Benefits Terminated for Noncompliance

New Trial on Specific Intent

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is entitled to a new trial on his charge for misdemeanor destruction of property under Va. Code § 18.2-137(B), the Court of Appeals says; the record does not support trial court’s finding of specific intent to damage a watch worn by a police officer attempting to restrain defendant from swallowing suspected contraband. While defendant [...]

New Statement of Facts Was Error

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 1, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals reverses and remands for a third jury resentencing defendant’s 2003 convictions on three counts of cocaine distribution; Va. Code § 19.2-295.1 only allows evidence from the guilt phase to apprise the sentencing jury of the nature of offense and the trial court erred in reading its own statement of facts not [...]

Hands in Pockets Allows Seizure

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 12, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

Defendant is not entitled to reversal of his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon on grounds of unlawful seizure, the Court of Appeals says; defendant’s repeatedly putting his hands in pockets in the totality of circumstances created probable cause for a pat down search for weapons under Jones v. Commonwealth, 52 [...]

Resentencing ‘Statement of Facts’ Nixed

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 12, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

On remand for defendant’s resentencing on cocaine distribution convictions, the trial court erred by reading a Statement of Facts to the resentencing jury, including a description of a conversation relating to a drug transaction for which defendant was not charged; the Court of Appeals reverses and remands for resentencing. The jury sentenced defendant to a [...]

Driver’s Cocaine Conviction Upheld

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 22, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals affirms defendant’s bench trial conviction for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of § 18.2-248; the totality of circumstances, including defendant’s lying to police and the packaging of the cocaine found, distinguish this case from Coward v. Commonwealth, 48 Va. App. 653 (2006), where we held occupancy of a [...]

No Reversal for Racial Epithets

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 22, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

At defendants’ trial for the vicious beating of the victim in an alley, the trial court did not err in allowing the jury to hear, as evidence of malice, a racial epithet uttered by one of the defendants against the victim; the Court of Appeals also says the trial court did not err in refusing [...]

Prosecutor Proved ‘Guilty Knowledge’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 17, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

A defendant who said he thought the small white rock he picked up off the ground might be drugs he could sell for a few dollars cannot overturn his conviction for possession of a controlled substance with his claim that prosecutors did not prove he had the requisite guilty knowledge; the Court of Appeals affirms [...]

Trespasser Violated Ordinance

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 30, 2012
Tags: Criminal, Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals

Upholding a city ordinance prohibiting early morning trespassing under the Dillon Rule, the Court of Appeals affirms defendant’s conviction as supported by the evidence; defendant’s constitutional challenges are barred for lack of standing and failure assert an as-applied challenge below. Early about 1:00 a.m. one December morning, a police officer responded to a call of [...]

Prosthesis Removal Not a ‘Replacement’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 19, 2012
Tags: Judge Randolph A. Beales, Virginia Court of Appeals, Workers’ Comp

A teacher who had a full ankle replacement after she broke her ankle stepping into a hole on the playground cannot qualify for a longer limitations period for her change-in-condition application under Va. Code § 65.2-708(A)(ii) on the ground that the later removal of the prosthesis and use of a surgical fusion of her ankle [...]