Johnson v. United States

KERN, Senior Judge,

in which WAGNER, Associate Judge, concurs:

When the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged after conviction, this court has stated:

[w]e will reverse a conviction only if there is no evidence upon which a reasonable mind could infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Warrick v. United States, 528 A.2d 438, 441 (D.C.1987) (emphasis added). In addition, we have also stated that in reviewing a claim of evidentiary insufficiency:

[t]he evidence ... must be evaluated in the light most favorable to the government, making allowance for the factfin-der’s right to determine the credibility of witnesses and draw justifiable inferences from their testimony.... The fact that the case may rest on circumstantial evidence is of little consequence if that evidence is such that it may reasonably persuade the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt.

Shelton v. United States, 505 A.2d 767, 769 (D.C.1986) (citations omitted). Here, *899 we are confronted with appellant’s claim that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict of guilty of burglary. Specifically, appellant argues that the evidence was insufficient to establish that he entered the home of the complaining witness with the specific intent to commit an offense (i.e., assault). Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, we are satisfied that the evidence, both direct and circumstantial, together with the justifiable inferences, is sufficient to lead a reasonable juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant intended when he entered the house to assault Ms. Townes.

The evidence shows that it had been about a week to ten days since the complainant had seen appellant when he came to her home on the morning that the crimes were committed. Although the complainant had dated Johnson for six years, several weeks before, she told him that she did not want to see him again, and Johnson did not like this. Johnson was the dominant party in their relationship and he did not like her to have male friends. He was taller, heavier and stronger than she. The parties’ relationship had been stormy. They engaged in public arguments numerous times, and, on one occasion, Johnson was observed carrying complainant from her home where she lived with her mother “in a headlock and kicking and screaming.” Her mother had to call the police on this occasion.

The day before the burglary and assaults, Johnson spoke with Townes by telephone. Although she no longer liked him, she agreed to see him the next day at her home. Apparently, Johnson could not wait, and around one o’clock in the morning, he telephoned appellant’s home twice. The complainant’s mother, who was in bed, answered both times, but she refused to allow Johnson to speak with her daughter. Johnson used profanity when speaking with complainant’s mother. The complainant’s mother testified that appellant called over and over and that each time she hung up.

Appellant persisted in his effort to reach the complainant, and at two o’clock that same morning, he banged on the door of complainant’s home “for awhile” and called out her name. Johnson left the complainant’s front door, but he returned later, and knocked at the door again, and then blew the horn of his van “for quite awhile.” Through all this commotion, the complainant did not come out of her bedroom.

About 7:00 a.m., the complainant’s mother left for work, after locking all the doors. Johnson did not have a key to the house, but he knew that a window downstairs in a patio door had a broken pane of glass over which paper had been taped. Johnson also knew the time at which complainant’s mother left for work.

After the complainant’s mother left home, appellant knocked on the door again and called out the complainant’s name. Still she did not answer his knock or open the door. The complainant was upstairs when she heard footsteps on the stairs, became frightened and hid in the back of a closet to avoid being seen from the hallway. Johnson found complainant and initially hugged and kissed her once, said he missed her, and asked her where had she had been. When she responded “nowhere,” he accused her of lying, and she asked him to leave. While they were still in the closet, appellant struck the complainant, blackening her eye, and he poked her again and again with a sharp object. The complainant did not see where appellant obtained the sharp object. Then appellant burned the complainant’s chest with a hot iron. She fled to the basement of her home, but Johnson followed her and directed her to go back upstairs and take off her clothes. It was then that he raped her.

Our decisions on sufficiency of the evidence in burglary cases say that “when the unauthorized presence is aided by other circumstances, such an inference [of criminal purpose at the time of entry] may be drawn.” Warrick, supra, 528 A.2d at 442 (emphasis added). This court has purposely avoided narrowly defining these “other circumstances” as we prefer “to consider in each case whether the circumstances are such as ‘might lead reasonable people, based on their common experience, to con- *900 elude beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant intended to commit some crime upon the premises.’ ” Warrick, supra, 528 A.2d at 442 (quoting Shelton, supra, 505 A.2d at 770 ).

The dissent’s reliance on Warrick, supra, 528 A.2d at 441 -42 infra at 902, is inappropriate. In that case, there was no evidence of “other circumstance” to support an inference that appellant intended at the time of his unlawful entry to stab the homeowner with a knife.

The record in the instant case, however, contains ample evidence of such “other circumstances” which when looked at in a light most favorable to the government and drawing justifiable inferences therefrom, we conclude a reasonable juror might find beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson had the requisite intent to assault the victim when he entered her home without being given any authority to enter.

Specifically, the evidence of these “other circumstances” and inferences therefrom allowed the jurors to find that when appellant entered the victim’s home without authority, he did so with aggressiveness and hostility. Such inferences may reasonably be drawn from the totality of the circumstances as shown by the evidence including: that appellant’s prior relationship with the victim had been emotionally tempestuous and physically violent; that appellant was domineering and prone to jealousy; that the complainant broke off their relationship, and appellant did not like it; and, that he had engaged in hostile behavior toward the occupants of the home shortly before entering it without permission, viz., repeatedly telephoning, cursing the victim’s mother, banging on the door, calling her name and honking his horn outside her home at different times between one and two o’clock in the morning. The jury also heard how the victim refused to answer his knock on her door later that morning and could infer that such behavior angered appellant. In sum, the evidence of the other circumstances prior to unauthorized entry are more than ample to allow (but not require) reasonable jurors to decide that Johnson entered the victim’s home with the intent to harm rather than love her. 1

Furthermore, the evidence of appellant’s actions once inside the premises provides additional circumstantial evidence of the intent with which he entered. The initial assaults occurred very quickly, before the complainant even got out of the closet. A jury could infer that the .unwanted kiss that appellant gave to her immediately pri- or to the assaultive behavior, rather than intending to show tenderness and affection, was in actuality just another form of domination.

We disagree with the dissent, infra at 905, that there is no reliable evidence that appellant had a sharp object with which he poked the victim over and over. The victim testified at trial that though she could not see the sharp object, appellant kept poking her with it. From a photograph taken of her after the incident, she indicated at trial a red mark on her thigh caused by one of the pokes. The jury was free to believe her testimony and, despite the dissent’s seeming willingness to second-guess the jury’s credibility determination, we must look at the evidence in the light most favorable to the government.

When all these facts are considered with appellant’s prior assaultive conduct toward complainant, his aggressive and hostile display at complainant’s home in the early morning hours, and his entry without complainant’s permission, the evidence is sufficient to allow reasonable jurors, based on their common experience, to find that appellant intended to assault the victim when he entered. See Warrick, supra, 528 A.2d at 442 .

Finally, we note that as a matter of public policy, and particularly in light of *901 society’s evolving sensitivity to and growing awareness of the troublesome and extremely important issue of domestic violence, this court in a case such as this should be loath to substitute its own evaluation of the evidence for that of the jurors. They saw and heard the witnesses and their collective experiences and judgments are particularly adept in achieving justice. 2 Thus, we affirm the conviction of burglary.

. It is instructive, but not decisive of course, that the trial court denied appellant's post-judgment motion to vacate his sentence, rejecting appellant’s bald assertion that he had entered complainant's home "with an innocent state of mind." Instead, the judge found that “the evidence is overwhelming ... that [appellant] entered complainant's home in a state of jealous agitation with specific intent to assault” the victim. Id. If the judge concluded thus upon the evidence, then surely jurors could reasonably reach the same conclusion.

. That a jury's collective knowledge and experiences combine to create a formidable body peculiarly qualified to render justice has long been acknowledged:

"Twelve men [and women] of the average of the community, comprising persons of education and persons of little education, men [and women] of learning and men [and women] whose learning consist only in what they have themselves seen and heard ... these sit together, consult, apply their separate experience of the affairs of life to the facts proven, and draw a unanimous conclusion. This average judgment thus given [] is the great effort of the law to obtain. It is assumed that twelve men [and women] know more of the common affairs of life than does one man [or woman], that they can draw wiser and safer conclusions from admitted facts thus occurring than can a single judge.”

Sioux City & Pac. R.R. v. Stout, 84 U.S. (17 Wall.) 657, 664 , 21 L.Ed. 745 (1873).