Cristobal G. Padilla v. United States

Padilla with one Gomez was convicted on count four of a narcotics indictment charging that on February 20, 1957, the two received, concealed and transported and facilitated the concealment and transportation of 25 ounces of heroin. The fifth count involved the same two defendants and charged a conspiracy involving trafficking in narcotics during the period February 4, 1957, and March 13, 1957. On count five there was also a conviction.

There is ample evidence with permissible inferences to justify conviction on both counts. (The case was tried before a district judge, the defendant having expressly waived a jury.) The arguments of Padilla here on the sufficiency of the evidence are really arguments properly addressed to him who is originally weighing the evidence. All reasonable and permissible intendments on the evidence, on appeal, are now against the defendant because he lost below.

Also, Padilla now relies heavily on that part of 21 U.S.C. § 174 reading as follows:

His projection is that because the sentence above says “jury,” he, Padilla, had no right to waive the jury: that the Congress intended that all cases like his should be tried before a jury. We doubt if the…