Opinion ID: 2498898
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: [¶ 24] As her second issue, Ms. Remmick asserts that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's guilty verdict on any of the charges. When reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence claim in a criminal case, we must determine whether a rational trier of fact could find the essential elements of the crime were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. We do not consider conflicting evidence presented by the unsuccessful party, and afford every favorable inference which may be reasonably and fairly drawn from the successful party's evidence. We have consistently held that it is the jury's responsibility to resolve conflicts in the evidence. We will not substitute our judgment for that of the jury [and] our only duty is to determine whether a quorum of reasonable and rational individuals would, or even could, have come to the same result as the jury actually did. Breazeale v. State, 2011 WY 10, ¶ 13, 245 P.3d 834, 839 (Wyo.2011), quoting Masias v. State, 2010 WY 81, ¶ 8, 233 P.3d 944, 947 (Wyo.2010). [¶ 25] Ms. Remmick was convicted of six counts of receiving stolen property. At the time of the incidents giving rise to her prosecution, the applicable statute provided: (a) A person who buys, receives, conceals or disposes of property which he knows, believes or has reasonable cause to believe was obtained in violation of law is guilty of: (i) A felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than ten (10) years, a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00), or both, if the value of the property is five hundred dollars ($500.00) or more[.] Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-3-403(a)(i) (LexisNexis 2003). [3] Ms. Remmick concedes that the evidence was sufficient to prove that Ms. Jacobsen obtained money from Fox Park in violation of law, and that Ms. Jacobsen transferred some of that money to Ms. Remmick. She contends, however, that there was insufficient evidence that she knew, believed, or had reasonable cause to believe that the money she received from her mother was obtained illegally. [¶ 26] Ms. Remmick is correct that there was no direct evidence of her actual or imputed knowledge. However, we have previously observed that proof of guilty knowledge, like proof of intent, is rarely capable of establishment by direct evidence, [and, therefore] circumstantial evidenceindependent facts from which an inference of the ultimate fact to be established may rationally be drawn in light of common experiencemost often is the only manner of proof available. Russell v. State, 583 P.2d 690, 700 (Wyo. 1978). Accordingly, Guilty knowledge may be established by direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, or by both types of evidence. Tageant v. State, 673 P.2d 651, 654 (Wyo.1983). [¶ 27] There was evidence that Ms. Remmick received money from Fox Park bank accounts when there was no reason for Fox Park to pay her any money. Ms. Remmick had never been employed by Fox Park, and there was no evidence that she had ever furnished goods or services to Fox Park. Yet five of the checks Ms. Remmick received were written on Fox Park bank accounts. The fact that Ms. Remmick received illegally obtained money that she had no reason to receive was sufficient to allow the jury to infer that she had reason to believe that the money was obtained in violation of law. [¶ 28] Two of the checks Ms. Remmick received were written on her mother's personal account. The timing and amounts of these two checks corresponded closely with deposits into that account of money Ms. Jacobsen had obtained illegally from Fox Park. For example, on December 6, 2002, Ms. Jacobsen wrote a check for $2,600.00 from the unauthorized Fox Park account to her accounting business. She deposited that check in her personal account, raising the balance from $1,714.50 to $4,314.50. That same day, she wrote a check from her personal account to Ms. Remmick for $2,000.00. As the prosecution pointed out, this check would have been returned for insufficient funds if Ms. Jacobsen had not made the deposit of the money obtained from Fox Park. The prosecution also presented evidence that Ms. Remmick was an authorized signatory on Ms. Jacobsen's personal bank account, that she had written a check to herself from that account, and that she had deposited a check into that account. Based on this evidence, the prosecution contended that Ms. Remmick had some knowledge of the deposits into and debits from Ms. Jacobsen's personal bank account, and in turn, some knowledge of the illegal source of those funds. The State admits that this evidence is not a smoking gun that, by itself, establishes Ms. Remmick's guilt. However, it forms a sufficient basis from which a jury could reasonably infer that Ms. Remmick knew or had reason to believe that the money she received from her mother had been obtained in violation of law. We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support her convictions on the charges of receiving stolen property. [¶ 29] Ms. Remmick was also convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit larceny by a bailee. The statute governing conspiracy provides that A person is guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime if he agrees with one (1) or more persons that they or one (1) or more of them will commit a crime and one (1) or more of them does an overt act to effect the objective of the agreement. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-1-303(a). Ms. Remmick admits that there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that Ms. Jacobsen had done overt acts to effect larceny by a bailee, and that some of the money illegally obtained was given to Ms. Remmick. She contends, though, that there was a complete lack of evidence that she had entered into any agreement with her mother to commit any crime. [¶ 30] For a conspiracy conviction to be sustained, the evidence must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the parties to the conspiracy voluntarily agreed to commit an offense. Martinez v. State, 943 P.2d 1178, 1183 (Wyo.1997). In Smith v. State, 902 P.2d 1271 (Wyo. 1995), we considered what type of agreement was necessary for a conspiracy to exist. One might suppose that the agreement necessary for conspiracy is essentially like the agreement or `meeting of the minds' which is critical to a contract, but this is not the case. Although there continues to exist some uncertainty as to the precise meaning of the word in the context of conspiracy, it is clear that the definition in this setting is somewhat more lax than elsewhere. A mere tacit understanding will suffice, and there need not be any written statement or even a speaking of words which expressly communicates agreement.... Because most conspiracies are clandestine in nature, the prosec[u]tion is seldom able to present direct evidence of the agreement. Courts have been sympathetic to this problem, and it is thus well established that the prosecution may `rely on inferences drawn from the course of conduct of the alleged conspirators.' 902 P.2d at 1281-82 (quoting WAYNE R. LAFAVE & AUSTIN W. SCOTT, JR., CRIMINAL LAW at 460-61 (1972)). Martinez, 943 P.2d at 1183. [¶ 31] The conspiracy charge considered by the jury in Count V alleged that Ms. Remmick and her mother had conspired, over a period of time from June 15, 2002 to June 26, 2003, to commit the crime of larceny by bailee against Fox Park. This time period began with the date of the first check Ms. Remmick had received from the Fox Park account, the check that formed the basis of Count I against Ms. Remmick. It included the dates of the other checks that formed the bases for Counts II, III, IV, VI, and VII against Ms. Remmick. It ended on the date that the State alleged Ms. Remmick had used the unauthorized Fox Park charge account that her mother had opened at the auto parts store. The evidence relating to the conspiracy charge included all of the evidence relating to the remaining six counts. [¶ 32] In addition, evidence was presented in Ms. Remmick's trial that her mother opened a charge account in Fox Park's name at an auto parts store, and included Ms. Remmick as a signatory on the account. The account was not authorized by the Fox Park Board, and two of the directors testified that they were not aware of its existence. Not only was Ms. Remmick aware of the unauthorized charge account, but further, she used it. It is reasonable to infer that she could not have done so without an agreement with her mother, at least the tacit sort of agreement necessary to sustain a conspiracy charge. When we afford to the State the favorable inferences that may reasonably be drawn from the evidence, we conclude that there was sufficient evidence for a jury to find that there was an agreement between Ms. Remmick and Ms. Jacobsen, and on that basis to convict Ms. Remmick of conspiracy to commit larceny by a bailee. [¶ 33] Affirmed.