Opinion ID: 2092607
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Sweany's sufficiency challenge on appeal is consistent with his defense at trial  that there was reasonable doubt because of the possibility that Cil's wounds were self-inflicted. The thrust of this argument is directed at the State's experts, doctors McDonald and Whitler. McDonald was the attending physician in the emergency room who pronounced Cil Sweany dead. Whitler was a pathologist who offered his expert opinion that while nothing is impossible, suicide was not a reasonable explanation. In his opinion, Cil would have been so weakened by the initial penetration of the knife that it is not reasonable to contemplate her continuing to thrust a knife through her chest, cartilage and ribs and into her heart. McDonald supported Whitler's testimony, saying that a person could not penetrate her own heart more than once due to the excruciating amount of pain such a wound would cause. McDonald also described a gaping wound, indicative of numerous thrusts and twists of the knife. The prosecutor asked McDonald to describe the amount of force needed to cause such injuries. McDonald replied by characterizing it as a great deal of force, adding that it would knock the wind out of a person punched that hard. Whitler described the victim's wounds in greater detail. The depth of the wound was four-and-three-quarters inches. One cut followed an L-shaped path, crossing through the fifth rib and cutting part of the fourth. There were multiple penetrations to the sac around the heart, and ten lacerations to the heart itself. Two stabs went through both the front chamber of the heart and the chamber that separates the two lower chambers of the heart. There were five large incisions through the anterior wall of the heart. Of the ten lacerations to the heart, all but one pierced at least one wall. Sweany posits that the doctors' opinions should be accorded little probative force because, in his estimation, they are based on a hypothesis that only a wound which pierced multiple chambers of the heart would have incapacitated Cil. This hypothesis, Sweany argues, is without foundation, because there was an eight-in-ten chance that the first wound was not one of the two that went through two chambers. The record does not confirm that the doctors' expert opinions were based on such a hypothesis. Even if it were so, we will affirm the conviction if, considering only the probative evidence and reasonable inferences supporting the verdict, without weighing evidence or assessing witness credibility, a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Menefee v. State (1987), Ind., 514 N.E.2d 1057, 1058. The expert testimony that Cil Sweany did not kill herself, together with the defendant's violent behavior toward his wife before the crime, his incredible version of events, and his statement to the medical technician that he was sorry and he didn't mean to was enough to enable a reasonable trier of fact to conclude that Bo Sweany was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.