Court Opinion

ID: 9579048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:51:04.158751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:14.376041
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COMPTON, with whom CHIEF JUSTICE CARRICO and JUSTICE HASSELL
join, dissenting in part.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to support the capital murder conviction. Rather, I am of opinion that when the rules of appellate review are applied properly to this evidence, the conviction and sentence to death must be affirmed.
We have said repeatedly that “when the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged on appeal, the evidence and all reasonable inferences fairly drawn therefrom must be viewed in the light most favorable to the. Commonwealth. The trial court’s judgment should be affirmed unless it appears that it is plainly wrong or without evidence to support it.” Spencer v. Commonwealth, 238 Va. 275, 283, 384 S.E.2d 775, 779 (1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. _, 110 S.Ct. 759 (1990).
The crucial issue on sufficiency of the evidence is, of course, whether the defendant was the “triggerman.” The defendant confessed to Deputy Kwan that “he had to do it because the man had put the contract on him.” Reasonably to be inferred from this undisputed evidence is that “it” meant the actual shooting of the victim and that defendant “had to do it” because of “the contract” that the victim “had put” out on defendant. Even though a fact finder is entitled to draw different inferences from this evidence, the appellate reviewer is not entitled to make such a choice once the jury has selected the inference supporting guilt. When this evidence is viewed upon appeal in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, there is but one conclusion which should be *45drawn — the defendant pulled the trigger and fired the shots causing the victim’s death.
The majority says, “It is not surprising that Kwan was uncertain as to Cheng’s exact words because Kwan neither recorded nor made notes of Cheng’s statements.” That idea merely affects the weight of the evidence, a consideration appropriate for a fact finder but inappropriate upon appellate review.
The majority also says, “More remarkably, Kwan did not press Cheng to state who fired the fatal shots.” This, too, affects the weight of the evidence. More importantly, however, the reason Kwan did not press further Was probably because he was satisfied from what the defendant already had said that the defendant had admitted firing the fatal shots. At any rate, the several inferences flowing from Kwan’s conduct, as shown by the evidence, were for the jury, and not this Court, to determine.
Given the prior connections between the victim and the defendant, and the other circumstantial evidence pointing unerringly to the defendant as the perpetrator of the capital murder, I submit that the evidence is wholly sufficient to support the conviction.