Supreme Court of Virginia· 9/12/1997

Moore v. Commonwealth

Citations

491 S.E.2d 739
254 Va. 184
1997 Va. LEXIS 98

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

holding that contradictory testimony from the victim regarding whether the appellant’s penis was “in” or “on” the victim’s vagina placed the evidence in equipoise and therefore made it insufficient to prove penetration
holding that the Commonwealth has not proved a crime beyond a reasonable doubt when the evidence of guilt is derived from a single source which is in a state of equipoise on an essential element of the crime.
holding proof of penetration is legally insufficient if the evidence is \in a state of equipoise\ based on the Commonwealth's case-in-chief
noting that reversal of a conviction was necessary “where the prosecution has presented, from the mouth of the victim, two different accounts of the essential facts relating to [penetration,] a crucial element of the crime.”
noting the only evidence in the case was the victim’s testimony
“The fact that the man’s penis is placed on, not in, the woman’s sexual organ is insufficient to establish the element of penetration.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Carrico, Compton, Stephenson, Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, Poff

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

23 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

10 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

Other cases named Moore v. Commonwealth

84 other CourtListener records share this case name; the 50 most cited are listed.

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