State v. White

• Decision Date: 16 April 1991
• Docket Number: No. C4-90-1430,C4-90-1430
• Citation: 468 N.W.2d 556
• Parties: STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Eddie WHITE, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

Page 556

468 N.W.2d 556

STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Eddie WHITE, Appellant.

No. C4-90-1430.

Court of Appeals of Minnesota.

April 16, 1991.

Review Granted July 1, 1991.

Syllabus by the Court

1. An instruction permitting the inference of knowing possession of narcotics from their presence in appellant's car did not violate appellant's due process rights.

2. The warrantless search of appellant's car could not be justified as a limited search for identification, because no such exception to the warrant requirement has been established in Minnesota.

3. The search of appellant's car was not a valid search incident to arrest, because the car was not in his immediate surrounding area when he was arrested and he was never arrested for the offenses which the state seeks to use to justify the search.

4. Where the prosecution presented no evidence to support the argument that items seized in a search were admissible under the inevitable discovery rule, this court must remand for hearing on the application of that rule to the facts of the case.

Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Atty., Donna J. Wolfson, Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Lawrence W. Pry, Asst. Public Defender, St. Paul, for appellant.

Considered and decided by FORSBERG, P.J., and PARKER and AMUNDSON, JJ.

OPINION

PARKER, Judge.

A jury found appellant Eddie White guilty of possessing more than ten grams of cocaine in violation of Minn.Stat. Sec. 152.023, subd. 2(2) (Supp.1989). White contends his conviction must be reversed because the trial court, in the instructions, permitted the jury to infer knowing possession from the presence of cocaine in his car, and the court admitted into evidence items seized in an unconstitutional search of the car. We reverse and remand for evidentiary hearing on whether police would have discovered the evidence, inevitably, without the unconstitutional search.

FACTS

On November 2, 1989, in north Minneapolis, White made a left turn without signaling while driving a car with no license plates. Officer Spector of the Minneapolis Police Department followed, intending to make a traffic stop, but before he could do so White had already stopped his car and started walking away.

Spector testified that he called White and ordered him to stop three times before White returned to the car. Spector asked him for identification. White said he did not have a driver's license because Illinois police had taken it, but he had a traffic citation with his name. White took a traffic citation from the car's visor and told Spector his name was Jamal Whitted, which was also the name on the ticket. He pointed to a temporary permit on the car's rear window which showed that Eddie White owned the car. He told Spector that Eddie White was his cousin.

Spector testified that he told White to sit in the back of the police car and ran an identification check on Jamal Whitted which showed that Whitted had a valid driver's license. Spector asked White his middle name and White said it was Lorenzo. Spector asked him to spell it; White answered, "L-e-n-r-e-z-o." Spector asked him to spell it again and White answered, "L-e-r-n-z-o."

Spector testified that he went to the car to find further identification. When he entered it he noticed an unzipped duffel bag on the passenger seat and a wad of money and a plastic tube containing white powder protruding from the bag. Spector returned to the police car and told White he was under arrest for possession of narcotics. As Spector opened the back door of the police car to retrieve his jacket from the back seat, White kicked the door and struggled to get out. Spector radioed for assistance. White managed to escape and run past several houses, but then slipped and fell. Spector ordered him to remain on the ground and held him at gunpoint until other officers arrived.

White testified that he was attempting to return the duffel bag to its owner when Spector stopped him and that he and three relatives had come from Chicago to visit his uncle in Minneapolis. While they were at his uncle's home on November 1, 1989, they met a man named Joseph Daniels and his friend, "Shane." The six men spent the evening together and all stayed in a hotel room that White and his relatives rented. Shane brought the duffel bag later found in White's car, and the bag remained unopened all evening. When they left the hotel, White dropped off Shane and then Daniels, and then he and his relatives returned to his uncle's home. White then saw Shane's duffel bag in the car so he went to return it. Several of White's relatives testified and corroborated his testimony to this point.

White testified that he had just gotten out of his car to walk up to the house where he had left Shane when Spector called to him. He immediately responded. Spector asked his name and he answered "Eddie White." Spector searched him for identification. White told Spector that his driver's license had been taken in Illinois, and he showed Spector the car's registration permit. Spector saw the traffic citations for Jamal Whitted and asked White to spell Whitted's middle name. White spelled it incorrectly. Spector placed White in the police car and searched his car. When he returned he told White to get out of the car for handcuffing. Spector closed the door on White's leg, started to choke him and ordered him to lie on the ground, threatening to kill him.

When the other officers arrived, they handcuffed White and searched his car. The duffel bag on the front seat contained more than $3,000 in cash and 25 grams of cocaine. One officer asked White if the duffel bag was his and White said it was. Police also found a second duffel bag in the trunk which did not contain drugs. White testified that he meant the duffel bag in the trunk was his, not the duffel bag on the passenger seat.

At the Rasmussen hearing White moved to suppress the cocaine and currency seized from his car. The trial court denied the motion. The court instructed the jury, over white's objection:

The presence of a controlled substance, here cocaine, in a passenger automobile permits the Jury to infer knowing possession of the controlled substance by the driver of the automobile when the controlled substance was in an automobile. You are to be clear, however, that this is only a permissible inference, which you are free to accept or reject based upon the evidence in the case. It remains the duty and the burden of the State to prove each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no requirement on the defendant to prove his innocence.

ISSUES

1. Did the trial court instruction permitting the jury to infer knowing possession of narcotics from their presence in White's car violate his due process rights?

2. Is evidence discovered in a limited warrantless search for identification admissible?

3. Was the search of White's car a valid search incident to arrest?

4. Were the items seized from White's car admissible under the inevitable discovery rule?

ANALYSIS

I

"Trial courts have broad discretion in determining the propriety of a specific jury instruction." Johnson v. State, 421 N.W.2d 327, 330 (Minn.App.1988), pet. for rev. denied (Minn. May 4, 1988). This court will not reverse a conviction on the basis of an erroneous jury instruction unless consideration of the instructions as a whole reveals an abuse of discretion. See State v. Daniels, 361 N.W.2d 819, 831-32 (Minn.1985); State v. Shatto, 285 N.W.2d 492, 493 (Minn.1979).

The trial court based the instruction permitting the jury to infer possession on Minn.Stat. Sec. 152.028, subd. 2 (Supp.1989), which provides:

The presence of a controlled substance in a passenger automobile permits the factfinder to infer knowing possession of the controlled substance by the driver or person in control of the automobile when the controlled substance was in the automobile.

The statute, and the trial court's instruction, provide a permissive inference, not a presumption. See State v. Olson, 466 N.W.2d 44 (Minn.App. Feb. 19, 1991). The validity of an inference permitted by statute depends upon whether the factfinder's responsibility to find the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt has been undermined. County Court of Ulster v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 156-60, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2224-26, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979). A permissive inference is unconstitutional "only if, under the facts of the case, there is no rational way the trier could make the connection permitted by the inference." Id. at 157, 99 S.Ct. at 2225, quoted in State v. LaForge, 347 N.W.2d 247, 252 (Minn.1984). When reviewing a permissive inference, the United States Supreme Court "has required the party challenging it to demonstrate its invalidity as applied to him." County Court of Ulster, 442 U.S. at 157, 99 S.Ct. at 2224.

White argues that the statutory inference in this case is irrational because he testified that the duffel bag belonged to someone else, he had not seen it unzipped, and several witnesses corroborated this testimony. White admits that he was alone in the car with the duffel bag which contained cocaine and $3,000 in cash on the passenger seat when Spector saw him driving the car. White admits that he told the police the duffel bag was his, although he testified that he meant the duffel bag in the trunk was his.

White has not demonstrated that the inference is irrational in this case; on the contrary, even if his testimony were accepted, it follows reasonably from the facts presented. The trial court properly cautioned the jury on use of the inference and the burden of proof. The trial court's instruction was not erroneous. See Olson, 466 N.W.2d at 48.

II

White argues that the cocaine and cash should not have been admitted into evidence, because police found those items in an unconstitutional search of his car. This court accepts the trial court's findings of...