Where appellant was indicted for carnal knowledge of a child between the age of 13 and 15, there was no error when the trial court allowed the commonwealth to amend the indictment at trial to taking indecent liberties with a ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Where appellant did not challenge his indictment for criminal street gang recruitment before the court found him guilty after a bench trial, he cannot appeal his conviction on the basis that the indictment charged him with making a felonious threat ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Appellant’s conviction for destruction of property greater than $1,000 is reversed because the court convicted him using an incorrect legal standard. Destruction of property greater than $1,000 is a specific intent crime. It is not a general intent crime, as ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Even though appellant complied with all conditions of the plea agreement except for the payment of court costs, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by adjudicating his guilt. Overview Under a plea agreement, Smallwood entered a guilty plea ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Where police had an objectively reasonable basis to believe appellant was attempting suicide, their entry without a warrant into his apartment was justified under the Fourth Amendment’s emergency aid exception, as was a “cursory sweep” of the apartment, which revealed ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Where appellant sought to suppress a gun discovered in a backpack while the police were searching his car, the trial court correctly concluded that the search was an invalid inventory search but erred by admitting the evidence under the inevitable ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Even though the claimant, a city police officer, received notice of a statute that presumes heart disease is an occupational disease suffered in the line of duty, the statute’s two-year limitation in which to file a claim did not begin ...

Tagged with: Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals Workers' Compensation

Where the commonwealth’s evidence showed that appellant was driving a car, and that a pill, which later proved to be Oxycodone, was found in a crumpled piece of notebook paper in the car’s console, this was insufficient evidence to sustain ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Where appellant’s counsel agreed to the trial court’s erroneous conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction to consider motions for a new trial, the approbate and reprobate doctrine prevents appellant from taking an inconsistent position on appeal – that the trial court ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals

Where a police officer told appellee on her front porch that she could either let him in and give her a package of drugs intended to be delivered to a prisoner or that he could get a search warrant, the ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge William G. Petty Virginia Court of Appeals