Youngstown Daily Legal News

Burglar denied acquittal after woman saw him take items from her home

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 11, 2014

A three-judge panel for the 10th District Court of Appeals recently affirmed a man’s convictions for aggravated burglary after they found that the victim saw him committing the offense.

The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas convicted William Woodfork Jr. of aggravated burglary following a jury trial.

It sentenced him to nine years of incarceration and he promptly pursued a direct appeal to the 10th District.

Initially, Woodfork argued that the trial court erred by overruling his motion for acquittal.

The district judges noted that a trial court has discretion to overrule a motion for acquittal when the evidence is sufficient to show that the defendant likely committed the offense and when that conclusion is not against the manifest weight of the evidence.

“The primary issue raised is whether the state of Ohio proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the person who burglarized a residence on East 16th Avenue and who encountered the resident during the burglary was William Woodfork Jr.,” Judge Gary Tyack wrote on behalf of the appellate panel.

Upon review of the record, the judges found that the state presented evidence that the victim saw the burglar in her residence.

She told the trial court she encountered him carrying two laptop computers and her purse down the steps in her home leading out of her bedroom.

She said she grabbed the man’s shirt to try and stop him but released him when he said he had a gun.

The man left the house through the front door carrying the victim’s property. Her purse and some of its contents were found nearby after the incident.

Police had no likely suspects in the case until they found a cup from a Subway restaurant on the front porch.

Testing of the straw in that cup revealed Woodfork’s DNA and they compiled a photo array with his picture.

The victim was able to identify Woodfork’s photo and said she was certain of her identification.

“The testimony of the victim who identified Woodfork as the burglar was clearly sufficient to support the conviction for aggravated burglary,” Judge Tyack wrote.

The panel noted that R.C. 2911.11 defines burglary as occurring when a person trespasses in an occupied structure with the purpose to commit a crime.

That offense becomes aggravated burglary when the offender has a deadly weapon on his person or threatens to inflict physical harm on another.

“The testimony at trial was more than sufficient to demonstrate that an aggravated burglary occurred and Woodfork was the burglar,” Judge Tyack stated, overruling the first assignment of error.

Woodfork next asked the appellate panel to reweigh the evidence presented by the state.

He challenged that the DNA evidence should have little weight because the chain of evidence was broken with regard to the Subway cup and that the victim’s identification should be given little weight because it was delayed.

The reviewing judges agreed that the chain of custody of the cup was questionable, but held that the trial court addressed that matter and found it was still admissible.

“Clearly there was a substantial lapse in the chain of custody, but not so great as to completely undermine the admissibility of the cup and straw as evidence. (The police officer) testified that it looked to be the same cup and straw and that it looked to be in the same condition as when (he) last saw it,” Judge Tyack continued.

The judges also found that more than a year passed from the time the burglary took place to when the victim was shown the photo array.

However, they found that the passage of time did not outweigh how certain the victim was that Woodfork was the man she saw in her home.

They further ruled the victim was not improperly informed that police had found a DNA match prior to being shown the photo array as the information did not indicate which of the photos included the man with the matching DNA.

“Following the standards incumbent on us as an appellant court in addressing the weight of the evidence, we cannot say the jury rendered a verdict against the weight of the evidence,” Tyack concluded.

“Both assignments of error having been overruled, the judgment of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas is affirmed.”

Judges Susan Brown and Betsy Luper Schuster joined Judge Tyack to form the majority on the case.

The case is cited State v. Woodfork, 2014-Ohio-3608.

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