State v. Jarmon

Syllabus

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of home invasion, burglary in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and stealing a firearm in connec- tion with the theft of certain firearms from N's house, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the state presented insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the operability of each of the stolen firearms, as the cumulative effect of the evidence, when construed in a light most favorable to sustaining the jury's verdict, supported the jury's ultimate conclusion that the state demonstrated operability beyond a reasonable doubt: the evidence presented sup- ported an inference of operability because, from that evidence, the jury reasonably could have concluded that the guns were operable, as they were stored in N's bedroom in cases or bags with safety locks on and access was restricted to the bedroom, which evinced an awareness that the firearms were dangerous, and it was reasonable to infer that operable firearms would trigger such concern, and the fact that N's mother would not permit the firearms to be stored anywhere other than securely in the bedroom and that that ultimatum was assiduously followed by N further supported an inference that the firearms were operable; more- over, the jury reasonably could have inferred that N's storing of his handgun in a nightstand beside his bed where, while asleep, he might be most vulnerable permitted an inference that he possessed the hand- gun for security purposes, and the jury then could have inferred that such a handgun was operable; furthermore, given that, at the time the firearms were stolen, they had been in N's possession for no longer than one year and sixteen days from N's earliest purchase and that the only time the firearms left N's bedroom was to go to the training grounds, which the jury reasonably could have inferred was a place to fire the guns, the guns were fired at least once during th