Opinion ID: 1244705
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: sufficiency of evidence for aggravated assault

Text: Defendant claims that the State presented insufficient evidence to support his conviction of aggravated assault because the evidence did not establish that he exhibited a show of immediate force or violence. Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-102(1)(b). Because similar evidence will likely be offered at a new trial, we address this issue. In reviewing a jury verdict to determine whether it was based on sufficient evidence, we view the evidence presented and all inferences to be drawn therefrom in a light most favorable to the verdict. State v. Gardner, 789 P.2d 273, 285 (Utah 1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1090, 110 S.Ct. 1837, 108 L.Ed.2d 965 (1990). The jury, not the appellate court, should weigh the evidence and assess witness credibility. State v. Booker, 709 P.2d 342, 345 (Utah 1985). Thus, we will sustain the jury's verdict where there is any evidence or reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the evidence from which the jury could make findings of all the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. Brown was charged with aggravated assault under Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-103. Violating this section involves committing an assault, defined in Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-102 as a threat, accompanied by a show of immediate force or violence, to do bodily injury to another. (Emphasis added.) Richard Anderson, the victim of defendant's aggravated assault, testified that when he stepped from his trailer to see what was happening, the four men were beating the victim a short distance away. Defendant raised a crescent wrench in his hand, pulled it back, and said to Anderson, Do you want some of it too? Brown argues that immediacy requires close proximity and that he and Anderson were not close enough to make the act of raising the wrench a show of immediate force or violence. We tend to agree that proximity has some relevance in determining the immediacy of the threat. In this case, Anderson was walking out of a trailer in a remote fishing camp on the Great Salt Lake. Outside of his trailer, he observed four men beating a fellow employee. In this context, Brown raised a wrench and threatened Anderson. Although the transcript is unclear regarding the exact distance between Brown and Anderson, we are persuaded that in light of the surrounding circumstances, the jury could have found, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Brown's threat was accompanied by a show of immediate force or violence, to do bodily injury to another. Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-102(1)(b).