Court Opinion

ID: 9786206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 23:50:39.075306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:42.418675
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice TROUT
concurs in the result of Part III C; concurs fully in the balance of the opinion.
While I agree with the ultimate outcome of this opinion, I write only to indicate my disagreement with the analysis of this Court’s standard of review of a district judge’s ruling on a motion for judgment of acquittal. Admittedly, this Court has not always utilized the same words in describing our standard of review, sometimes speaking of “substantial evidence,” “no evidence,” or “some evidence,” and the standard has varied depending upon whether the Court is reviewing a grant or a denial of the motion.
For that reason, in State v. Griffith, 127 Idaho 8, 896 P.2d 334 (1995), the Court attempted to articulate the standard when an appellate court is reviewing the trial court’s decision either granting or denying a motion for acquittal. Unfortunately, in the majority opinion, the Court characterizes that effort as “imprecise, justifying clarification by this Court” and then proceeds to articulate the standard as “whether there was substantial evidence upon which a trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” citing I.C.R. 29(c). That is the standard to be applied by the trial court in making the initial determination on a motion for judgment of acquittal, not the standard to be applied by an appellate court in reviewing the trial court’s decision on the motion. As articulated in Griffith, the standard is as follows:
When we review the grant or denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal, we examine the record for sufficiency of the evidence supporting the trial court’s determination. The trial court must deny the motion if there is some evidence of guilt produced at trial. State v. Gratiot, 104 Idaho 782, 663 P.2d 1084 (1983). Conversely, the motion shall be granted if the record reflects a total lack of inculpatory evidence at trial. State v. Vargas, 100 Idaho 658, 659, 603 P.2d 992, 993 (1979) (citing State v. O’Bryan, 96 Idaho 548, 531 P.2d 1193 (1975))(emphasis added).
127 Idaho at 11, 896 P.2d at 337.
The review of a ruling on a motion for acquittal is basically two sides of the same coin. Both are judged on the sufficiency of the evidence presented below, but it is not this Court’s place to weigh the evidence to determine whether it is “substantial”; that is for the trial court. This Court is to determine whether there is “no evidence,” justifying the trial court’s grant of a motion for acquittal; or there is “some evidence,” justifying the trial court’s denial of the motion for acquittal. Beyond that we should not engage in any determination required by Rule 29 as to the sufficiency of the evidence and should leave that to the trial court’s sound judgment, having observed the evidence and witnesses firsthand.
In this case, I agree that under the standard set forth in Griffith, the trial court was correct in denying the motion for judgment of acquittal and I, therefore, concur in the result.