Court Opinion

ID: 9738204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:44:58.103163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:04.414334
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE GARMAN, specially concurs: While I concur in the result of this case, I write to express my concern about the majority discussion of the standard of review. I am fearful that practitioners will read this opinion and conclude that we are altering the standard of review on the sufficiency of the evidence. We are not. The requisite test when the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The verdict must not be so unreasonable, improbable, or unsatisfactory that it leaves a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt. This means that the function of a reviewing court is to carefully examine the process by which the fact finder reasoned from the evidence to the ultimate finding. If there is sufficient factual support in the record upon which the fact finder could have based an inference of guilt, the process is rational and it is not within our province to set aside the verdict because we might have reached a different result. Upon carefully examining the evidence in the present case, we have concluded that the fact finder could reasonably have found the defendant guilty.