Williams v. State

After a jury trial, Stanley Williams was convicted of burglary. He appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence and the trial court’s refusal to give a requested jury charge. The challenges are without merit, and we thus affirm Williams’ conviction. 1. On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to support the jury’s verdict and the appellant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence.1 Moreover, we do not weigh the evidence or determine the credibility of witnesses, but determine only if there is sufficient evidence from which a rational trier of fact could find the accused guilty of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt.2

Viewed in favor of the verdict, the evidence shows that at noon on October 6, 2006, Randall Smith was asleep in his apartment bedroom. He was awakened when he heard someone call his name, followed by the sound of someone trying to get in through a sliding glass door on the apartment patio. Smith then heard the bathroom window rattling and shaking. He began to get out of bed, and as he did so, a fist smashed through the window above his bed. The intruder reached his other hand inside to lift the window blinds and then stuck his head in through the broken window. At that point, Smith recognized the intruder as Williams, whom Smith had previously hired to work on his landscaping crew.