Opinion ID: 2392384
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 1. The evidence adduced at trial showed the following. In the spring of 2004, Bryant was recently paroled, unemployed, and involved in drugs. On May 21, 2004, a really broke Bryant got a ride to Kilgore's home, ostensibly for the purpose of earning some money by assisting Kilgore, who was 68 years old and suffering from various health problems that affected his mobility. After Bryant accompanied Kilgore while he ran some errands, the two men returned to Kilgore's home. Then Bryant got into another of Kilgore's automobiles and waited while Kilgore went into his home. A teenager doing chores for Kilgore saw Kilgore take approximately $2,200 and a .44-magnum revolver from his safe. When Kilgore came out of his home, he was accompanied by Richards, whom Bryant had never met. Richards and Kilgore got into the automobile with Bryant, and they left Kilgore's residence with Kilgore driving. The following day, teenagers discovered Kilgore's body in the brush after noticing his automobile in a ditch off the roadway, almost completely hidden among kudzu vines. After the teens called 911, police discovered Richards' body, also in the brush. Kilgore's pockets were turned inside out. A few coins were found on the ground near his body, but neither his wallet nor any cash was ever found. As a result of their investigation, police arrested Bryant on May 24, 2004, in North Carolina, where he had fled after the shooting. The State presented testimony showing that, at approximately 5:00 p.m. on the day of the murders, Bryant called his girlfriend and his sister to pick him up from the crime scene and that, when they did so, a bloody Bryant said that he had had a fight with Kilgore and that he had shot [Kilgore] and a girl that was there. Evidence also showed that Bryant purchased a hotel room and a weed pipe and went clubbing in Buckhead on the night following the murders, although he had no money before the crimes. An acquaintance of Bryant testified that on the morning after the murders he drove Bryant to a dumpster, where Bryant disposed of a purse, and that Bryant told him that there was a gun inside the purse. The acquaintance led police to the dumpster, where police recovered Richards' purse with Kilgore's revolver inside. Bryant testified that he and the victims were en route to complete a drug deal when he and Kilgore argued, that Kilgore drove 30 to 50 feet down an abandoned, kudzu-covered driveway, and that he then turned around in his seat and pulled a gun on Bryant, who was sitting in the rear passenger seat behind Richards. Bryant claimed that he acted in self-defense after taking the gun from Kilgore, that he was in the rear seat area pushing against the headrest of the front passenger seat when he shot Kilgore in the head, and that he was coming out of the automobile when he shot Richards in the back and in the head. However, the State's ballistics expert, Kelly Fite, testified that the bullet that killed Kilgore and one of the bullets that struck Richards could not have been fired from inside the backseat of the automobile but were fired, instead, from the passenger side of the vehicle probably outside the front door or right at the door. An inmate testified that, while incarcerated with Bryant, Bryant told him that he shot Richards once in the back or side and once in the back of the head because she was a liability, she could identify him. Also while incarcerated, Bryant wrote letters to his girlfriend attempting to persuade her to say that she was in the automobile at the time of the murders and that Bryant shot Kilgore after Kilgore shot Richards, and he wrote to family members asking their help in persuading his girlfriend to lie for him. We find that the evidence, construed most favorably to the jury's verdicts, was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Bryant guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Unified Appeal Procedure IV(B)(2) (providing that, in all death penalty cases, this Court shall determine whether the verdicts are supported by the evidence).