Opinion ID: 2791079
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: Richter argues that there was insufficient evidence that he possessed the firearm. We disagree.
We employ a two-step inquiry to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction. United States v. Nevils, 598 F.3d 1158, 1164 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979)). First, we review the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the prosecution. “This means that a court of appeals may not 6 UNITED STATES V. RICHTER usurp the role of the finder of fact by considering how it would have resolved the conflicts, made the inferences, or considered the evidence at trial.” Id. (citation omitted). “Rather, when faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences a reviewing court must presume-even if it does not affirmatively appear in the record-that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, “after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the reviewing court must determine whether this evidence, so viewed, is adequate to allow any rational trier of fact to find the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (citing Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319). The question is whether any rational trier of fact could have made that finding, not whether we believe that the evidence presented at trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence presented at trial showed that Richter took possession of the firearm from his father’s house on August 15, 2012 and left the house with the firearm in his hand. The probation officer found the firearm on Monday, October 22, 2012 under Richter’s bed in Richter’s locked bedroom. Richter subsequently admitted to the probation officer that he possessed the firearm. That evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict. Richter appears to argue that there was insufficient evidence because Kirschten provided an innocent explanation UNITED STATES V. RICHTER 7 for the firearm. But even an “equally plausible innocent explanation” is not sufficient to overturn a verdict. Nevils, 598 F.3d at 1169 (“At this step of Jackson, we do not construe the evidence in the light most favorable to innocence, and therefore do not consider Nevils’s argument that there is an equally plausible innocent explanation for the loaded firearms lying on and near his body.”). And, suffice it to say, Kirschten’s testimony was not equally plausible.1