Wright v. West, 505 U.S. 277, 20 (1992)

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296

WRIGHT v. WEST

Opinion of Thomas, J.

sive answers to various other questions. See n. 1, supra. He said further that he could not remember how he had acquired such major household items as a television set and a coffee table, and he failed to offer any explanation whatsoever about how he had acquired Cardova's record player, among other things. Moreover, he testified that he had acquired Cardova's second television set from a seller other than Elkins (who remained unidentified) in an entirely unrelated (but roughly contemporaneous) transaction. Finally, he failed to produce any other supporting evidence, such as testimony from Elkins, whom he claimed to have known for years and done business with on a regular basis.

As the trier of fact, the jury was entitled to disbelieve West's uncorroborated and confused testimony. In evaluating that testimony, moreover, the jury was entitled to discount West's credibility on account of his prior felony conviction, see Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-269 (1990); Sadoski v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 1069, 254 S. E. 2d 100 (1979), and to take into account West's demeanor when testifying, which neither the Court of Appeals nor we may review. And if the jury did disbelieve West, it was further entitled to consider whatever it concluded to be perjured testimony as affirmative evidence of guilt, see, e. g., Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613, 620-621 (1896); United States v. Zafiro, 945 F. 2d 881, 888 (CA7 1991) (Posner, J.), cert. granted on other grounds, 503 U. S. 935 (1992); Dyer v. MacDougall, 201 F. 2d 265, 269 (CA2 1952) (L. Hand, J.).

In Jackson, we emphasized repeatedly the deference owed to the trier of fact and, correspondingly, the sharply limited nature of constitutional sufficiency review. We said that "all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution," 443 U. S., at 319 (emphasis in original); that the prosecution need not affirmatively "rule out every hypothesis except that of guilt," id., at 326; and that a reviewing court "faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume—even if

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