Court Opinion

ID: 9570557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:24:12.498024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:11:40.506276
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
We affirmed the second degree murder conviction of appellant George Edward *613Christensen in State v. Stewart, 729 P.2d 610 (Utah 1986), wherein the appeals of the two convicted defendants were consolidated. However, our decision issued before appellant Christensen had the opportunity to file his reply brief under Rule 26(a), Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure. Consequently, upon his petition, we granted a rehearing of his appeal in order to allow filing of his reply brief. After review of Christensen’s reply brief, now filed, and the record below, we note that he reiterates the same arguments as in his original brief on appeal, whieh arguments were disposed of in our prior decision. State v. Stewart, supra.
We are not persuaded by appellant’s arguments and again affirm his conviction without oral argument. Rule 35(c) of the Utah Rules of Appellate Procedure allows this Court to make final disposition on rehearing without oral argument when appropriate under the circumstances of the case. We do so here because the facts and issues appellant raises are adequately set forth in his brief, and our decision will not be significantly aided by any oral argument. Utah R.App.P. 29(a).
We adhere to our view that the “question on review is simply whether there is insufficient evidence to support the guilty verdict.” As well explained by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 67, 105 S.Ct. 471, 478, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984):
A criminal defendant already is afforded protection against jury irrationality or error by the independent review of the sufficiency of the evidence undertaken by the trial and appellate courts. This review should not be confused with the problems caused by inconsistent verdicts. Sufficiency-of-the-evidence review involves assessment by the courts of whether the evidence adduced at trial could support any rational determination of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.... This review should be independent of the jury’s determination that evidence on another count was insufficient. The Government must convince the jury with its proof, and must also satisfy the courts that given this proof the jury could rationally have reached a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. We do not believe that further safeguards against jury irrationality are necessary.
(Citations omitted.) We believe that this same reasoning equally applies in this case when the sufficiency of evidence against different defendants is questioned.
In our review, we need make no quantitative or qualitative comparison of the evidence as between the different defendants.1 We merely consider whether the evidence against appellant, viewed in the light most favorable to his verdict, is so inconclusive or inherently improbable that reasonable minds must have entertained a reasonable doubt as to his guilt. State v. Petree, 659 P.2d 443 (Utah 1983); State v. Gorlick, 605 P.2d 761 (Utah 1979). As discussed in our prior opinion, we consider the evidence sufficient to support the verdict, notwithstanding appellant’s contrary argument.
Appellant repeats his contention that because the jury acquitted defendants Dominguez and Coleman but convicted appellant, its decision is irrationally and irreconcilably inconsistent. He claims that because the evidence is essentially the same as against all the defendants, such a verdict must be overturned. Even if we acquiesced in appellant’s argument that the evidence was no greater against him than against others, it is generally accepted that the inconsistency of verdicts is not, by itself, sufficient ground to set the verdicts aside. Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. *614390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932); Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980); Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87, 102, 94 S.Ct. 2887, 2899, 41 L.Ed.2d 590 (1974); Annot., 22 A.L.R.3d 716 (1968). Appellant’s argument is premised upon the erroneous assumption that the acquittals resulted from a determination by the jury that the evidence was necessarily insufficient to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Such a view is purely speculative. A jury’s acquittal of a defendant, whether tried separately or jointly with others, may also result from some compromise, mistake, or lenity on the jury’s part. Dunn, 284 U.S. at 394, 52 S.Ct. at 191; United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 279, 64 S.Ct. 134, 135, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943); United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. at 65-67, 105 S.Ct. at 477-78.
In his case, appellant provides no basis, and we find none, to delve into the deliberation of the jurors to ascertain the reasons for their different verdicts. Courts have always resisted inquiring into the jury’s thought processes and deliberations. Once the jurors have heard the evidence at trial and the case is submitted to them, the litigants must, with few exceptions, accept their collective judgment. The jury may have exercised its lenity on behalf of defendants Dominguez and Coleman. It may have been persuaded by their testimony that because they carried no knives to the fight, they did not intend to seriously injure or kill Evert. An appraisal of these and other factors was within the jury’s province.2
We assume that the jury believed those portions of the evidence that support the guilty verdict, including the evidence unfavorable to appellant and the evidence favorable to other defendants. The alleged inconsistent testimony of various witnesses was heard by the jury, which was entitled to evaluate its weight and credibility. State v. Hewitt, 689 P.2d 22 (Utah 1984). Without again detailing the facts against appellant in the lengthy trial proceedings, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that appellant intended to cause serious bodily harm to and/or the death of his fellow prison inmate.
The conviction of appellant Christensen is affirmed.

. Appellant argues that because the evidence must have been insufficient as to the acquitted defendants, it was just as insufficient as to the convicted defendants. Therefore, appellant concludes, the jury's verdict as to all the defendants must really be interpreted as an acquittal. However, the prosecution could just as logically and erroneously reason that because the evidence is "in effect the same,” the guilty verdicts indicate the jury's .true .intentions and the verdicts of acquittal should be reversed. United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. at 68, 105 S.Ct. at 479.

. The jury also considered Christensen's admission that he carried a large knife and struck the deceased with it. Similarly, the jury was not required to accept his justification for having stabbed the deceased from behind.