State v. Pigford

• Decision Date: 22 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. 2005-K-0477.,2005-K-0477.
• Citation: 922 So.2d 517
• Parties: STATE of Louisiana v. Richard Thomas PIGFORD.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

922 So.2d 517

STATE of Louisiana v. Richard Thomas PIGFORD.

No. 2005-K-0477.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

February 22, 2006.

Charles C. Foti, Jr., Attorney General, Paul Carmouche, District Attorney, Edward M. Brossette, Sean David Miller, Tommy J. Johnson, Assistant District Attorneys, for applicant.

James Edward Beal, Jonesboro, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant was charged by bill of information with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in violation of La.R.S. 40:966(A)(1). After trial in which defendant represented himself until he fled during a recess following the state's case in chief, a jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged.¹ The court eventually reacquired defendant's presence and sentenced him to eight years imprisonment at hard labor. On appeal, the Second Circuit reversed his conviction and sentence on grounds that the state's evidence failed to prove that he had constructive possession of the marijuana found in the trailer of an 18-wheel truck he had driven from California into Louisiana where it was stopped in Caddo Parish en route to either Pennsylvania or New York. State v. Pigford, 39,306 (La.App.2d Cir.1/26/05), 892 So.2d 724. This Court granted review because we agree with the state that the court of appeal erred by substituting its view of the evidence for that of the jury and thereby revived as a basis for reversal a hypothesis of innocence advanced by defendant at trial but rationally discredited by jurors in reaching their verdict. We therefore reverse the decision below and reinstate defendant's conviction and sentence.

The evidence adduced at trial showed the following: On September 25, 2000, a computer weight monitoring system set up on Interstate 20 in Caddo Parish by state police registered an eastbound Volvo 18-wheeler 3,000 pounds over the state weight limit of 80,000 pounds. The vehicle, driven by defendant, was directed to pull over into the nearest weigh station where the truck was weighed on the stationary scales and again registered 3,000 pounds over the legal limit. Sergeant Brierre Thomas, with the Louisiana Department of Transportation, Weights and Standard Unit, and Deputy Danny Williams, a K-9 officer with the Caddo Parish Sheriff's Office, interviewed defendant. Defendant told them that he was traveling to New York; however, the bill of lading showed that he was hauling a load of grapes from Reedley, California to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Because they were concerned about the discrepancy in the destination for the load of grapes and about defendant's seemingly wayward route from California to either New York or Pennsylvania, Sergeant Thomas and Deputy Williams asked him to open the back of the trailer so they could see what he had as cargo. Defendant refused to open the trailer, telling the officers he was a member of the NAACP, and that he knew he had a right to refuse to allow the search.

Immediately after defendant refused to open the trailer, Sergeant Thomas called Peggy Adley, an agent with the Public Service Commission. Sergeant Thomas testified that he called Adley because she would need to know what was in the trailer and that she would need to check defendant's "single state registration" and insurance, and inspect his load to see if it matched his bill of lading. Officer Adley arrived and told defendant that she had the right to inspect the trailer without his consent. Defendant produced a key, unlocked the padlock, and opened the trailer's doors. At the request of Officer Adley, Officer Thomas climbed up onto the back of the trailer to inspect the load. The officer testified that as he stood up at the back of the trailer he saw in "plain view" the end of a large package sitting on top of the boxes of grapes, less than an arm's length from the back end of the load. Officer Thomas turned his head and asked defendant what the object was, and defendant indicated that he knew nothing about it. The officer then reached over the stacked boxes of grapes and pulled the package towards him. The package was wrapped in clear plastic wrap and duct tape; it measured approximately a foot wide and six-and-a-half to seven feet long. According to Adley, who stood outside at the rear of the truck, despite its size, the package was not visible from her vantage point when she looked through the opened doors of the trailer.

After Thomas removed the package, Deputy Williams cut a slit in the side and determined that the bundle contained marijuana. In all, the package contained approximately 52 pounds of marijuana possessing a street value of $52,000. Both officers testified at trial that the sheer amount of marijuana, its value, and the manner of its packaging, were all consistent with an intent to distribute. However, no fingerprints were found on the package and the officers had otherwise determined that defendant's bill of lading for his cargo was in good order.

Because defendant fled immediately after the state presented its case in chief, he did not testify at trial and did not put on a defense case of his own. Nevertheless, his defense emerged in his opening remarks to jurors and in cross-examination of the state's witnesses. Defendant urged jurors to consider that he was not off route because Interstate 20 runs to California, and he promised to produce a map to prove the point. Defendant also urged jurors to consider that no evidence would establish that he had witnessed the loading of the trailer in California. Defendant prompted Deputy Williams to admit that it was possible that someone loading the load could have placed the marijuana into the truck while he was sorting out the paperwork before leaving California with the load, and that someone else could have taken the marijuana off at the other end, and "... the defendant would never have known what he was carrying." Defendant also got Williams to admit that he did not remember if he ever asked him if he watched the truck as it was loaded. It was therefore entirely possible, defendant suggested, that persons unknown to him had concealed the marijuana in the trailer without his knowledge and far enough back from the trailer door that it was not visible to anyone standing outside, and then alerted other conspirators in New York waiting to off-load the contraband that the shipment was on its way. As for the discrepancy in the load's ultimate destination, defendant suggested that he had been transporting a "blind shipment," one intended by the broker for a destination other than the one listed on the bill of lading.

In reversing the defendant's conviction, the Second Circuit panel emphasized that Sergeant Thomas found the marijuana not in the cab of the tractor but in the trailer, on top of the truck's legal cargo of grapes and positioned out of the plain view of anyone standing, as Adley had, in the opened doors at the rear of the vehicle. On the premise that "one cannot apply private vehicle case law regarding constructive possession to drugs found in the cargo area of a common carrier involving the transportation of goods or persons," Pigford, 39,306 at 10, 892 So.2d at 730, the court of appeal reasoned that defendant's access to the cargo area did not alone indicate that he had knowledge of the contraband concealed in the trailer. In the appellate court's view, the state needed to present additional evidence demonstrating defendant's guilty knowledge "to preclude the possibility that the contraband was put there by third persons during the loading of the cargo, or evidence proving the driver's knowledge of the contraband in the cargo area." Id. The court of appeal ultimately concluded that the state's evidence did not exclude the reasonable hypothesis that persons responsible for loading the trailer placed the marijuana on top of the grapes and out of sight for unloading by other members of the conspiracy at the destination point for the truck. In addition, although the tractor was registered to defendant's wife, who was with him at the time of his arrest, the state presented no evidence at trial as to the ownership of the cargo trailer. The state's case therefore did not "preclude the possibility that the defendant may have backed his Volvo tractor up to someone else's loaded trailer, hitched the trailer to his tractor, locked the trailer doors, and driven off." Pigford, 39,306 at 13, 892 So.2d at 731.

However, the pertinent question on review was not whether the appellate court found that defendant's hypothesis of innocence offered a reasonable explanation for the evidence at trial but whether jurors acted reasonably in rejecting it as a basis for acquittal. In reviewing the sufficiency of evidence, an appellate court must determine that the evidence, whether direct or circumstantial, or a mixture of both, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, was sufficient to convince a rational trier of fact that all of the elements of the crime have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); State v. Captville, 448 So.2d 676, 678 (La.1984). This standard, now legislatively embodied in La.C.Cr.P. art. 821, does not provide the appellate court with a vehicle to substitute its own appreciation of the evidence for that of the fact-finder. State v. Robertson, 96-1048, p. 1 (La.10/4/96), 680 So.2d 1165; State v. Lubrano, 563 So.2d 847, 850 (La.1990). A reviewing court may intervene in the trier of fact's decision only to the extent necessary to guarantee due process of law. State v. Mussall, 523 So.2d 1305, 1310 (La.1988). Accordingly, in cases relying on circumstantial evidence to prove one or more elements of the crime, when the fact-finder reasonably rejects the hypothesis of innocence advanced...