Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Kern County No. BF119543A, Clarence Westra, Jr., Judge.
Steven S. Lubliner, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Lloyd G. Carter and William K. Kim, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
Before Wiseman, Acting P.J., Levy, J., and Hill, J.
A jury convicted appellant, David Paul Yost, of possession of methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)) and transportation of methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, 11379, subd. (a)). On October 18, 2007, the court placed Yost on Proposition 36 probation for three years.
All further statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code.
On appeal, Yost contends the evidence is insufficient to sustain this conviction for transportation of methamphetamine, and 2) the court committed instructional error. We will affirm.
FACTS
On March 29, 2007, at approximately 1:00 a.m., Kern County Sheriff’s Deputy Vidal Contreras stopped a vehicle driven by Yost because it had a headlight out. After determining that Yost had an active arrest warrant, Contreras had Yost step out of the vehicle and handcuffed him. He searched Yost and found a small plastic bindle containing methamphetamine in the right front cargo pocket of Yost’s shorts.
During the defense case, Yost testified that he was heading back home from a supermarket when he was stopped by Deputy Contreras.
Contreras placed Yost in the backseat of his patrol car and began filling out a field arrest data sheet. After Yost complained that his shoulder hurt and requested to stretch his legs, Contreras placed him on the curb in front of the patrol car while he continued to fill out the sheet. Contreras noticed that Yost kept reaching into his waistband with his hands which were handcuffed behind him. He completed the arrest sheet, stood Yost up and noticed a second bindle in the gutter that matched the one he retrieved from Yost’s pocket. He subsequently recovered a third bindle from the gutter. The methamphetamine in the three bindles weighed a total of .47 grams.
DISCUSSION
The Sufficiency of the Evidence Issue
Section 11379 provides, in pertinent part:
“[E]very person who transports, imports into this state, sells, furnishes, administers, or gives away, or offers to transport, import into this state, sell, furnish, administer, or give away, or attempts to import into this state or transport any controlled substance ... shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a period of two, three, or four years.” (§ 11379, subd. (a).)
“‘Transport,’ as used in this statute, has no technical definition. ‘Transportation of a controlled substance is established by carrying or conveying a usable quantity of a controlled substance with knowledge of its presence and illegal character.’ [Citation.] ‘To transport means to carry or convey from one place to another.’ [Citation.] ‘The crux of the crime of transporting is movement of the contraband from one place to another.’ [Citation.] The term ‘transports’ as used in the statute is ‘commonly understood and of a plain, nontechnical meaning.’ [Citation.]” (People v. LaCross (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 182, 185.)
Here, the evidence that Yost was stopped as he drove a car while in possession of three bindles of methamphetamine is sufficient to sustain his conviction for transportation of methamphetamine. (Cf. People v. Emmal (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 1313, 1318 [defendant convicted of transportation of methamphetamine based on evidence that showed only that he drove 20 feet through a parking lot while in possession of methamphetamine].) Nevertheless, Yost contends the evidence is insufficient to sustain his transportation conviction because the prosecution did not present any evidence that: 1) he was delivering the drugs from one person to another as part of a distribution chain; and 2) he took the drugs from one specific place with the specific intent of taking them to another specific place. We will reject these contentions.
It is clear from LaCross that transportation of methamphetamine does not require a specific intent to move the drug from one location to another. Further, in People v. Rogers (1971) 5 Cal.3d 129, the court analyzed a statute that prohibited the transportation of marijuana and rejected the defendant’s contention that transportation requires “a specific intent to transport contraband for the purpose of sale or distribution.” (Id. at p. 134.) In accord with Rogers, we reject Yost’s contention that the evidence is insufficient to support his transportation conviction because it failed to show he transported the bindles of methamphetamine as part of a distribution chain.
The Court did not Commit Instructional Error
The court instructed the jury that in order to prove the crime of transportation of methamphetamine the prosecutor had to prove: “One, a person transported methamphetamine a controlled substance; two, that person knew of its presence and nature as a controlled substance.”
Yost contends the court erred by its failure to instruct the jury that he was not guilty of transporting a controlled substance “unless he took the drugs from one place with the specific intent of delivering or taking them to another place for an unlawful purpose.” Notwithstanding his failure to request such an instruction, Yost contends he may raise this issue because the failure to instruct the jury in this language affected his substantial rights. We need not decide whether Yost waived this issue because there is clearly no merit to this contention.
“A trial court must instruct the jury, even without a request, on all general principles of law that are ‘“closely and openly connected to the facts and that are necessary for the jury’s understanding of the case.” [Citation.] In addition, “a defendant has a right to an instruction that pinpoints the theory of the defense.”’ [Citation.] The court may, however, ‘properly refuse an instruction offered by the defendant if it incorrectly states the law, is argumentative, duplicative, or potentially confusing [citation], or if it is not supported by substantial evidence.’ [Citation.]” (People v. Hovartwer (2008) 44 Cal.4th 983, 1021, italics added.)
As discussed in the previous section, transportation of methamphetamine does not require a specific intent to deliver or take the methamphetamine to “another” location for an unlawful purpose. Since a jury instruction to this effect would have misstated the law, the court did not err by its failure to so instruct the jury. Accordingly, we reject Yost’s claim of instructional error.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.