Jacques Paul Villafana v. Commonwealth , 49 Va. App. 211 ( 2006 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Frank, Kelsey and Beales
Argued at Chesapeake, Virginia
JACQUES PAUL VILLAFANA
OPINION BY
v. Record No. 2258-05-1 JUDGE D. ARTHUR KELSEY
DECEMBER 28, 2006
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH
H. Thomas Padrick, Jr., Judge
Afshin Farashahi (Afshin Farashahi, P.C., on brief), for
appellant.
Susan M. Harris, Assistant Attorney General (Robert F.
McDonnell, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
A jury found Jacques Paul Villafana guilty of malicious wounding, armed burglary, and
two firearm charges. On appeal, he claims the trial court erroneously refused a jury instruction
addressing the voluntariness of his pretrial confession. Finding no error, we affirm.
The evidence at trial established that Villafana participated in a failed attempt to steal
drugs which ended in gunfire, leaving two men dead and another wounded. After being taken
into custody, Villafana waived his Miranda rights and gave a videotaped confession. Prior to
trial, Villafana filed a motion to suppress the confession claiming he did not voluntarily waive
his right to counsel. The trial court found Villafana’s testimony not credible and denied the
motion to suppress.
At trial, Villafana told the jury he confessed to the crimes but did not commit them. He
was emotionally “traumatized” by the incident, he said, because he witnessed both his brother
and his friend get shot. Villafana also testified he was tired because the interrogation took place
during the early-morning hours immediately after the late-night incident. These tumultuous
circumstances, Villafana explained, caused him to give a false confession.
At the close of the evidence, Villafana’s counsel submitted a proposed jury instruction to
the trial court addressing the voluntariness of his confession. The proposed instruction stated:
The Court instructs the jury that if you believe from the evidence that
a confession was made by the defendant, but that such confession was
obtained by undue influence or other factors on the part of the
officers, or that the confession was made under the influence of hope
or fear held out by the officers, or that the confession was not freely
and voluntarily made, then you shall disregard and reject such
confession and give it no weight whatsoever.
The trial court refused the instruction but permitted Villafana’s counsel to assert during closing
arguments that the jury should discount the probative weight of Villafana’s confession given the
circumstances surrounding it.
On appeal, Villafana argues the trial court erred in refusing his proposed instruction. We
disagree. The instruction directed the jurors to “disregard” the confession and “give it no weight
whatsoever” if they found certain facts about the circumstances of the interrogation. This
directive confuses the proper roles of judge and jury. “Virginia follows the Wigmore or
orthodox rule.” Wooden v. Commonwealth, 208 Va. 629, 631 n.3, 159 S.E.2d 623, 625 n.3
(1968). Under this rule, the trial judge “hears testimony offered by the prosecution and the
defendant, out of the presence of the jury, and then rules the confession voluntary or involuntary.
If he rules the confession voluntary, it is admitted into evidence and the jury considers
voluntariness only insofar as it affects the weight or credibility of the confession.” Id.; see also
Tipton v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 256, 261-62, 295 S.E.2d 880, 883 (1982); Wilson v.
Commonwealth, 220 Va. 26, 32, 255 S.E.2d 464, 468 (1979); Mathews v. Commonwealth, 207
Va. 915, 918-19, 153 S.E.2d 238, 240 (1967); Noe v. Commonwealth, 207 Va. 849, 852-53, 153
S.E.2d 248, 250-51 (1967).
Villafana’s proposed instruction misstated the law by recasting the jury’s factfinding
discretion as an all-or-nothing option ⎯ one analytically no different from the admissibility
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decision assigned solely to the trial judge. “The refused instruction would have, in effect, told
the jury that it was to determine the issue of the admissibility of the confession and, if it believed
that the confession was not voluntary, to reject it as evidence.” McCoy v. Commonwealth, 206
Va. 470, 475, 144 S.E.2d 303, 308 (1965). By doing so, the proposed instruction disordered the
factfinding task of the jury which ⎯ when properly exercised ⎯ focuses on “voluntariness only
insofar as it affects the weight or credibility of the confession.” Mathews, 207 Va. at 918-19,
153 S.E.2d at 240 (emphasis added); see also Wooden, 208 Va. at 631 n.3, 159 S.E.2d at 625 n.3.
For these reasons, the trial court did not err in refusing Villafana’s proposed instruction.1
We affirm his convictions.
Affirmed.
1
Given our holding, we need not address the Commonwealth’s argument that, even if the
proposed instruction accurately stated the law, Villafana’s testimony about his weakened
emotional state fell short of providing a prima facie factual basis for the jury to conclude that his
confession was not freely and voluntarily made. See generally Juniper v. Commonwealth, 271
Va. 362, 418, 626 S.E.2d 383, 419 (2006) (“An instruction must be supported by more than a
scintilla of evidence.” (citation omitted)).
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