People v. Good

Opinion

DIBIASO, J.

A jury found defendant Larry Dean Good guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11379.6), possession of methamphetamine for sale (Health & Saf. Code, § 11378), and conspiracy to manufacture and/or possess methamphetamine for sale (Pen. Code, § 182). The jury also found to be true the information’s three special allegations.

Probation was denied and defendant was sentenced to a 12-year, 8-month state prison term.

Facts

On June 10, 1987, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department received a citizen’s complaint of an odor of ether around his residence in Bodfish. Dispatched to the scene at approximately 8:40 p.m., Deputy Jeffrey Swartz spoke to the citizen, smelled the odor, and concluded there was a possible clandestine drug lab operating in the area.

At approximately 11 p.m., after the area was cordoned off for the public’s safety, Swartz and another officer went to the front door of a house at 28 Clara Drive. Standing on the front porch was a woman later identified as Renita Harvison Schmidt. Swartz asked who she was and what was going on. The woman did not reply.

The officer walked up to the front door; he smelled ether. After drawing his service revolver, Swartz knocked on the front door, which was already partially open. The knocking pushed the door further open and the officer saw defendant and another man, later identified as Charles Moran, sitting at a kitchen table approximately 20 feet away.

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On the kitchen table were a triple beam scale, some tin foil, plastic ziploc baggies, and a white powdery substance. Defendant was holding a spatula and making a chopping motion with it in the white powdery substance, later determined to contain methamphetamine. There were approximately 13 grams of methamphetamine on the table. Also discovered in the kitchen were four plastic baggies containing a total of four hundred and thirteen grams of methamphetamine and a cutting agent.

After defendant and Moran were detained, Swartz and others walked out to a garage or shed area behind the house. In the garage they found a five-gallon can labeled “ether,” a one-gallon can labeled “ether,” a one-gallon can labeled “alcohol,” and a one-gallon can labeled “acetone.” A round flask which contained a boiling liquid rested atop an electric burner. Defendant’s fingerprints were found on the round flask, as well as on two beakers located in the same vicinity of the garage as the round flask.