Gеorge Watson Jackson was convicted of unlawful possession of diazepam, a controlled substance, and he appeals.
1. In his first enumeration of error, appellant contends the trial court erred by denying his motions for a directed verdict of acquittal оr for a new trial because the State failed to offer any evidence in response to appellant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained in a search of his trailer home pursuant to a no-knock warrant, and thus failed to carry its burden of proving the vаlidity of the search warrant. This enumeration is without merit. Where no additional testimony was furnished, the facts recited in the affidavit itself are determinative of the question of whether probable cause existed for the issuance of a warrant.
Lewis v. State,
2. We turn therefore to the question of whether the affidavit was insufficient to support the issuance of a warrant, as appellant contends. The record reveals the warrant was issued by a magistrate pursuant to the affidavit of Investigator Brown of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, who related informatiоn received from three sources that appellant and others were dealing in Quaaludes and *835 other controlled substances. The first source was a confidential informant whom Brown had known for more than six months, and who had provided reliable information on at least two prior occasions. This informant told Brown of overhearing conversations between appellant and Jimmy Smallwood on at least three occasions, in which they discussed selling illegal drugs, including Quaaludes, “crystal meth,” and marijuana. He told Brown where both appellant and Smallwood lived, and related that he had seen marijuana in the home and car of Smallwood, and that appellant had warned him that he would be harmed if he mentioned the drug business.
The second source was a confidential informant who had given reliable information to the FBI in the past that had led to the seizure of illegal drugs on at least three occasions. This informant corroborated the first informant’s information about where appellant and Smallwood lived, and told Brown that he had personally had conversations with appellant, Smallwood, and a third person which indicated involvement by those three people in the distribution of Quaaludes, crystal meth, and marijuana. He also advised Brown that these conversations led him to believe the three men were to receive a shipment of Quaalude tаblets by Friday, July 18, 1986.
The third source was Captain A. J. Mathern of the Warner Robins Police Department. Captain Mathern told Brown that he had received information from two sources known by him to be reliable that appellant and others living near him were the source of Quaalude tаblets in the Warner Robins area.
In addition, Brown obtained other corroborating information. He confirmed the addresses of appellant and Smallwood by checking with Captain Bohannon of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department, owner of the trailer park where both аppellant and Smallwood lived. On July 21, 1986, a confidential informant advised FBI agent Twibell that appellant had told him the Quaalude tablets would be arriving the following weekend. That informant contacted Brown on July 26, 1986, and stated that appellant and Smallwood had told him the Quaaludes wеre in, and that they were going to spread them out to avoid detection.
In
Illinois v. Gates,
Here, affiant Brown had information from three different sources that appellant and others were dealing in Quaaludes and other drugs. These sources, and several others, corroborated each other. “ ‘ “A magistrate’s determination of probable cause should be paid great deference by reviewing courts.” [Cit.] And, in cases where the demonstration of probable cause in a warrant is doubtful or marginal, “the resolution . . . should be largely determined by the preference to be accorded to warrants.” [Cits.]’ [Cit.]”
State v. Morrow,
3. Appellant contends the trial court erred by denying his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal at the conclusion of the State’s evidencе and by admitting the State’s Exhibit 1 into evidence because the chain of custody was not adequately established, and the contents of the exhibit were different in description and number from that documented on the return of service.
On July 27, 1986, law enforcement officers from the Monroе County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, accompanied by a game warden, executed a no-knock search warrant on the trailer occupied by appellant and his wife. Deputy Keith Corley searched the closet in the bedroom where appellant and his wife had been sleeping, and found a paper bag on a shelf. Corley looked in the bag, and handed it to Jimmy Griffin, the game warden, who had witnessed the discovery of the bag. Griffin took the bag into the kitchen and prepared an inventory of its contents. He listed the contents of thе bag as being two plastic bags, one containing 100 white tablets marked Lemon 214 and the other containing 61 white tablets marked Lemon 214.
*837 The paper bag and its contents were introduced at trial as State’s Exhibit 1. Griffin testified at trial that S-l was the same bag he had received from Corley, and that there was no other bag of pills with which it could have gotten mixed up. He had control of the bag until he left the trailer, and left the bag with Investigators Mack Brown and Pete Jones of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department. Jones signed the inventory which had been prepared by Griffin. Asked at trial by counsel for appellant to read the number on the tablets, Jones first thought it was 712, but then agreed it was 714. Brown testified that he took S-l to the crime lab in Macon and turned it over to Shawn Davis of the crime lab. Davis testified that she had received S-1 from Brown and found it to contain two plastic bags, one containing 100 white tablets marked Lemon 714 and the other containing 50 tablets marked Lemon 714. She testified that tablets marked Lemon 714 had been produced by the Lemon Company in the early 1980’s under the trade name Quaalude, but that those tablets had been removed from the market in 1983 because of abuse, and that she knew the tablets in S-l were not the original Quaalude tablets manufactured by Lemon because the “4” in the “714” stamped on the tablets she examined was different from that in the original Lemon-produced tablets. Davis further testifiеd that she had tested the tablets, and determined they contained diazepam, a tranquilizer similar to but stronger than Valium.
Asked about the discrepancy in both the markings on the tablets . and the number of tablets inventoried, Griffin testified that he had no prior familiarity with the marking Lemon 714, and that obviously, hе had made a mistake both in reading the marking wrong and in miscounting the number of pills.
“The burden the State must carry to gain admission of such evidence ... is to show with reasonable certainty that the evidence is the same as that [seized] and that there has been no tampering or substitution. [Cits.] The circumstances need only establish reasonable assurance of the identity of the evidence. [Cits.]”
Tyson v. State,
We find thаt the chain of custody was adequately accounted for. The discrepancies noted would go to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. “The weight of the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses are questions for the factfinder. [Cits.]”
Patterson v. State,
4. Appellant maintains the trial court erred by denying his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal at the close of all the evidence because appellant denied any knowledge of the presence of any illegal substance in his home, and nothing in the record shows appellant had actual or constructive possession of State’s Exhibit 1. We do not agree.
Contrary to appellant’s argument that no evidence showed he had knowledge of the contraband or the power or intention to control it, and that it could have been the property of someone else in the household, the contraband was found in the closet of his bedroom and consequently he had at least joint constructive possession of the contraband, along with his wife, who was also arrested and indicted. Further, there was testimony from the law enforcement officers that appellant appeared to be under the influence of something, but that they detected no odor of аlcohol. The jury thus had the task of evaluating the materially conflicting testimony. “We cannot say which evidence the jury believed and which evidence the jury rejected, nor will we now substitute our judgment because we did not have the opportunity to hear the witnesses and observe their demeanor. [Cits.] The verdict evinces that the jury chose to disbelieve the material parts of [appellant’s] testimony .... [Cits.] We must view the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict and, in doing so, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to exclude evеry
reasonable
hypothesis save [appellant’s] guilt and that any rational trier of fact could have found [appellant] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. [Cits.]”
Castillo v. State,
5. Appellant finally alleges the trial court erred by charging the jury that it could not consider the guilt or innocence of his wife in determining his guilt or innocence, and by failing to charge the jury as to equal access as requested. Appellant argues that although normally the guilt or innocence of another party may not be considered by the jury, in this case the trial court deprived appellant of his dеfense of equal access by charging the jury they could not consider the guilt or innocence of his wife. Because appellant and his wife were indicted jointly, we find no merit in this enumeration, since “[t]he ‘equal access’ rule is not nearly as broad as [appellant] sought to apply it at trial or as [he] now would have us apply it. . . . The rule,
*839
conceptually and historically, has no application where, as here, all persons allegedly having equal access to the contraband are alleged to have been in joint cоnstructive possession of that contraband. [Cits.]”
Castillo,
supra at 821-822 (2). Further, the trial court did charge the jury that if they determined from the evidence “that persons other than [appellant] had equal opportunity to possess or place the articles of contraband upоn the described premises, then in that event, [they] should acquit [appellant] unless it be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that [appellant] knowingly possessed the contraband or shared possession or control with another person and aided and abetted or рrocured the other in possessing and having under his control contraband.” We find that this did not deprive appellant of any “equal access” defense except as to his wife, to whom the rule would not apply. Accordingly, we find no error in the trial court’s failure to charge the jury in the exact language requested by appellant.
Daniels v. State,
Judgment affirmed.