Eric Christian Lally v. Commonwealth of Virginia ( 2018 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Chief Judge Huff, Judges Humphreys and O’Brien
Argued at Fredericksburg, Virginia
UNPUBLISHED
ERIC CHRISTIAN LALLY
MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY
v. Record No. 0048-17-4 JUDGE MARY GRACE O’BRIEN
APRIL 17, 2018
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY
Douglas L. Fleming, Jr., Judge
Elizabeth Jean Lancaster, Deputy Public Defender, for appellant.
Rosemary V. Bourne, Senior Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. Herring,
Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
A jury convicted Eric Christian Lally (“appellant”) of assaulting a law enforcement officer,
in violation of Code § 18.2-57. The court imposed the jury’s recommended sentence of four years
and three months of incarceration, and it added a six-month suspended sentence. Appellant moved
to set aside the verdict, claiming that the prosecutor engaged in improper argument during both the
guilt and sentencing phases of the trial. The court denied the motion and noted that appellant did
not object to the prosecutor’s statements during trial. Appellant now contends that the
“Commonwealth’s improper arguments at sentencing require a new sentencing hearing.” Because
appellant’s arguments are procedurally barred, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Deputy Sheriff Shannon Almborg of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department responded
to a report of a disorderly man at a local hospital. She encountered appellant, who was intoxicated
*
Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not designated for publication.
and vomiting. Appellant punched Deputy Almborg once in her face and several times in her chest,
and he was charged with assault and battery on a law enforcement officer.
After empaneling the jury, the court gave a preliminary instruction that:
opening and closing arguments of counsel are not evidence. They
are intended to be counsels’ attempts at helping [you] to apply the
evidence and instructions, but [you are] to apply the evidence to the
instructions in arriving at [your] verdict.
During closing arguments, the prosecutor told the jury that he “fe[lt] bad” for appellant’s attorney,
who had to defend a difficult case. He asserted that appellant’s counsel made numerous statements
in her closing argument that were “flat-out wrong” but he did not want to object because “[i]t’s kind
of rude to interrupt someone when they’re doing a closing argument.” The jury convicted appellant
of assaulting a law enforcement officer.
At the subsequent sentencing hearing, the court instructed the jury about the range of
punishment and advised that appellant was not eligible for parole. The prosecutor introduced
appellant’s prior convictions and referred to them during his sentencing argument:
You’ll see if you look . . . back here[,] the [c]ourt, the [j]udge,
suspended all of that time for a period of 12 months. You don’t
worry about suspending. That is not your job. Your job is to
determine what the sentence is. Any suspension is not something
you need to worry about. Your job is just to determine what the
potential sentence is here. If it gets suspended, that is the [c]ourt’s
job, not yours.
Later in the argument, the prosecutor addressed the issue of probation, and reiterated:
Your job here is to determine what the sentence, overall sentence
should be. Where should we – what leeway should we give the
judge when he is determining whether to put him on probation?
That is what you do. You give the ultimate sentence. If you
want to say 1 year, okay. He gets 1 year. The [c]ourt determines
whether any of that is suspended. If you want to say 5 years. Again,
it’s the [c]ourt’s job. The [c]ourt can determine whether that gets all
suspended or all but 6 months suspended or whether none of it gets
suspended.
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The prosecutor concluded by telling the jury: “Your job is to give the [c]ourt the range of
punishment.”
Appellant did not object to any of the prosecutor’s remarks and did not ask for a cautionary
instruction or a mistrial. In response to a question from the jury during deliberations, the court
advised, “You are to confine your deliberations to the instructions before you and not concern
yourselves with what may happen thereafter.” Following the jury’s sentencing verdict, appellant
filed a motion for a new trial or, in the alternative, to set aside the jury’s sentence. The court denied
the motion and noted that appellant may have failed to object for tactical reasons.
DISCUSSION
Although appellant concedes that he did not contemporaneously object to the prosecutor’s
argument, he asks us to apply the ends of justice exception to Rule 5A:18 and consider the merits of
his appeal. Rule 5A:18 provides that “[n]o ruling of the trial court . . . will be considered as a basis
for reversal unless an objection was stated with reasonable certainty at the time of the ruling, except
for good cause shown or to enable the Court of Appeals to attain the ends of justice.” We have
stated that “[t]o be timely, an objection must be made when the occasion arises – at the time the
evidence is offered or the statement made.” Marlowe v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. App. 619, 621, 347
S.E.2d 167, 168 (1986). “The purpose of this contemporaneous objection requirement is to allow
the trial court a fair opportunity to resolve the issue at trial, thereby preventing unnecessary appeals
and retrials.” Creamer v. Commonwealth, 64 Va. App. 185, 195, 767 S.E.2d 226, 231 (2015).
Further, to preserve a challenge to an improper closing argument, a defendant must request a
cautionary instruction or a mistrial when the objectionable comment is made.
It is well-settled that errors assigned because of a prosecutor’s
alleged improper comments . . . during argument will not be
considered on appeal unless an accused timely moves for a
cautionary instruction or for a mistrial. The motions must be made
timely if the accused desires to take advantage of his objection on
appeal.
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Mack v. Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 5, 8, 454 S.E.2d 750, 751 (1995) (quoting Cheng v.
Commonwealth, 240 Va. 26, 38, 393 S.E.2d 599, 605-06 (1990)).
Appellant did not object during the prosecutor’s argument at sentencing and did not request
a cautionary instruction or move for a mistrial. He contends that he was effectively precluded from
objecting because of the prosecutor’s earlier statement that “[i]t’s kind of rude to interrupt someone
when they’re doing a closing argument.” Appellant concludes that if he had objected during the
closing argument, the jury would have considered him unprofessional. Accordingly, he asks this
Court to apply the ends of justice exception to the contemporaneous objection requirement.
“[T]he ends of justice exception is narrow and is to be used sparingly.” Brown v.
Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 126, 132, 380 S.E.2d 8, 11 (1989). Virginia courts apply the exception
only in “very limited circumstances.” Gheorgiu v. Commonwealth, 280 Va. 678, 689, 701 S.E.2d
407, 414 (2010). For example, the Supreme Court has employed the ends of justice exception
where:
the record establishes that an element of the crime did not occur, Ali
v. Commonwealth, 280 Va. 665, [671], 701 S.E.2d 64, [68] (2010)
. . .; a conviction [was] based on a void sentence, Charles [v.
Commonwealth], 270 Va. [14,] 20, 613 S.E.2d [432,] 435 [(2005)];
conviction of a non-offense, Jiminez v. Commonwealth, 241 Va.
244, 249-50, 402 S.E.2d 678, 680 (1991); and a capital murder
conviction where the evidence was insufficient to support an
instruction, Ball v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 754, 758, 273 S.E.2d
790, 793 (1981).
Gheorgiu, 280 Va. at 689, 701 S.E.2d at 414.
In determining whether to apply the ends of justice exception, “we must review the record to
determine whether a miscarriage of justice has occurred.” Redman v. Commonwealth, 25 Va. App.
215, 218, 487 S.E.2d 269, 271 (1997). Appellant asserts that the prosecutor’s comments during the
sentencing argument impermissibly suggested that the jury should recommend a significant period
of incarceration and the judge would suspend some portion of the sentence. However, the court
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properly instructed the jury as to the law, and a jury is presumed to follow the judge’s instructions.
See Prieto v. Commonwealth, 283 Va. 149, 169, 721 S.E.2d 484, 496 (2012). The court previously
instructed the jury that the attorneys’ arguments were not evidence, and it advised the jury that
appellant was not eligible for parole. See Fishback v. Commonwealth, 260 Va. 104, 115, 532
S.E.2d 629, 634 (2000). Later, in response to the jury’s question during penalty phase deliberations,
the court told the jury that it should make a decision about sentencing and “not concern [itself] with
what may happen thereafter.”
To avail himself of the ends of justice exception, an appellant must “affirmatively show that
a miscarriage of justice has occurred,” not merely that one “might have occurred.” Redman, 25
Va. App. at 221, 487 S.E.2d at 272. Appellant has failed to meet his burden of proof in this case.
As the court noted, appellant’s failure to object may have been a tactical decision. Accordingly, we
find that appellant waived his assignment of error, and we deny his request to apply the ends of
justice exception to Rule 5A:18.
Affirmed.
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