Jacqueline Lynne Ortiz v. Virginia

_________________________________________________________ In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), this Court held that the Due Process Clause requires the following standard of review for appellate claims of insufficient evidence of a criminal conviction: whether “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” The Jackson Court explicitly rejected a standard that asked whether “no evidence” supported a conviction. Setting itself apart from every other state and federal jurisdiction in the nation, Virginia has continued to apply its own standard of review: a pre-Jackson relic that asks only whether a criminal conviction is “without evidence to support it.” Does this standard, applied in Ms. Ortiz’s case, violate the Due Process Clause as interpreted by this Court in Jackson?