COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Elder, Frank and Humphreys
Argued by teleconference
WILLIAM EARL PETTEWAY
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 1679-00-2 JUDGE LARRY G. ELDER
JUNE 19, 2001
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND
Thomas N. Nance, Judge
Patricia P. Nagel, Assistant Public Defender
(Gregory W. Franklin, Assistant Public
Defender; Office of the Public Defender, on
brief), for appellant.
Thomas M. McKenna, Assistant Attorney General
(Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief),
for appellee.
William Earl Petteway (appellant) appeals from his bench
trial conviction for grand larceny. On appeal, he contends the
circumstantial evidence was insufficient to prove both that any
money was stolen and, even if it was, that he was the criminal
agent. We hold the evidence, although circumstantial, excludes
all reasonable hypotheses of appellant's innocence, and we
affirm his conviction.
A conviction for grand larceny requires proof of a taking,
not from the person of another, of goods having a value of $200
* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not
designated for publication.
or more. Code § 18.2-95(ii); see Commonwealth v. Taylor, 256
Va. 514, 518, 506 S.E.2d 312, 314 (1998). On appeal, we examine
the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth,
granting to its evidence all reasonable inferences fairly
deducible therefrom. Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438,
443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). The credibility of a witness,
the weight accorded the testimony, and the inferences to be
drawn from proven facts are matters solely for the fact finder's
determination. Long v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 194, 199, 379
S.E.2d 473, 476 (1989).
"Circumstantial evidence is as competent and is entitled to
as much weight as direct evidence, provided it is sufficiently
convincing to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that of
guilt." Coleman v. Commonwealth, 226 Va. 31, 53, 307 S.E.2d
864, 876 (1983). "[T]he Commonwealth need only exclude
reasonable hypotheses of innocence that flow from the evidence,
not those that spring from the imagination of the defendant."
Hamilton v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 751, 755, 433 S.E.2d 27,
29 (1993).
We hold first that appellant failed to preserve for appeal
his argument that the evidence was insufficient to prove that
Bowles had any money or that the money was stolen rather than
lost or mislaid. Rule 5A:18 provides that "[n]o ruling of the
trial court . . . will be considered as a basis for reversal
unless the objection was stated with the grounds therefor at the
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time of the ruling, except for good cause shown or to enable the
Court of Appeals to attain the ends of justice." Under this
rule, a motion to strike the evidence offered to prove one
element of an offense is insufficient to preserve for appeal a
challenge to another element of that same offense. Redman v.
Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 215, 220, 487 S.E.2d 269, 272 (1997).
Here, appellant's motion to strike covered only the sufficiency
of the evidence to prove that appellant, rather than someone
else, took the money from the victim's purse during the period
of approximately four hours in which it was unattended.
Appellant never argued to the trial court that the evidence was
insufficient to prove the victim received the money, and he
never contended the evidence indicated the money was lost or
mislaid rather than stolen.
Nor does the ends of justice exception require us to
consider these arguments on appeal. To invoke the ends of
justice exception, an appellant must show "that he or she was
convicted for conduct that was not a criminal offense[,] or the
record must affirmatively prove that an element of the offense
did not occur." Id. at 221-22, 487 S.E.2d at 272-73. Here, the
evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, established that Bowles received in a bank
envelope money for the sale of her car and that she had the
money and the bank envelope in her possession at 3:15 p.m. when
she placed the money in her wallet and the envelope in the
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trash. The mere fact that she later questioned whether she may
accidentally have thrown the money away with the envelope does
not prove she may have mislaid it; she checked the only two
places she could have put the money and found the money in
neither of those two places. The only reasonable conclusion
flowing from this evidence was that the money was stolen rather
than lost or mislaid.
Appellant properly preserved for appeal his challenge to
the sufficiency of the evidence to prove he was the criminal
agent, but we conclude the circumstantial evidence was, in fact,
sufficient to prove his criminal agency. If the trial court
believed the testimony of Bowles, which it was entitled to do,
appellant was the only person who had both access to the money
and an opportunity to steal it without being observed.
Bowles placed the money in her purse at 3:15 p.m. and found
it missing a little over four hours later when she was preparing
to pay appellant for his work. In the interim, only Steve Husky
and appellant were in her house. The house had an alarm on the
closed front door, and Bowles testified she would have heard the
alarm if anyone else had entered during that time. None of the
windows in the house were open that day. Because Bowles was
with Husky the entire time he was in the house, she knew he did
not take the money and that it was still in her purse when Husky
departed.
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When appellant subsequently arrived to clean Bowles'
upholstery, she left him alone on the first floor of her house
for over an hour while she worked in her second-floor office.
In cleaning the upholstery, appellant used water from Bowles'
kitchen sink and, in order to get to the sink, appellant had to
pass the open door to Bowles' bedroom, where the purse
containing the $2,300 was located. Thus, appellant was the only
person with both the means and opportunity to steal the money,
and the only reasonable hypothesis flowing from the
circumstantial evidence is that the money was stolen and he was
the criminal agent.
Appellant argues on brief that evidence that another
person's torn blank checks were found in Bowles' kitchen trash
can was not relevant to whether appellant took Bowles' money and
was not sufficient evidence to support his conviction. We note
that appellant registered no relevance objection in the trial
court to the admission into evidence of the checks or related
testimony. We also note that the presence of the torn checks in
Bowles' kitchen trash can was relevant to corroborate Bowles'
testimony that appellant moved from the living room to the
kitchen and, therefore, had an opportunity to enter her bedroom
to take the money from her purse. Although this evidence was
not relevant to prove appellant's propensity to steal from
customers of the cleaning service, see Jennings v. Commonwealth,
20 Va. App. 9, 18-19, 454 S.E.2d 752, 756-57 (1995), appellant
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did not ask that the evidence be admitted for a limited purpose,
see Crider v. Commonwealth, 206 Va. 574, 578, 145 S.E.2d 222,
225 (1965) (holding that failure to request that admission be
limited to particular purpose constitutes waiver of objection).
Further, no evidence indicates that the trial court--which is
presumed to know the law, see Yarborough v. Commonwealth, 217
Va. 971, 978, 234 S.E.2d 286, 291 (1977), and to disregard
prejudicial or inadmissible evidence, see Hall v. Commonwealth,
14 Va. App. 892, 902, 421 S.E.2d 455, 462 (1992) (en banc)
--considered it for an improper purpose, and the remaining
evidence was sufficient to support appellant's conviction.
For these reasons, we affirm appellant's grand larceny
conviction.
Affirmed.
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