People v. Blinks

ASHBURN, J.

Convicted of possession of heroin (Health & Saf. Code, § 11500), defendant’s appeal rests upon the claim that the evidence is insufficient to show physical possession or control or that appellant knew of the existence of the heroin.

Police officers knocked on the door of a room of a hotel at 333 East Fourth Street, Los Angeles. In response to an inquiry they called out “police officers.” In a few seconds the door was opened by a person known as Brown. As they entered the officers observed a curtain moving and the appellant’s foot, clad in a tan sock, going out the window. Officer Leete went out the window in hot pursuit and saw appellant standing in the light well, 6 or 7 feet from the window. He found a package containing four bindles lying near appellant’s feet and close to a small drain in the center of the light well. Appellant denied knowing anything about the bindles, but he admitted using narcotics and stated he was “shooting two half papers” a day. He said he went out the window to avoid being arrested for “marks.” A search of the room was made and an eyedropper and finger stall were found. The contents of the four bindles proved to be heroin.

The light well of the hotel is four-sided and two floors high. Each of the eight rooms facing it has two windows upon it. Appellant’s contention is that anyone could have thrown the bindles into the light well and that no logical deduction can be made from the facts leading to a conclusion that appellant had physical possession or control of the bindles of heroin at any time or that he knew of their existence. Thus he rests his case upon the possibility that some unknown third person was guilty of the offense in question, which possibility he presents as outweighing the probabilities emanating from the

[266]

circumstances immediately surrounding his own apprehension. But a mere possibility affords no evidence whatever.

(People

v.

Williams,

151 Cal.App.2d 173,179 [311 P.2d 117].) “Mere conjecture, surmise, or suspicion is not the equivalent of reasonable inference and does not constitute proof.”