F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
MAY 10 2004
PUBLISH
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 03-3161
ROBERTO COTA-MEZA,
Defendant - Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. NO. 02-CR-10176-01-MLB)
Kurt P. Kerns, Ariagno, Kerns, Mank & White, LLC, Wichita, Kansas, for
Defendant -Appellant.
Matt Treaster, Assistant United States Attorney (Eric F. Melgren, United States
Attorney, with him on the brief), Wichita, Kansas, for Plaintiff - Appellee.
Before MURPHY, ANDERSON, and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.
MURPHY, Circuit Judge.
I. INTRODUCTION
Defendant-appellant Roberto Cota-Meza was pulled over for a traffic
violation. Upon return of his documents by the officer and being told that he was
free to go, Cota-Meza consented to a search of the vehicle. The search revealed
18.8 kilograms of cocaine stowed in a hidden compartment under the front seats
of the vehicle. Cota-Meza denied any knowledge of the cocaine.
Cota-Meza was charged with one count of possession with the intent to
distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1)
and 18 U.S.C. § 2. No fingerprints were found on the cocaine packages, and no
fingerprint analysis was conducted on the minivan. As a consequence, fingerprint
evidence was not available at trial.
The government did not videotape Cota-Meza’s interrogations. Cota-
Meza’s interview with a DEA agent was audio-taped, but only the transcripts of
that interview, not the audiotape itself, were produced at trial.
Cota-Meza was convicted after a jury trial and sentenced to 151 months’
imprisonment and 5 years’ supervised release. Cota-Meza argues on appeal that
the district court abused its discretion when it gave two jury instructions. He also
argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction.
Exercising jurisdiction pursuant 28 U.S.C. § 1291, this court affirms Cota-
Meza’s conviction.
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II. BACKGROUND
Cota-Meza was traveling through Kansas on his way to Maine. He was
driving a minivan which belonged to one Mario Quintero. Cota-Meza claims that
he agreed to take the minivan to Maine at the request of Quintero, who promised
him a job as a cook in Maine or money in return.
Officer Chris Tedder spotted Cota-Meza committing a traffic infraction and
activated his lights and siren to stop Cota-Meza. Cota-Meza drove for a mile and
a half before he stopped. As Officer Tedder approached the vehicle, he noticed
Cota-Meza was “real fidgety” and rocking in his seat. Officer Tedder obtained
Cota-Meza’s driving documentation and noticed that Cota-Meza’s hand was
shaking as he provided his license. Officer Tedder asked Cota-Meza to step out
of the vehicle and gave him a warning ticket.
Officer Tedder returned Cota-Meza’s driver’s license and registration and
informed him that he was free to leave. Cota-Meza began to walk hurriedly back
to the minivan. Officer Tedder then asked Cota-Meza if there was anything
illegal in the van. Cota-Meza said, “No.” When asked specifically about illegal
drugs in the van, Cota-Meza paused, looked at the ground, and again responded
“no” in a low tone.
Cota-Meza subsequently consented to a search of the vehicle. Officer
Tedder found a hidden compartment concealing packages underneath the front
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driver’s and passenger’s seats which contained a number of bundles totaling 18.8
kilograms of highly pure cocaine. When confronted about the hidden
compartment, Cota-Meza hung his head and claimed to have no knowledge of it.
At a later interview with a DEA agent, Cota-Meza again denied knowledge of the
cocaine.
III. DISCUSSION
This court reviews a district court’s decision to give a particular jury
instruction for an abuse of discretion and considers the instructions as a whole de
novo to determine whether they accurately informed the jury of the governing law.
United States v. Soussi, 316 F.3d 1095, 1106 (10th Cir. 2002). On review, this
court merely determines whether the jury was misled by the instructions and
whether it had an understanding of the issues and its duty to resolve those issues.
United States v. Jaynes, 75 F.3d 1493, 1504 (10th Cir. 1996). If there is an
instructional error, this court then determines whether or not it is harmless.
Soussi, 316 F.3d at 1105. An instructional error is harmless unless the error had a
substantial influence on the outcome of the trial or if the court is left in grave
doubt as to its influence. Id. The conviction will stand if the error is harmless.
Id.
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1. Jury Instruction on Permissive Inference
The main issue in this case was whether Cota-Meza knew of the cocaine’s
presence in the vehicle. The challenged instruction stated:
If you find that the government has proved beyond a reasonable
doubt that defendant had sole possession of the van in which the cocaine
was found, you may, but are not required to, infer that defendant had
constructive possession of the cocaine.
This inference does not relieve the government of its obligation to
prove all of the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Cota-Meza argues that this jury instruction violated his due process rights
because it emphasized his sole possession of the vehicle to the exclusion of all the
other evidence presented in this case. Cota-Meza argues that this instruction
favored the prosecution by discouraging the jury from considering all the
evidence. Cota-Meza further claims that this instruction undermined the general
presumption of an accused’s innocence and requires a reversal of his conviction.
He urges this court to follow a Ninth Circuit case in which the court exercised its
supervisory power over the district court to declare a similar permissive inference
instruction improper. See United States v. Rubio-Villareal, 967 F.2d 294, 298,
301 (9th Cir. 1992). Assuming, without deciding, that this Court has the authority
to reverse Cota-Meza’s conviction on the basis of supervisory power, we choose
not to do so.
This court must first decide whether the presumption in the jury instruction
is permissive or mandatory. See County Court of Ulster County v. Allen, 442 U.S.
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140, 159 n.16, 160-61 (1979). The instruction in question is permissive because
it tells the jury that it may, but is not required to, draw the inference of Cota-
Meza’s knowledge of the cocaine, and that it is not required to convict the
defendant based on this inference alone. See Ulster County, 442 U.S. at 159 n.16
(instruction is permissive if it makes clear that the predicate facts do not have
conclusive force as to the truth of the permitted conclusion); United States v.
Tecumseh, 630 F.2d 749, 753 (10th Cir. 1980) (instruction telling jury that it may
infer a fact is a permissive instruction). It further states that the jury is not
required to infer constructive possession, thus leaving the jury discretion to
determine the ultimate fact of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt independent of the
inference. See Tecumseh, 630 F.2d at 754.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in choosing to give the above
permissive inference jury instruction. A permissive inference instruction is valid
if there is a rational connection between the fact that the prosecution proved and
the ultimate fact presumed, and the latter is more likely than not to flow from the
former. Ulster County, 442 U.S. at 165. We judge that likelihood not in the
abstract but as applied to the specific case in which the instruction was given.
See id. at 162-63. In this case, there was evidence indicating the owner of the
drugs would not allow the vehicle to be used by someone who had no knowledge
of the drugs: the drugs had an estimated street value of $2.6 million; the secret
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compartment was operated by the passenger window control, making it readily
discoverable by an unsuspecting passenger. Furthermore, there was evidence that
Cota-Meza received payment for driving the vehicle. On these facts, we have no
trouble concluding that the inference of Cota-Meza’s constructive possession of
the hidden drugs is more likely than not to flow from the undisputed fact of his
sole possession of the minivan. The instruction is consistent with Tenth Circuit
precedent which allows the jury to infer that the driver of a vehicle has
knowledge of contraband in the vehicle. See United States v. Levario, 877 F.2d
1483, 1485-86 (10th Cir. 1989), overruled on other grounds by Gozlon-Peretz v.
United States, 498 U.S. 395 (1991). 1
The challenged jury instruction did not impermissibly shift the burden of
proof to Cota-Meza. See Ulster County, 442 U.S. at 156-57 (permissive
instructions cannot shift the burden of proof to the defendant or lessen the burden
upon the government); Tecumseh, 630 F.2d at 754 (same). The instruction in the
instant case states that the government had to prove all the elements of the crime
1
Levario approved the inference in the context of a sufficiency of the
evidence challenge, not a permissive inference instruction. In relying on it, we do
not mean to suggest that standards governing the two contexts are the same. We
leave for another the day the question of whether an inference could be rational
enough to avoid reversal under this deferential standard but dubious enough that a
judge could not properly recommend it, even permissively, to the jury.
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beyond a reasonable doubt, including the permissive inference’s underlying fact
that the defendant was in sole possession of the minivan.
A de novo review of the jury instructions as a whole shows that they
accurately informed the jury of the governing law. In this context, the challenged
instruction neither undermines the jury’s ability to deliberate nor prevents the jury
from considering all the evidence. See Rubio-Villareal, 967 F.2d at 299 (jury
instructions must not infringe on the jury’s sole responsibility to evaluate all the
evidence presented at trial). The jury was instructed to consider the jury
instructions as a whole. The other instructions clearly stated that the government
had to prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury
was instructed to look at all the evidence presented in the case. It was also
instructed that the defendant was presumed to be innocent, and that in giving the
instructions, the court did not mean to express any view about how the jury
should decide the case.
This court cautions that the permissive instruction in question is not a
model of clarity, and this court would not have chosen to so instruct a jury.
Permissive inference instructions such as the one at bar have been roundly
criticized for encouraging the jury to convict on the basis of one damning fact
without considering all of the other evidence. See Rubio-Villareal, 967 F.2d at
298. A better instruction would have stressed that the jury was permitted to draw
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the inference only if in light of all of the other evidence, the defendant’s sole
possession of the vehicle convinced the jury beyond a reasonable doubt that he
knew of the drugs. As noted above, however, the other instructions largely
dispelled any possibility of misunderstanding. Therefore, despite this
instruction’s infirmities, the district court’s decision to use it does not constitute
an abuse of discretion in this case.
2. Jury Instruction on Law Enforcement Methods
Cota-Meza argues that Jury Instruction 24 sent a message to the jury that
“it was okay that the government didn’t fingerprint, that it didn’t get video-
recorders fixed or that [the] lost audio-tapes of Mr. Cota-Meza[’s] interview were
irrelevant.” In turn, Cota-Meza argues, Instruction 24 prevented the jury from
considering whether the government’s failure to produce such evidence led to a
reasonable doubt of his guilt. Cota-Meza claims that this instruction requires the
reversal of his conviction.
Jury Instruction 24 provided:
Evidence has been received regarding law enforcement
methods and equipment used in the investigation of this case.
Likewise, evidence has been received concerning enforcement
methods and equipment which were not used in relation to the
investigation.
You may consider this evidence for the purpose of evaluating
the weight of the evidence produced by the government and the
credibility of law enforcement personnel involved in the
investigation. However, there is no legal requirement that the
government, through its enforcement agents, must use all known or
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available crime detection methods or any particular type of
equipment in its investigations.
This instruction does not constitute an abuse of discretion. This court will
not reverse a district court’s decision to give a particular jury instruction unless
there is substantial doubt that the jury was fairly guided. United States v. Valdez,
225 F.3d 1137, 1139 (10th Cir. 2000). The challenged instruction does not
misstate the law; Cota-Meza himself acknowledges that there is no legal
requirement that law enforcement officers utilize every available investigative
method. Merely because the instruction informs the jury that the utilization of all
known investigative methods is not legally required does not prevent the jury
from concluding that a failure to employ certain investigative methods
nevertheless detracts from the credibility of the government’s evidence. The
instruction specifically notes that the jury can consider the manner in which the
investigation was conducted for the purposes of evaluating the weight of the
evidence produced by the government and the credibility of the testimony of the
law enforcement personnel involved in the investigation. Other jury instructions
further informed the jury that they were the sole judges of the credibility of
witnesses and the weight to be given to evidence.
For all these reasons, there is no substantial doubt that the jury was fairly
guided. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in giving Jury
Instruction 24.
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3. Sufficiency of the Evidence
This court reviews de novo the question of whether there is sufficient
evidence to support a conviction. Jaynes, 75 F.3d at 1498. In considering the
sufficiency of the evidence, this court looks at the evidence in the light most
favorable to the government and determines whether enough evidence was
presented at trial for a jury to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. Id.
Cota-Meza argues that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the
possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a).
He notes that the main element at issue in this case was whether he knowingly
possessed the cocaine. Cota-Meza argues that inferring such knowledge from his
sole possession of the vehicle, without more, violates the presumption of
innocence. Cota-Meza acknowledges, however, that this Court has held that it is
permissible to infer that a driver of a vehicle has knowledge of the drugs hidden
within it. See Levario, 877 F.2d at 1485-86. Cota-Meza nevertheless urges this
court to adopt the Fifth Circuit’s view that knowledgeable possession requires
circumstantial evidence that is suspicious in nature or demonstrates guilty
knowledge. See United States v. Anchondo-Sandoval, 910 F.2d 1234, 1236 (5th
Cir. 1990). Under this standard, possession of or control over a vehicle does not,
standing alone, suffice to prove guilty knowledge. See id. This court declines the
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invitation to abandon this circuit’s precedent in favor of the Fifth Circuit
approach.
Sufficient evidence was presented at trial to support Cota-Meza’s
conviction. This court has held that it is permissible to infer that the driver of a
vehicle has knowledge of the contraband found within it. Levario, 877 F.2d at
1485-86. Cota-Meza was in sole possession of the vehicle in which the cocaine
was found. Thus, the jury could reasonably infer that he had knowledge of the
cocaine. Id.
Moreover, other evidence supports the inference that Cota-Meza knowingly
possessed the cocaine with intent to distribute it. This court has repeatedly
recognized that the value of drugs can support an inference of knowledge. United
States v. Rodriguez, 192 F.3d 946, 950 (10th Cir. 1999); United States v. Pollock,
926 F.2d 1044, 1050 (10th Cir. 1991) (one million dollars worth of cocaine
supports an inference of knowledge of the contraband). The hidden compartment
of the minivan Cota-Meza was driving contained 18.8 kilograms of cocaine with a
wholesale street value in excess of $2.6 million. Such a large amount of cocaine
with a high street value supports a reasonable inference of Cota-Meza’s
knowledge of the presence of the contraband in the minivan.
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Thus, there was sufficient evidence presented at trial for a reasonable jury
to find Cota-Meza guilty of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute beyond a
reasonable doubt.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, this court affirms Cota-Meza’s conviction.
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United States v. Cota-Meza
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2004-05-10
Citations: 367 F.3d 1218
Copy CitationsCombined Opinion