AFTER deliberating for less than two hours on Tuesday, a jury found Joseph Torres White not guilty of two counts of trafficking a controlled substance.
Assistant Public Defender Tyler Scott who represented White said, “The jury fairly viewed…the lack of evidence in this case. I am happy that my client was rightly exonerated.”
He added, “There were nine Drug Enforcement Task Force officers involved in the case, supposedly doing surveillance on my client — none of them actually observed my client doing anything. They never saw him at all.”
He also thanked the jurors for their service.
For his part, Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds said, “The evidence is the evidence. We put the decision to the jury and in this case the decision was that the evidence was not enough. We respect the jury’s decision and will move on.”
Among the witnesses for the prosecution were Drug Enforcement Task Force or DETF officers, a Guam lab technician, and a confidential informant.
The prosecution rested its case against White on Tuesday at around 3 p.m.
The defense also rested its case on the same day without calling a witness.
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho presided over the two-day trial which started on Jan. 23, 2023, and was the first jury trial of the new year.
According to the prosecution, White sold methamphetamine to a confidential informant on two occasions.
In his closing argument, Hinds said, “It is illegal to sell methamphetamine or ice in any amount to others. That is what this case is about. That is why he was arrested. The defendant sold drugs to a confidential source on July 13, and July 14 of 2022.”
Hinds added, “Drug dealers know who the drug users are, and will only sell to drug users. That is why in an operation a confidential source has to be someone known [to the drug dealer], it cannot just be anyone. Not just anyone can be a confidential informant.”
Hinds said, “We heard from the confidential informant herself — she explained how she bought meth from Joseph White on July 13 and 14. On both occasions the confidential informant stated that she gave White money in exchange for meth. She identified the defendant as the one who sold her the meth.”
He said in the July 13th audio recording played in the court, “You can clearly hear her talking to the defendant about the ‘smokes.’ ”
In the July 14th audio recording, Hinds said, “You can clearly hear the informant communicating with the DETF, and the defendant saying that he will get the smokes and come back.”
Regarding the informant’s husband being with her on the 13th, Hinds said, “They were running errands and [she] does not remember if he was there. She wouldn’t be the first wife or the last wife to forget that her husband was there. But everything else that she testifies to was accurate and reliable, and again collaborated by audio recordings, and text messages that was submitted into evidence.”
Scott, in his closing argument, said, “To put it nicely, the police work in this case was lazy. To put it not so nicely, it was incredibly incompetent, and completely devoid of a single shred of substantiated proof to support the Commonwealth’s case.”
He added, “We have no video. We heard testimony from DETF officers, with years of experience, and they testify that there was no video surveillance or photos. Multiple surveillance teams, nine officers were involved in this operation [but] we only heard from a few of them. Multiple vehicles established a perimeter in this supposedly pre-arranged location, [and] somehow, nine trained investigators, experts in surveillance, cannot identify my client. Not on July 13, nor July 14.”
“No one saw my client in his vehicle,” Scott said.
According to the criminal complaint against White, DETF officers learned from a cooperating source or C.O. on July 12 that the C.O. had purchased $100 worth of “ice” from him on July 11.
DETF officers then launched two controlled buy-walk operations against White, the first on July 13 and the second on July 14.
In the first buy-walk operation, the C.O. bought meth from White in Garapan on the afternoon of July 13. DETF officers then acquired from the C.O. one small Ziplock bag containing a crystalline substance that was later tested and yielded presumptive positive for methamphetamine.
The second buy-walk operation was conducted on July 14 with the informer purchasing $100 worth of methamphetamine from White in San Jose.
After the operation, DETF officers showed a photo of White to the informer who confirmed that the informer purchased meth from the person in the photo who is also known as “Dimps.”
Joseph White and a family member leave the courtroom on Tuesday.
Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds
Chief Public Defender Douglas Hartig, right, and Assistant Public Defender Tyler Scott.
