Opinion ID: 516191
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: 93 Considered in the interpretation most favorable to the jury verdict, as it must be, 25 the evidence, while circumstantial, was enough to enable a rational juror to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Jones was guilty of first degree murder. Jones argues that Louisiana imposes a higher standard of proof than that of Jackson v. Virginia 26 in cases of circumstantial evidence. Whatever the state law requires, however, the federal court's habeas review is limited to ensuring that Jackson is satisfied. 94 Under Louisiana law, 27 the state was required to prove that Jones had specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm and was engaged in aggravated rape when he did the killing. The testimony that the victim was under twelve and that she had been raped established the element of aggravated rape. Testimony that the victim was beaten, raped, and strangled supports beyond a reasonable doubt the inference that Jones had the specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm. 95 The crucial factual dispute relates to identity: Jones argues that there was a reasonable doubt whether he, rather than Abraham Mingo or Rudolph Springer, committed the crime. The jury, however, could credit the testimony of the prosecutor's witnesses linking Jones to the crime. Mingo testified that Jones had asked him to dispose of the gym bag in which the blood and semen-stained clothes were found and had told Mingo on the morning of February 18, 1984, that he had fucked up and done something he didn't want to do. Springer presented an alibi, corroborated by two witnesses, that he was at a party all night and never saw Jones. The jury could accept this story and therefore reject Jones's account that he and Springer had kidnapped Tumekica Jackson but thereafter Springer had taken her off alone. Reginald Jackson testified that Jones had asked him for a ride to Scotlandville that night to look for the victim's mother and had been wearing the blue jeans, tennis shoes, and pink sweatshirt found in the gym bag. The victim's grandmother testified that Jones called her three times on February 17, 1984, and said that he done got crazy because he had not seen the victim's mother since their breakup a week before and that he would not be responsible for his actions. A police officer testified that Jones was found on the morning of February 18 hiding in his bathroom with wet Converse sneakers, similar in size and tread to shoe prints found outside the victim's house. The serologist testified that the tests done on the mixed blood and semen stains on the victim's panties and pajama bottoms were consistent with Jones's semen type. 96 The evidence that Jones argues casts doubt on his being the perpetrator--that the clothes fit Mingo better than him, that the victim disliked him and would not have quietly gone along with him, that she was too big for him to forcibly carry away, and that he was too intoxicated to have been able to commit the offense--is insufficient to render the jury's conclusion unreasonable.