Alex Torres v. United States

This is an appeal in forma pauperis of a three count indictment involving the possession and sale of heroin. ( 21 U.S.C. § 174 ; 26 U.S.C. § 4704 (a) and § 7237.) Appellant was convicted on three counts, and sentenced to five years, concurrently, on each. Appellant’s codefendant, Garcia, entered a plea of guilty to one count.

Two errors are alleged: first, that the appellant’s motion for new trial should have been granted because the government’s case rested “largely” on the testimony of “an informer-accomplice”; and second, that no actual or constructive possession of the heroin was established in the appealing defendant.

Garcia was not an “informer,” but an accomplice. The testimony of an accomplice does not require corroboration in the federal courts. Marcella v. United States, 285 F.2d 322 (9th Cir. 1960); Channel v. United States, 285 F.2d 217 (9th Cir. 1960).

Garcia’s testimony was corroborated by agents Saiz and Briggs-. The court specifically refers to Saiz’s corroborating testimony (R.T. 149), and his opinion of its worth and validity.

On a motion for new trial, particularly of a case tried before the court without a jury, the sound discretion of the trial judge is…