Anthony Woods v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 2019 CA 000930

On October 3, 2017 Officer Gideon Brewer responded to an anonymous 911 report of a person “passed out” in a black pickup in the Waffle House parking lot and found Anthony Woods asleep in the driver’s seat.
Woods’s vehicle was parked off-street with the engine off, transmission in park, headlights/tail lights not illuminated at the time the officer approached, and the key was not in the ignition.
When awakened, Woods retrieved keys and placed a key in the ignition but did not start the engine; he appeared disoriented, admitted drinking ("four or five" cocktails), and performed poorly on field sobriety tests; a PBT showed presence of alcohol.
Woods was arrested for DUI; he protested that he had not been driving and that he was merely sitting in the driver’s seat.
The district court convicted; the Jessamine Circuit Court affirmed. The Court of Appeals granted discretionary review.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding the evidence insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Woods intended to operate the vehicle while intoxicated and remanded for entry of a judgment of acquittal.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence to prove "operating" or actual physical control while under the influence	Commonwealth: circumstantial inferences suffice (driver’s seat, apparent prior headlights, PBT positive, FST impairment)	Woods: no proof he drove there or intended to drive; engine off, seat reclined, boots off, pants unzipped, asleep	Reversed — evidence was at least as consistent with innocence; Commonwealth failed to prove intent to operate beyond a reasonable doubt
Role of Wells factors / intent to drive when intoxicated	Commonwealth relied on case law allowing inferences from circumstances	Woods invoked Wells factors (asleep, motor off, parked) to show lack of present intent to drive	Court applied Wells and Crosby: where intoxication may have occurred after parking and no evidence of intent to drive, conviction cannot stand

Wells v. Commonwealth, 709 S.W.2d 847 (Ky. App. 1986) (four-factor test for actual physical control and focus on intent)
Commonwealth v. Benham, 816 S.W.2d 186 (Ky. 1991) (directed verdict / sufficiency standard)
Commonwealth v. Crosby, 518 S.W.3d 153 (Ky. App. 2017) (focus on current intent to drive from scene circumstances)
Blades v. Commonwealth, 957 S.W.2d 246 (Ky. 1997) (circumstantial evidence may support conviction when reasonable inferences favor guilt)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (U.S. 1979) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Commonwealth v. Goss, 428 S.W.3d 619 (Ky. 2014) (evidence must not be equally consistent with innocence)
Commonwealth v. James, 586 S.W.3d 717 (Ky. 2019) (recent sufficiency precedent interpreting reasonable-inference limits)