People v. Hayes CA1/1

Filed 10/30/14 P. v. Hayes CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A140374 v. JOSHUA JUSTICE HAYES, (Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CR1302478) Defendant and Appellant.

Joshua Justice Hayes appeals his conviction for possessing a controlled substance in a penal institution.1 He argues there is insufficient evidence to support his conviction. We disagree and affirm. I. FACTS The incident giving rise to Hayes’s conviction took place on June 4, 2013, at the Humboldt County Correctional Facility where Hayes was an inmate. Sherriff’s Deputy John Craig testified that he was looking through a window and saw Hayes sitting on the floor of the recreation yard. Deputy Craig was about 70 feet away from Hayes, and Hayes was about 10 feet away from a group of inmates playing basketball. Hayes had his back to the wall and was fiddling with something in his lap. Deputy Craig entered the yard to investigate. As he approached, Hayes placed something behind his back. Deputy Craig instructed Hayes to stand up, and Hayes complied but asked, “What?” Deputy Craig noticed a crumpled piece of paper behind 1 The charge was brought under Penal Code section 4573.6.

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Hayes. No other debris was in the area. Deputy Craig believed that the paper was a page out of a jail bible, and he knew these pages were sometimes used by inmates to roll, light, and smoke “whatever they have.” Deputy Craig found a substance in the paper about the size of a pencil eraser. He believed it was marijuana based on the smell and “look of it.” He testified that he was familiar with marijuana because he had seen it in the jail and at parties when he was younger. Together, the paper and substance weighed about 0.2 grams. Deputy Craig believed that this amount of marijuana was enough to be smoked, but he was unsure if it would have an intoxicating effect. Hayes was taken to the processing unit to be strip searched. A deputy who was working in the unit at the time testified that Hayes removed a small BIC lighter from his waistband and handed it to another guard who was assigned to perform the search. The lighter was not entered into evidence, and no other items were revealed by the search. No chemical analysis of the substance was performed, and neither it nor a photograph of it was presented to the jury. Hayes was charged and convicted on a single count of possessing an unauthorized controlled substance in a penal institution. II. DISCUSSION To convict a defendant of possessing an unauthorized controlled substance in a penal institution, the following elements must be shown: (1) the defendant possessed a controlled substance; (2) the defendant knew of the presence of the controlled substance; (3) the defendant knew of its nature as a controlled substance; (4) there was a sufficient amount of the substance to be usable; and (5) the defendant was in jail or under the custody of prison officials. (Pen. Code, § 4573.6; People v. George (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 262, 277.) Hayes admits that he was in jail at the time of the incident, but he contends there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s findings that the other elements were satisfied.