Opinion ID: 779999
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Analyzing the Government's Evidence in its Totality

Text: 46 We now consider whether, viewing the evidence in its totality and in the light most favorable to the Government,  any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. The jury found Parker guilty of violating 21 U.S.C. § 848(e)(1)(A), which provides as follows: 47 [A]ny person engaging in or working in furtherance of a continuing criminal enterprise, or any person engaging in an offense punishable under section 841(b)(1)(A) of this title or section 960(b)(1) of this title who intentionally kills or counsels, commands, induces, procures, or causes the intentional killing of an individual and such killing results, shall be sentenced to any term of imprisonment, which shall not be less than 20 years, and which may be up to life imprisonment, or may be sentenced to death. 48 21 U.S.C. § 848(e)(1)(A) (2000). In turn, § 841(b)(1)(A), as relevant here, criminalizes possession with intent to distribute and distribution of fifty or more grams of a substance or mixture containing cocaine base. Id. The Government satisfied its burden of proof in regard to certain elements of a § 848(e)(1)(A) conviction by proving that Lewis had been intentionally killed. Additionally, if Parker killed Lewis, the § 841(b)(1)(A) element would have been satisfied because the evidence established Parker's and Lewis's involvement in a conspiracy to distribute more than fifty grams of a substance containing cocaine base. The determinative question thus becomes one of identity, namely whether any rational trier of fact could have concluded, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Parker killed Lewis. 49 Circumstantial evidence can be as compelling as direct evidence and a conviction can rest solely on circumstantial evidence. But the jury must have been presented with a sufficient evidentiary predicate to support the conclusion that, beyond a reasonable doubt, Parker killed Lewis. See Desena, 260 F.3d at 154; United States v. Truesdale, 152 F.3d 443, 448-49 (5th Cir.1998). As the name circumstantial evidence suggests, the strength of a particular piece of evidence turns on the specific circumstances that accompany the evidence. Wigmore observed that, [a]side from autoptic proference, 5 [] all evidence must involve an inference from some fact to the proposition to be proved. See 1A John Henry Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence § 25 (Tillers rev.1983). But as the inferential leap between the fact and the proposition to be derived grows, the probative value of the evidence diminishes. See Irene Merker Rosenberg & Yale L. Rosenberg,  Perhaps What Ye Say Is Based Only on Conjecture — Circumstantial Evidence, Then and Now, 31 Hous. L.Rev. 1371, 1385, 1423 (1995). 50 That occurred here. Jackson requires that a rational juror be able to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, and if the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution gives equal or nearly equal circumstantial support to a theory of guilt and a theory of innocence, then a reasonable jury must necessarily entertain a reasonable doubt. United States v. Lopez, 74 F.3d 575, 577 (5th Cir.) (internal quotation marks and emphasis removed), cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1228, 116 S.Ct. 1867, 134 L.Ed.2d 964 (1996); see also United States v. Andujar, 49 F.3d 16, 20 (1st Cir.1995); United States v. Wright, 835 F.2d 1245, 1249 (8th Cir.1987); Cosby v. Jones, 682 F.2d 1373, 1383 (11th Cir. 1982). The Government's evidence gave nearly equal circumstantial support to competing explanations for Lewis's death: several other drug dealers had equal or substantially more motive to harm Lewis, were armed, had access to Lewis, and frequented the area where Lewis was killed. For these reasons we conclude that the Government's evidence failed to establish Parker's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.