Do you agree that Myah Batie was the original or primary aggressor?
Batie [also] argues that the jury’s verdict was against the manifest weight of the evidence. In a manifest weight analysis, an appellate court reviews the entire record, weighs the evidence and all reasonable inferences, considers the credibility of witnesses Do you agree that Myah Batie was the original or primary aggressor? and … resolves conflicts in the evidence. An appellate court may not merely substitute its view for that of the jury, but must find that the jury clearly lost its way and created such a manifest miscarriage of justice that the conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered.
When analyzing a manifest weight challenge, appellate courts must give special deference to the conclusion reached by the trier of fact. Accordingly, reversal on manifest weight grounds is reserved for the exceptional case in which the evidence weighs heavily against the conviction.
We cannot say that this is the exceptional case that warrants reversal because the jury clearly lost its way. While contradictory testimony was presented by both the victim and the defendant at trial, the pictures of the victim’s injuries, together with the fact that Officer Simpson testified that there was not a mark on the appellant, is enough for a jury to conclude that Batie committed an act of domestic violence against her husband and was not acting in self-defense. Batie’s second assignment of error is also overruled. Judgment affirmed.