Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-10357.
January 26, 2011.
Appeal from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, Fairbanks, Paul R. Lyle, Judge. Trial Court No. 4FA-08-727 Cr.
Sharon Barr, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Joseph B. Dallaire, Assistant District Attorney, Fairbanks, and Daniel S. Sullivan, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Vitaliy Kulinich appeals his conviction for felony failure to stop at the direction of a peace officer, AS 28.35.182. The question is whether the State presented sufficient evidence at trial to support Kulinich's conviction.
When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the trial evidence to support a verdict, we are obliged to view the evidence in the light most favorable to upholding the verdict. We therefore present the evidence in Kulinich's case in that light:
See, e.g., Newsom v. State, 199 P.3d 1181, 1188 (Alaska A pp. 2009).
According to the State's evidence, Kulinich was observed driving a motorcycle with no license plate at around 8:15 a.m. on August 24, 2007. When a police officer tried to conduct a traffic stop to cite Kulinich for this violation, Kulinich fled on his motorcycle at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour — so fast that the police officer broke off the pursuit because of the danger to other motorists.
About forty-five minutes later, the police learned that the motorcycle had been left at a construction site. According to the contractor supervising the site, the driver of this motorcycle arrived sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. The driver told the contractor that his motorcycle was out of gas, and that he would return later to retrieve it.
The police checked the motorcycle's VIN (vehicle identification number) and found that it was registered to Kulinich. Early that afternoon, the police showed a photographic lineup to the contractor, asking him if any of the photographs depicted the driver of the motorcycle. Within seconds, the contractor identified Kulinich as the driver. At trial, the contractor again identified Kulinich as the driver of the motorcycle.
The above-described evidence, if viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, is sufficient to warrant reasonable jurors in concluding that Kulinich was the driver who fled from the police.
We acknowledge that Kulinich presented substantial alibi evidence at his trial — evidence which supported the conclusion that Kulinich was elsewhere on the morning in question, and that someone else was driving his motorcycle without his permission. However, as we explained earlier, we are obliged to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict.
Although there was conflicting evidence concerning Kulinich's whereabouts (and, thus, conflicting evidence concerning the identity of the driver), the jurors at Kulinich's trial could reasonably resolve that conflict in the State's favor. Therefore, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's decision, the evidence presented at Kulinich's trial was sufficient to support the guilty verdict.
The judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED.