Following a jury trial involving the testimony of law enforcement officers about what the alleged victim and another individual told them, Leonardo Argueta Cuyuch was convicted of aggravated battery. Cuyuch contends that the trial court erred 1 in admitting the alleged double hearsay of a translator, who was translating a witness’s statements, in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights and 2 in failing to grant a directed verdict of acquittal at the close of the State’s case because the evidence was insufficient to submit the case to the jury, given the State’s reliance on allegedly inadmissible hearsay testimony. Because there was evidence identifying Cuyuch as the perpetrator the crime, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting such evidence, we must affirm. The standard of review for the denial of a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal is the same as for determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction. Thus, the evidence must be construed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the appellant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence. We determine only the legal sufficiency of the evidence adduced below and do not weigh the evidence or assess the credibility of the witnesses. Our inquiry is whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Citations and punctuation omitted. Souder v. State .1
So viewed, the evidence shows that at approximately 1:30 a.m., a sixteen-year-old male who was crying and bleeding heavily from a cut on his left arm approached a City of Canton police officer in a restaurant parking lot. The victim told the officer that his roommate had cut him, and he pointed at the road across the street. A police sergeant who had arrived to back up the first officer left the scene to find the roommate at the address given by the victim. The sergeant drove down the road indicated by the victim and was flagged down by a man on the side of the road, later identified as Francisco, who was yelling that his friend needed help. Because there was a “minor language barrier” between the sergeant and the Spanish-speaking Francisco, the sergeant put him in his patrol car and “had him physically show me where he wanted to go to help his friend.” Francisco directed the sergeant to the victim’s address. When they got inside the house, the sergeant found two people watching television. The officer asked if the person sitting on the couch needed assistance, and Francisco responded, “No. My friend needs help.”
