COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Annunziata and Senior Judge
Duff Argued at Alexandria, Virginia
WILLIAM LEE TYLER
OPINION BY
v. Record No. 0364-95-4 JUDGE CHARLES H. DUFF
JUNE 11, 1996
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA
Donald M. Haddock, Judge
Thierry Barston (James C. Love, IV; Love,
Kielsgard & Associates, on brief), for
appellant.
Thomas C. Daniel, Assistant Attorney General
(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on
brief), for appellee.
William Lee Tyler (appellant) was convicted of burglary and
grand larceny. On appeal, appellant contends that the evidence
of his finger and thumb prints, found on both sides of pieces of
the store's broken window glass, was insufficient to sustain his
convictions. We disagree and affirm the trial court's judgment.
I.
On September 4, 1993, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Roger
Wall, owner of Granny's Place children's clothing stores, locked
and left the warehouse store located on Fairfax Avenue in
Alexandria. The store's plate glass window was intact at that
time. Wall returned to the store the next morning after he was
contacted about a break-in there. Upon his return, Wall saw that
the plate glass window had been broken. Wall determined that
clothing, valued at $4400, was missing from the store.
A police evidence technician recovered numerous latent
fingerprints from pieces of broken glass "laying right at the
base of the window where it was broken." The evidence technician
discovered pieces of glass containing fingerprints, outside and
inside of the business. On most of the "lifts," he discovered
fingerprints on both sides of a piece of glass, "as if someone
had picked it up . . . and set it aside."
A latent fingerprint examiner compared the latent
fingerprints with known fingerprints of appellant and determined
that appellant's fingerprints were on the pieces of broken
glass. 1 Appellant was not an employee of the store and did not
conduct business with the store.
II.
The issue presented on appeal is the sufficiency of the
evidence to establish appellant as the criminal agent. "On
appeal, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable inferences fairly
deducible therefrom." Martin v. commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438,
443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987).
To establish a defendant's criminal agency, evidence that
his fingerprint was found at the scene of a crime "'"must be
coupled with evidence of other circumstances tending to
1
When asked at trial by the court to state how many points
of comparison she found between the latent prints and appellant's
known prints, the examiner testified that in one of the exhibits
she counted seventy-five points of comparison.
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reasonably exclude the hypothesis that the print was impressed at
a time other than that of the crime."'" Avent v. Commonwealth,
209 Va. 474, 479, 164 S.E.2d 655, 659 (1968) (citations omitted).
The other circumstances, however, need not be totally
independent of the fingerprint itself and "'may properly include
circumstances such as the location of the print, the character of
the place or premises where it was found and the accessibility of
the general public to the object on which the print was
impressed.'" Id. (citation omitted).
In Avent, the defendant's fingerprint was found on a piece
of glass which had fallen from a window, located seven feet off
the ground, into the burglarized store. Avent presented no
evidence to explain the presence of his fingerprint.
The Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Avent's burglary
conviction, holding that:
"A latent fingerprint found at the scene of
the crime, shown to be that of an accused,
tends to show that he was at the scene of the
crime. The attendant circumstances with
respect to the print may show that he was at
the scene of the crime at the time it was
committed. If they do so show, it is a
rational inference, consistent with the rule
of law both as to fingerprints and
circumstantial evidence, that the accused was
the criminal agent."
Id. at 479-80, 164 S.E.2d at 659 (citation omitted). The Court
held that the mode of entry into the store, the inaccessibility
of the window to the public, and the fact that Avent was not an
employee of the store and had no business in or around the store,
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provided "a rational inference that defendant was there
unlawfully, and there was no evidence to the contrary." Id. at
480, 164 S.E.2d at 659.
In Turner v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 141, 235 S.E.2d 357
(1977), the Supreme Court affirmed burglary and murder
convictions where the defendant's fingerprint was found,
impressed in blood, on a flashlight in the murdered woman's
bedroom. The defendant had denied to the police that he knew
anything about the crimes and told them they would find nothing
with his fingerprints at the crime scene. Id. at 144, 235 S.E.2d
at 359. Following Avent, the Court in Turner held that the
evidence was sufficient to establish Turner's criminal agency.
The Court noted that the "significant fact" in the case was that
a crime of violence was involved and the fingerprint was
impressed in blood. Id. at 147, 235 S.E.2d at 360.
The same year that Turner was decided, the Court, in Ricks
v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 523, 237 S.E.2d 810 (1977), affirmed the
burglary and grand larceny convictions of a defendant whose
fingerprint was found on an applesauce jar, which had contained
pennies, located in the bedroom of the burglarized home. Ricks
told the police that he had never been in the victim's house. At
trial, Ricks testified that he had touched the jar when he had
trespassed in the house several months prior to the burglary.
Id. at 525, 237 S.E.2d at 811.
The Court noted that the fingerprint was found on an object
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which was stored in the bedroom of a private home, a place
inaccessible to the public in general and Ricks in particular.
"Thus, evidence of the print has been coupled with evidence of
'other circumstances' which tend to reasonably exclude the
hypothesis that the fingerprint was impressed at a time other
than during the commission of the crimes." Id. at 527, 237
S.E.2d at 812. The Court held that the fingerprint and attendant
facts established that Ricks was at the scene when the crimes
were committed, giving rise to the rational inference that Ricks
was the criminal agent. Id.
In Parrish v. Commonwealth, 17 Va. App. 361, 437 S.E.2d 215
(1993), we affirmed the robbery conviction of a defendant whose
palm print and thumb prints were found on a bank deposit slip
which had been attached to money in a deposit bag stolen from the
restaurant manager as he attempted to leave the restaurant to
make a deposit. Laboratory analysis of the deposit slip revealed
that Parrish's left and right thumb prints were on the front of
the slip and a partial left palm print was on the back.
We noted that Parrish's palm print on the back of the
deposit slip could only be explained if pressure had been applied
to the back of the document. We held that the jury could infer
that some solid object must have been behind the deposit slip
when the palm print was left and that the solid object was the
roll of stolen money. Id. at 365, 437 S.E.2d at 217.
We concluded that the "unexplained circumstances of the
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placement of the palm print on the bank deposit slip and the two
thumb prints on the front within such a short time after robbery
were sufficient for a rational finder of fact to conclude beyond
a reasonable doubt that Parrish was the robber." 2 Id. at 365,
437 S.E.2d at 218.
III.
The instant case is analogous to Avent. Appellant's
fingerprints were found on both sides of individual pieces of
broken glass from the window. The glass fragments containing
appellant's prints were found inside and outside of the
3
business. Most of the latent "lifts" showed the prints of
fingers on one side of the glass piece and a thumb print on the
other. Thus, appellant unquestionably handled the glass pieces
after the breaking occurred.
As in Avent, appellant was not employed by the store and had
no business dealings there. As in Avent, appellant presented no
evidence to explain the presence of his fingerprints.
This case also is similar to Parrish. While the timing of
the crimes in this case was not determined with the precision in
Parrish, as in Parrish, the unexplained placement of appellant's
2
The victim in Parrish testified that from the time he was
robbed until the police returned to him with the deposit slip was
thirty to forty-five minutes.
3
While the evidence technician could not state which
specific glass fragments containing prints were located inside
the store and which ones were found outside of the store, he
testified that he found fragments containing latent prints both
outside and inside of the business.
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thumb and fingerprints on both sides of the glass pieces found
inside and outside the store provided sufficient evidence for a
rational fact finder to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that
appellant committed the crimes.
Moreover, this case, where prints were found on both sides
of glass fragments, is unlike Granger v. Commonwealth, 20 Va.
App. 576, 459 S.E.2d 106 (1995). There, we reversed the robbery
conviction of a defendant whose fingerprints on the liquor bottle
used to injure the victim provided the only evidence of his
guilt. We noted that Granger's fingerprints were located "on the
handle and body of the half-gallon bottle, a location not
inconsistent with someone holding the bottle to pour from it."
Id. at 578, 459 S.E.2d at 106-07. We stated that the evidence
did not establish when Granger had touched the bottle or that he
touched it at the scene of the crime. Id. at 578, 459 S.E.2d at
106. Thus, the evidence did not "exclude the hypothesis that
Granger may have handled the bottle for an innocent purpose
before the robbery." Id. at 577, 459 S.E.2d at 106.
Here, however, no reasonable hypothesis of innocence
flowed from the evidence before the trial court. Thus, the court
did not err when it found sufficient evidence to convict
appellant of the burglary and larceny charges.
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Affirmed.
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