State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A16-1749

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Devon Maurice Goode,
Appellant.

Filed November 6, 2017
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-14-33065

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney, Jonathan P. Schmidt, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Sara L. Martin, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Smith, Tracy M., Presiding Judge; Peterson, Judge; and
Halbrooks, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Devon Goode was convicted of fifth-degree controlled-substance crime
after an officer discovered cocaine in his ca r following a traffic stop. On appeal, Goode

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argues that (1) the district court abused its discretion when it denied his motion to exclude
testimony regarding the odor of marijuana that the officer smelled when he executed the
traffic stop and (2) the eviden ce is insufficient to prove th at he knowingly possessed the
cocaine. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the marijuana-
odor evidence to provide context for the office r’s search of the vehicle, and because the
circumstantial evidence precludes any reasonable hypothesis other than Goode’s guilt, we
affirm.
FACTS
On November 3, 2014, Goode was stoppe d by a Brooklyn Park police officer
because his car’s license-plate light was out. The officer thought Goode took longer than
necessary to pull over after he activated his lights and signaled Goode to pull over. As the
officer approached the stopped car, he observed Goode, who was the sole occupant, quickly
move the upper portion of his body towards th e passenger side of the car in a manner the
officer believed was inconsistent with a person reaching for documents.
The officer smelled marijuana when Goode rolled down his window and, based on
this odor, asked Goode to step out of the car and eventually searched it. During the search,
a small plastic bag containing a substance later determined to be cocaine was found
between the far side of the front passenger seat and side door. Goode, one of two registered
owners of the car, was arrested. The bag was not tested for DNA or fingerprints.
Before trial, Goode’s attorney filed a motion in limine seek ing to exclude any
testimony regarding the odor of marijuana. The district court denied this motion,
concluding that the odor provided necessary c ontext for the search of the car. The jury

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found Goode guilty of fifth-degree controlle d-substance crime, and the district court
sentenced him to a stayed 13-month sentence.
Goode appeals.
D E C I S I O N
I. The district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling that the state could
introduce evidence that the officer smelled marijuana.
Goode challenges the district court’s decision to permit the officer’s testimony that
Goode and his car smelled of ma rijuana, contending that the evidence is irrelevant and
highly prejudicial. “Evidentiary rulings rest within the sound discre tion of the [district]
court and will not be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion. On appeal, the appellant
has the burden of establishing that the [district] court abused its discretion and that
appellant was thereby prejudiced.” State v. Amos , 658 N.W.2d 201, 203 (Minn. 2003)
(citation omitted). This court will only reverse a district court’s ruling on the admission of
evidence where the error substantially influenced the jury’s decision. State v. Yang, 774
N.W.2d 539, 554 (Minn. 2009).
Goode argues that the mariju ana-odor evidence should have been excluded as
inadmissible bad-acts evidence under Minn. R. Evid. 404(b). Under that rule, evidence of
other crimes or bad acts is inadmissible to prove the character of a person in order to show
the person acted in conformity with that character. Minn. R. Evid. 404(b); State v. Spreigl, 272 Minn. 488, 490, 139 N.W.2d 167, 169 (1965). In his motion in limine, however,
Goode did not assert an obj ection under rule 404(b) or Spreigl, and he does not now
challenge the district court’s admission of the evidence as plain error under that law. See

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State v. Guzman, 892 N.W.2d 801, 813-14 (Minn. 2017) (holding that plain-error analysis
applies when appellant’s arguments on appeal regarding admission of evidence were not
apparent from the context of the objection actua lly made at trial). But, in any event, the
state did not offer evidence of a bad act by Goode to prove his character or to prove some
other fact regarding the charged offense unde r rule 404(b). Rather, the state offered
evidence of the marijuana odor on Goode’s person and in the car as information explaining
why the officer initiated a search of the car after stopping the car for a routine traffic stop.
Nevertheless, as Goode argued in his mo tion in limine, the evidence may be
inadmissible if (1) it is it is not relevant or (2) its probative value is substantially
outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Minn. R. Evid. 401, 402, 403.
Goode argues that the mariju ana-odor evidence is not relevant because it does not
relate to any element of the charged offense of possession of cocaine, because the legality
of the search was not at issue, and because he did not put his character at issue in the trial.
See Minn. R. Evid. 404(a)(1) (permitting state to offer evidence of an accused’s character
to rebut character evidence offered by accu sed). The marijuana-odor evidence, however,
has other relevance. “[E]vidence is generally admissible to give jurors the context for an
investigation.” State v. Ali, 855 N.W.2d 235, 249 (Minn. 2014).
In State v. Griller , in which the defend ant was convicted of murder, the supreme
court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting testimony
regarding a letter sent to the police department that trigge red the investigation or the
content of police interviews with neighbors, even though the evidence contained negative
information about the defendant, because the evidence “provided the jury with the context

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necessary to explain how the investigation against [the defendant] began and why the
police were excavating [h is] backyard.” 583 N.W.2d 736, 743 (Minn. 1998). Similarly,
in State v. Czech , the supreme court affirmed admission of a tape recording of an
undercover investigation in which the defend ant referenced his invol vement in other bad
acts because this evidence showed “the cont ext of the conversation.” 343 N.W.2d 854,
856 (Minn. 1984).
Similar to these cases, here the officer’s testimony regarding the odor of marijuana
explained how the investiga tion transpired and why the search of Goode’s car was
appropriate. Absent this testimony, it may have appeared that the officer unreasonably
ordered Goode out of his car and searched it in response to a nonfunctioning license-plate
light. Thus, the officer’s te stimony “provided the jury w ith the context necessary to
explain” how the search began. Griller, 583 N.W.2d at 743.
Goode cites to State v. Strommen, 648 N.W.2d 681 (Minn. 2002), in support of his
argument that the evidence should have been excluded as irrelevant. In Strommen, the
court concluded that, in a robbery case, evidence of the defendant’s past acts of kicking in
doors and killing a person was no t relevant because it was per tinent only to showing his
accomplice’s motive, which was not relevant to determining the defendant’s guilt. 648
N.W.2d at 687. Strommen, however, did not involve the relevance of evidence introduced
to explain the context of an investigation. And, under the caselaw discussed above, the
marijuana-odor evidence is relevant to explain the officer’s expansion of the investigation
beyond the license-plate-light violation. See, e.g., Griller, 583 N.W.2d at 743.

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Goode argues that even if the marijuana-odor evidence is relevant, it should still
have been excluded under Minn. R. Evid. 403 because its prej udicial effect substantially
outweighs its probative value. Goode assert s that the officer’s testimony was highly
prejudicial because it may have motivated the jury to find him guilty of possessing cocaine
in order to punish him for his other bad acts (marijuana use and driving under the
influence). Again, Goode relies on Strommen, where the supreme court concluded that the
testimony of the defendant’s past criminal acts of kicking in doors and killing a person was
highly prejudicial and should have been excluded under rule 403. 648 N.W.2d at 687.
The marijuana-odor evidence here is not comparably prejudicial. Not only is
potential marijuana use not nearly as se rious as the violence testified to in Strommen, but
the state introduced no evidence that Go ode was under the influe nce of marijuana while
driving. In addition, the state’s use of th e evidence was limited to the narrow purpose of
explaining the officer’s search of the car. The odor evidence was referenced three times
during the trial—during opening statements, in the officer’s testimony, and during closing
arguments—and in each instance , the reference was directed at what led the officer to
initiate the search. Given these circumstances, the probative value of the evidence was not
substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Minn. R. Evid. 403; see also
Griller, 583 N.W.2d at 743; Czech, 343 N.W.2d at 856.
We conclude that the district court di d not abuse its discretion in permitting the
officer to testify regarding the marijuana odor to provide context for the investigation.
Because the court did not abuse its discretion, we need not consider whether Goode was
prejudiced by the admission of the evidence.

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II. Sufficient evidence supports Goode’s conviction of fifth-degree controlled-
substance crime.
Goode argues that the circ umstantial evidence presented at trial was insufficient to
support his conviction because the state failed to prove that he knowingly possessed the
cocaine recovered from between the passenger seat and the door of the car he was driving
and co-owned.
When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we undertake “a painstaking
analysis of the record to de termine whether the evidence, wh en viewed in the light most
favorable to the conviction, was sufficient” to support the conviction. State v. Ortega, 813
N.W.2d 86, 100 (Minn. 2012) (quotation omitted). “[W]e determine whether the legitimate
inferences drawn from the f acts in the record would re asonably support the jury’s
conclusion that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Pratt, 813
N.W.2d 868, 874 (Minn. 2012). “We give due regard to th e defendant’s presumption of
innocence and the [s]tate’s burde n of proof, and will uphold the verdict if the jury could
reasonably have found the defendant guilty.” Id.
To support a conviction of fifth-degree controlled-substance crime, the state was
required to prove that Goode unlawfully possessed one or more mixtures of cocaine. Minn.
Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(a)(1) (2014). “[T]he state must prove that [the] defendant
consciously possessed . . . the substance and that [the] defendant had actual knowledge of
the nature of the substance.” State v. Florine, 303 Minn. 103, 104, 226 N.W.2d 609, 610
(1975).

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When, as here, a controlled substance is not found on the defendant’s person, the
state must prove the defendant construc tively possessed it by showing (1) that the
controlled substance was in a place under the defendant’s exclusive control or (2) that there
is a strong probability that the defendant was, at the tim e of discovery, consciously
exercising dominion and control over the substance. Id. at 105, 226 N.W.2d at 611. In the
case of a controlled substance found in a car, if the driv er does not have exclusive
possession of the car, it cannot be automatically inferred that controlled substances found
in the car belonged to the driver. State v. Sam, 859 N.W.2d 825, 834 (Minn. App. 2015).
Knowing possession is typically proved through circumstantial evidence. State v.
Ali, 775 N.W.2d 914, 91 9 (Minn. App. 2009), review denied (Minn. Feb. 16, 2010). We
apply a two-step analysis when reviewin g a conviction supported by circumstantial
evidence. State v. Silvernail , 831 N.W.2d 594, 598 (Minn. 2013). As a first step, we
identify the circumstances pr oved, which are the circumst ances supporting the jury’s
verdict. Id. at 598-99. “The second step is to determine whether the circumstances proved
are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any rational hypothesis except that of guilt.”
State v. Moore, 846 N.W.2d 83, 88 (Minn. 2014) (q uotations omitted). If the reasonable
inferences are consistent with guilt, a defendant must point to evidence in the record that
is consistent with a rational hypothesis other than guilt. State v. Taylor, 650 N.W.2d 190,
206 (Minn. 2002).
The circumstances proved here include the following: (1) the car Goode was driving
on November 3, 2014, did not have a functioning license-p late light; (2) the officer
activated his lights to initiate a traffic stop; (3) Goode quickly signaled to move to the side

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of the road but took longer th an necessary to pull over; (4) as the officer approached the
car, Goode made a short, quick movement towards the passenger side of the car;
(4) although there were seve ral items on the ledge under th e rear window of the car,
Goode’s movement was visible through the rear window of the car; (5) based on the
officer’s experience, the movement he obser ved was too quick to be consistent with
retrieving documents; (6) Goode was the sole occupant of the car and was one of two
registered owners; (7) a single packaged rock of cocaine was found on the far side of the
passenger seat; (8) Goode is a bout six feet tall and the cocai ne was found approximately
three feet away from him; a nd (9) the cocaine was locate d on the floor between the
passenger seat and the passenger door, almost but not quite entirely under the seat.
We next consider whether these circumst ances are consistent with Goode’s guilt
and inconsistent with any rationa l hypothesis except his guilt. Silvernail, 831 N.W.2d at
599. “Circumstantial evidence must form a complete chain th at, in view of the evidence
as a whole, leads so directly to the guilt of the defendant as to exclude beyond a reasonable
doubt any reasonable inference other than guilt.” Taylor, 650 N.W.2d at 206.
Goode acknowledges that the circumstances proved lead to a reasonable inference
that he knowingly possessed and discarded the cocaine. But he argues that the
circumstances proved are also consistent w ith an alternative hypo thesis—namely, that
someone else left the cocaine in the car at so me point prior to his arrest. Goode suggests
that this could have been a co-owner, passeng er, or previous owner. He also argues that
the movements the officer observed could have been related to some other non-drug-related

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purpose, even if the jury agreed that they were inconsistent with reaching for a license or
insurance information.
In general, this court will not overturn a conviction based on circumstantial evidence
“on the basis of mere conjecture.” State v. Al-Naseer, 788 N.W.2d 469, 473 (Minn. 2010)
(quoting State v. Lahue , 585 N.W.2d 785, 789 (Minn. 1998)). Goode’ s speculation that
someone else could have left the cocaine in his car does not offer a reasonable alternative
inference based on the circumstances proved. There is no evidence in the record that
anyone else was in Goode’s car prior to his a rrest, or that another person had cocaine and
left it in the car without Goode’s knowledge.
On this record, we conclude that th e reasonable inferences drawn from the
circumstances proved are only co nsistent with Goode’s guilt. There is no evidence that
Goode had a license or insuranc e information stored in the passenger side of the car, nor
evidence of anything else that he might reasonably have been reaching for to alternatively
explain his movements. Even disregarding the officer’s testimony that Goode took longer
than necessary to pull over an d that his movements were inconsistent with retrieving
documents, the location of the cocaine, wedge d almost completely but not quite entirely
under the passenger seat, is reasonably consistent only with the inference that Goode placed
it there in a hurry, rather th an someone else purposefully hiding it, or the cocaine
accidentally falling out of another passenger’s pocket or bag. Goode’s tall height and the
distance that the cocaine was found away from him also support this inference, as do his
quick, short movements to the right side of the car as the officer approached. Because
Goode’s arguments rely solely on conjecture and there is no evidence in the record for a

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reasonable jury to infer that someone else had been in the car prior to Goode’s arrest, let
alone that they left cocaine in there with out his knowledge, the ci rcumstantial evidence
leads directly and exclusively to Goode’s guilt.
Affirmed.