Page 36 - TPA Journal January February 2025

evidence and to decide the nature of the defen- from Presidio to Odessa.
dants’ encounter with the driver. A jury is entitled • Whether, in accordance with the government’s
to give whatever weight it wishes to any part of hypothesis, this was all part of a consolidated
the evidence and to draw, or not draw, the infer- scheme involving alien smuggling and marihuana
ences that the law allows. distribution, using the defendants as handy work-
ers to lift, pack, and unpack heavy bales of mari-
In examining sufficiency, we must view the evi- huana.
dence in the light most favorable to the verdict. In • That the defendants were seemingly not the least
that regard, the jury was entitled to give any bit worried when Ramos-Hernandez suddenly dis-
amount of weight or credence vel non to, inter appeared, apparently without explanation, thus
alia, any or all of, or any combination of, the fol- abandoning them at the roadside park, on the mere
lowing, any one of which is enough to establish promise to return later.
sufficiency of the evidence: • Perhaps most importantly, Campos’s admissions
that he “possessed” and “helped with” the mari-
• That the defendants voluntarily surrounded huana and of course knew it was marihuana.
themselves with what was admittedly a controlled
substance. Campos’s en banc reply brief, referred to above,
• That they repeatedly handled and rearranged the unwittingly summarizes the likelihood that the
contraband. defendants willingly engaged in a multifaceted
• That, knowing that this was obviously a distrib- unlawful enterprise: “Campos accepted a ride with
ution scheme, they made no effort to exit the car Hernandez, someone who, having agreed to smug-
or thwart the enterprise. gle him, decided to double dip and attempt to prof-
• The substantial possibility that the initial it further by smuggling marijuana at the same
encounter with the driver was pre-arranged as part time.” At the very least, the jury was easily enti-
of some sort of illegal enterprise. tled (but not required) to draw the inference that
• The suspicious phone call under the bridge, con- these defendants unwisely cooperated in an oper-
veniently followed by the arrival of a friendly dri- ation that included alien smuggling and marihua-
ver offering a ride. na possession and distribution. It is not the proper
• Campos’s possession of two phones. role of this court, sitting in what some might call
• The lack of an explanation of how it was possi- an ivory tower with a bunch of briefs and a dry
ble for the teenage driver to load five large bun- record, to second-guess a jury that heard evidence
dles of marijuana, weighing about 280 pounds, for two days and spent three hours poring over it.
into the cramped space of a small vehicle, all by These defendants fall below the high standard
himself, in about 30 minutes including travel time required to reverse [the] verdict because, at the
(raising the natural inference that, instead, the very best, there might be questions about how [the
defendants were recruited, from the very begin- jury] weighed the evidence. That is far from
ning, to assist in loading, arranging, and unloading demonstrating that the verdict is against the great
the contraband). weight of the evidence, especially when drawing
• Whether it was plausible for the defendants to all reasonable inferences in its favor and without
believe that Ramos-Hernandez was going to trans- substituting inferences that we might regard as
port them well over 200 miles, for free, for sever- more reasonable.
al hours, to their chosen destination of Odessa and
to do so on Christmas Eve. The twelve jurors were reasonably entitled to con-
• The fact that the trip from Presidio to Van Horn sider all the evidence and to render a verdict of
was way out of the way of the defendants’ sup- guilty. Under the applicable standards of review,
posed destination, which would have been a trip the evidence amply supports that result.

36 www.texaspoliceassociation.com • (512) 458-3140 Texas Police Journal