People v. MacArthur
| Decision Date | 24 June 1954 |
| Docket Number | Cr. 3011 |
| Citation | 126 Cal.App.2d 232,271 P.2d 914 |
| Parties | PEOPLE v. MacARTHUR et al. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
Benjamin F. Marlowe, Oakland, for appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., Clarence A. Linn, Asst. Atty. Gen., Victor Griffith, Deputy Atty. Gen., J. F. Coakley, Dist. Atty. of Alameda County, Robert H. McCreary, Asst. Dist. Atty., Oakland, for respondent.
Roy E. MacArthur and Racquel Gatica were charged with two violations of section 11500 of the Health and Safety Code, the first count charging the unlawful possession of heroin on April 22, 1953, and the second, the unlawful possession of marihuana on the same date. The defendants were tried together. MacArthur, the sole appellant, was found guilty on the heroin count and not guilty on the marihuana count. He appeals from the judgment of conviction, and from the order denying his motion for a new trial. The basic question presented is whether there is any substantial evidence to support the finding that appellant possessed the heroin as charged in count one. Appellant also challenges the admissibility of certain evidence.
On April 22, 1953, and for some time prior thereto, MacArthur and Racquel Gatica were and had been living together in an apartment in Oakland. About noon of that day a group of city and state enforcement officers, in the company of MacArthur, who earlier that same day had been arrested for the sale to a state narcotic officer of a large quantity of heroin, entered the apartment. Racquel was then present. The enforcement officers conducted a search, and found in the kitchen on a shelf, a small locked vanity box. Racquel admitted then and on the trial that the box was hers. The key to the box was found on a table in the living room of the apartment. When opened, it was found that the box contained, among other things, a rubber finger stall containing a white powder later determined to be 5 1/2 grains of heroin, an eye dropper, two hypodermic needles, several used and unused matches, some Kleenex stained with what appeared to be blood, a bent discolored spoon, and some fine wires. All this paraphernalia was identified as articles customarily employed by users to inject heroin. Racquel then and at the trial denied all knowledge of these articles, professing complete ignorance as to how they got into her vanity box. It is the possession of this heroin that forms the charge upon which MacArthur was convicted. At the trial he denied knowledge of the contents of the box, and denied that he ever had possession of, or ever exercised any control over, the box, or its contents.
There were several other articles in the box, including a necktie that MacArthur admitted at the trial was 'probably' his. A necktie is frequently employed by a narcotic user to tie the arm while administering the heroin by means of a hypodermic needle. Although when the box was first opened by the officers the necktie and the other articles were removed therefrom and then replaced, no other narcotic was then discovered. But several days later in the state narcotic laboratory in San Francisco, the box having been in police custody in the interim, when the necktie was lifted out of the box one marihuana cigarette fell out of the tie. It is the possession of this marihuana cigarette that formed the basis of the second count of the information of which MacArthur was acquitted.
The prosecution at the trial, over objection, was permitted to produce evidence that on the morning of April 22, 1953, MacArthur had completed a sale of some 950 grains of heroin, in 4 rubber finger stalls similar to the one found in the vanity box, to a narcotic officer, and was immediately arrested. Full details of that transaction were offered by the prosecution, and admitted over defense objections. MacArthur was charged, tried and convicted in a separate proceeding for his activities in connection with that sale. The judgment has been affirmed. People v. MacArthur, 125 Cal.App.2d ----, 270 P.2d 37. It was immediately after this arrest that MacArthur was taken to his apartment and the search was made that resulted in the discovery of the heroin and the user-equipment found in the vanity box.
During this search, and before the vanity box had been discovered, one of the officers had the following conversation with MacArthur: 'I asked him if there was any more stuff around the house and he said, 'No,' that there wasn't, that 'unless there may be something left around for her use,' referring to Miss Gatica. * * *
Racquel, at the apartment, when booked at the police station, and at the trial, denied that she had ever used narcotics. However, at the apartment, and at the police station, a physical examination disclosed four or five puncture marks along the line of a vein in her left arm. She claimed that they were fleabites. At the trial one of the arresting officers testified that at the time of the search she appeared to be under the influence of narcotics, and several officers testified that the equipment found in the vanity box was moist, as if recently used.
The charge upon which MacArthur was convicted was 'possession' of heroin. His main contention is that the evidence does not support the finding of the jury that he was possessed of the heroin found in the vanity box.
The evidence shows the following facts:
1. The heroin was found on premises jointly occupied by MacArthur and Racquel. While the heroin was in a locked vanity box owned by Racquel, the key to that box was in plain sight on the top of a table in the living room.
2. Just a few minutes before the heroin was found in MacArthur's apartment, MacArthur was in possession of a large quantity of heroin.
3. The rubber container in which the heroin in the vanity box was found, was similar to the four rubber containers of heroin sold by MacArthur to narcotic officers earlier that same day.
4. A necktie that MacArthur admitted was 'probably' his was found in the...
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