People v. Lawson

DRAPEAU, J.

Two police officers in a patrol car came up behind defendant Emery Charles Newsom’s car. It was dark, in the early morning hours after midnight. The officers threw their red light upon defendant and he pulled over to the curb. He had a passenger riding in the front seat with him, Ben R. Lawson, Jr.

The two men got out of their car. The officers searched it and found 19 marijuana cigarettes on the floor board behind the front seat.

The officers arrested the men, took them to jail, and charged them with possession of the narcotic. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11500.)

Lawson, the passenger, first told the officers that he knew nothing about the marijuana cigarettes. Then, in the presence of Newsom he said that just before the arrest Newsom said to him, “Try to take this dope and get rid of it. . . . You take the ‘beef,’ because you will only get just about 90 days, and I have been arrested for narcotics before.” This Lawson said he told Newsom he would not do.

Trial by jury was waived, and the issues on the pleas of not guilty by both defendants were submitted to the trial judge. On the trial Lawson testified to the request made of him by his codefendant, and to his refusal to take the responsibility for the marijuana. The trial court found Lawson not guilty; Newsom guilty.

Newsom appeals from the judgment which followed, and from an order denying his motion for a new trial.

Newsom testified in his own behalf that he did not know where the marijuana came from, and that he had had nothing whatsoever to do with it. In many interviews with police officers he maintained that he 'knew nothing about the cigarettes.

On the evening in question Newsom had been at the Samba night club in Los Angeles. While there, for $2.00 he agreed to take two friends of his, a man and wife, to their home in

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Compton. Just before leaving the night club he invited Lawson to go along, “for the ride.”

On the way to Compton the man drove Newsom’s ear, and his wife rode with him on the front seat. Newsom and Lawson rode in the back seat. When the party reached their destination the man and his wife got out of the car, Newsom and Lawson got into the front seat, Newsom driving, and started back to Los Angeles.