Opinion ID: 1185941
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Verdict Against the Weight of the Evidence.

Text: In Amidon v. State, 565 P.2d 1248, 1262 (Alaska 1977), this court contrasted the approach a trial judge must take in considering a motion for a new trial with the approach to be taken in passing upon a motion for acquittal: Unlike its function in passing upon the motion for judgment of acquittal, the trial court, in deciding a motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence, may weigh the evidence and determine the credibility of witness. [footnotes omitted] The appropriate standard for the identical Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 is discussed in 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 553, at 487 (1969) (footnotes omitted): It has been said that on such a motion the court sits as a thirteenth juror. The motion, however, is addressed to the discretion of the court, which should be exercised with caution, and the power to grant a new trial on this ground should be invoked only in exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict. We will reverse a denial of a motion for a new trial on the ground that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence only if the ruling is shown to be an abuse of discretion. Amidon v. State, 565 P.2d 1248, 1262 (Alaska 1977). Dorman contends that this case fits in the exceptional category requiring a new trial because the evidence casts at least as much suspicion on persons such as Mary Masidonski and Sutherland's cocaine-dealing associates as it does on Dorman. But while the evidence shows that other associates of the victim behaved suspiciously following his disappearance and may have had a motive to kill him, we cannot say that the evidence considered as a whole preponderates heavily against the verdict. There was substantial incriminating physical evidence presented against Dorman and his defense rested primarily on his own and his girlfriend's testimony, which was somewhat discredited by his girlfriend's prior denial of Sutherland's visit to the house. That the physical evidence was not conclusive, and that the testimony of Mary Masidonski was also discredited by her hasty departure from the state after the victim's disappearance, does not convince us that the superior court abused its discretion in refusing to grant the motion for new trial. It is apparent that the court properly reviewed all of the evidence prior to ruling on the motion. [4]