Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10834 Trial Court No. 1JU-09-1064 Cr No. 5879
09-12-2012
BRENDAN P. DOYLE, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Marjorie Allard, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Amy M. Williams, Assistant District Attorney, and Richard A. Svobodny, Acting Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the Superior Court, First Judicial District, Juneau, Philip M. Pallenberg, Judge.
Appearances: Marjorie Allard, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Amy M. Williams, Assistant District Attorney, and Richard A. Svobodny, Acting Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
MANNHEIMER, Judge.
Brendan P. Doyle appeals his conviction for third-degree weapons misconduct under AS 11.61.200(a)(1) (felon in possession of a concealable firearm). The weapon in question, a Walther P-22 semi-automatic handgun, was found in a backpack that Doyle had been carrying. This backpack also contained Doyle's identification. The police found the backpack in a trailer shortly after Doyle fled from this trailer (by jumping out of a window) when the police approached.
In this appeal, Doyle contends that the evidence presented at his trial is legally insufficient to support his conviction. Doyle concedes that he was a convicted felon, and that the backpack belonged to him, and that there was a concealable firearm in the backpack. But Doyle argues that the State presented no direct evidence that Doyle was aware that the handgun was in his backpack.
Doyle points out that the State presented no evidence that he spoke of the handgun, or that he otherwise indicated that he knew there was a handgun in the backpack. Nor did the State present evidence that anyone saw Doyle with the handgun, or that anyone saw the handgun in Doyle's backpack (before the police searched it).
All of this may be true, but that does not mean that the evidence is insufficient to support the jury's verdict. Under Alaska law, a verdict can be based on circumstantial evidence. Moreover, when an appellate court assesses the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction, the court must assess that evidence — and all reasonable inferences supported by that evidence — in the light most favorable to upholding the jury's verdict.
See Des Jardins v. State, 551 P.2d 181, 184-85 (Alaska 1976); State v. McDonald, 872 P.2d 627, 653 (Alaska App. 1994); Willett v. State, 836 P.2d 955, 957 (Alaska App. 1992).
See Silvera v. State, 244 P.3d 1138, 1142 (Alaska App. 2010); Morrell v. State, 216 P.3d 574, 576 (Alaska App. 2009); Daniels v. State, 767 P.2d 1163, 1167 (Alaska App. 1989).
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Here, there was ample circumstantial evidence to warrant the jury in concluding that Doyle knowingly possessed the handgun in his backpack.
Accordingly, the judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED.