Opinion ID: 1157479
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The final issue we consider is whether the evidence is sufficient to support the jury's verdict of guilty to the crime of child abuse. In considering the sufficiency of evidence we must determine whether the prosecution's evidence, when viewed as a whole and in a light most favorable to the prosecution, is substantial and sufficient to support a conclusion by a reasonable person that the defendant is guilty of child abuse as charged beyond a reasonable doubt. E. g., People v. Bennett, 183 Colo. 125, 515 P.2d 466 (1973); accord, People v. Gomez, Colo., 632 P.2d 586 (1981); People v. Elkhatib, Colo., 632 P.2d 275 (1981). Here there was no direct evidence of the defendant's infliction of the fatal injuries on the child on April 27, 1979. However, [t]he substantial evidence test affords the same status to circumstantial evidence as to direct evidence, and an exclusively circumstantial case need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than guilt to withstand a motion for a judgment of acquittal. People v. Elkhatib, supra, Colo., 632 P.2d at 279. Expert medical testimony established that the three skull fractures and brain damage of April 27 did not occur in the manner described by the defendant to the emergency room attendants at Fort Carson Hospital. Rather, the prosecution's medical witnesses testified that these injuries were non-accidental, were probably inflicted with a blunt object, and, being separate and distinct from the injuries of March 19, were the direct cause of the child's death. Substantial evidence, albeit circumstantial, places the occurrence of these injuries during that period when the defendant was alone in the apartment with the child. Notwithstanding the efforts of the defendant's wife to repress all evidence of child abuse, the similar offense evidence demonstrates the defendant's abusive conduct toward the child on prior occasions and is circumstantially probative of his culpable mental state with respect to the offense charged. When the evidence is viewed in its totality and under the appropriate standard of review, it is sufficient to permit a reasonable person to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed felony child abuse against his child on April 27, 1979. The judgment is affirmed.