d 20 |
| Parties | CHAMBERS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Larkin M. Fowler, Jr., Moultrie, for appellant.
H. Lamar Cole, Dist. Atty., Valdosta, James B. Thagard, Asst. Dist. Atty., Moultrie, for appellee.
Appellant appeals from his conviction of possession of methaqualone in violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act.
1. Appellant enumerates as error the denial of his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal. Police officers received information that marijuana and quaaludes were being sold out of a yellow Toyota, Georgia license CDM-746, in the parking lot of a restaurant. When the officers arrived, appellant was approaching the described car. When asked, appellant told the officers that the locked car was his. In a search of the car, the legality of which is not contested on appeal, marijuana and a quaalude were discovered. The quaalude was in a medicine bottle on the console of the car. The medicine bottle bore appellant's name. At the scene and at trial, appellant acknowledged that he had purchased the marijuana from an individual named "Snake" MacDonald, appellant's regular marijuana supplier and known to appellant also to sell quaaludes. With regard to the presence of the quaalude in the vehicle, however, the evidence is in conflict. The officers testified that appellant explained the presence of the quaalude in the medicine bottle in his vehicle by stating to them that Snake had wanted to leave "something" in the car and that appellant had told Snake to put "it" in the empty bottle on the console. At trial, appellant denied having any knowledge of the presence of the quaalude in his car and denied having offered the officers any explanation whatsoever for the drug's presence in the medicine bottle on the console.
Williams v. State, 129 Ga.App. 103, 106, 198 S.E.2d 683 (1973). Watson v. State, 93 Ga.App. 368, 91 S.E.2d 832 (1956). Appellant testified that several other named individuals had been in his car during the week prior to and on the morning of the day he was arrested. The asserted erroneous denial of the motion for a directed verdict of acquittal is premised upon this testimony, which appellant, citing Farmer v. State, 152 Ga.App. 792, 264 S.E.2d 235 (1979), urges precluded any inference or presumption that he had possession of the quaalude from arising merely because it was discovered in his automobile. "[W]here an accused presents any competent evidence that others have had equal access to the vehicle where contraband material is found, it cannot be inferred as a matter of fact, giving rise to a presumption of law, that based solely upon ownership or operation he or she was in actual or constructive possession of the contraband." Farmer, 152 Ga.App. at 796, 264 S.E.2d 235, supra.
In the instant case, unlike Farmer and Davis v. State, 146 Ga.App. 629, 247 S.E.2d 210 (1978), the vehicle was owned by appellant and was in his immediate and exclusive control at the time the drug was discovered. Also, again unlike Farmer and Davis, the contraband was not merely discovered in an openly accessible part of the vehicle itself but in a medicine bottle bearing appellant's name, the ownership of which bottle appellant admitted. See generally Castleberry v. State, 152 Ga.App. 769, 770, 264 S.E.2d 239 (1979) (). Moreover, unlike Farmer and Davis, although not uncontroverted, there was evidence that appellant knew that "something" was contained in the medicine bottle. See Moore v. State, 155 Ga.App. 149, 152, 270 S.E.2d 339 (1980). While appellant testified...
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Castillo v. State, s. 65437
...to the contraband are alleged to have been in joint constructive possession of that contraband. See generally Chambers v. State, 162 Ga.App. 722(1), 293 S.E.2d 20 (1982); Battle v. State, 160 Ga.App. 111(1), 286 S.E.2d (1981); Patterson v. State, 159 Ga.App. 290, 293, 283 S.E.2d 294 (1981);......
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Dixon v. Com., No. 2003-SC-0876-MR.
...is the owner of what is contained therein and this inference has been referred to as a rebuttable presumption. Chambers v. State, 162 Ga.App. 722, 293 S.E.2d 20, 21 (1982) (internal quotations and citations We reject Appellant's contention that the concept of constructive possession applies......
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Taylor v. State
...defendant's conviction and did not demand an acquittal. See Ledesma v. State, 251 Ga. 487, 306 S.E.2d 629, supra; Chambers v. State, 162 Ga.App. 722(1), 723, 293 S.E.2d 20. See generally Nixon v. State, 139 Ga.App. 48, 228 S.E.2d 21; Tamez v. State, 148 Ga.App. 307, 308(1), 251 S.E.2d 159. ......
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