Billy Deangelo Williams v. Commonwealth of Virginia ( 1999 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Willis, Lemons and Frank
Argued at Norfolk, Virginia
BILLY DEANGELO WILLIAMS
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 1699-98-1 JUDGE JERE M. H. WILLIS, JR.
OCTOBER 19, 1999
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NORFOLK
Junius P. Fulton, III, Judge
Robert Moody, IV (Krinick, Segall, Moody &
Lewis, on brief), for appellant.
Eugene Murphy, Assistant Attorney General
(Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief),
for appellee.
On appeal from his conviction of robbery, in violation of
Code § 18.2-58, Billy Deangelo Williams contends that the trial
court erred in denying his motion to strike the evidence.
Because the evidence sufficiently supports a finding of guilt,
we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
"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). On February
20, 1998, Williams entered a Norfolk bank and handed teller
* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code
§ 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated for publication.
Evette Walker a note. Thinking it was a check, Walker opened
the note, which read, "This is a robbery. Give us the money and
know [sic] one will be shot." When Walker did not respond to
the note immediately, Williams reached over the counter, grabbed
money from her cash drawer, and exited the bank. In doing so,
he grabbed a bundle of cash containing a dye pack. No dye was
found on Williams.
Walker identified Williams from a photo array shown to her
a few days after the robbery and identified him in person at
trial. She testified that she was sure of her identification
because she and he had made eye contact during the robbery.
Robin Peskopos, the teller working next to Walker,
witnessed the incident. She also identified Williams
positively, both from a photo array and in person at trial. The
Commonwealth also introduced still photographs, gleaned from the
bank security video cameras, that showed the robber.
A jury convicted Williams of robbery, in violation of Code
§ 18.2-58, and sentenced him to eighteen years imprisonment.
Williams contends that the evidence is insufficient to
prove him guilty of robbery. He argues that the witness
identifications were unreliable. However, both tellers picked
Williams out of photo arrays a few days after the robbery, and
both positively identified him at trial. Walker testified that
she would not forget Williams' face and that she had made eye
contact with him. Walker stood directly across from Williams
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during the robbery, and Peskopos was standing beside her in the
next teller station. These identifications were not inherently
incredible and were accepted by the jury. They alone
sufficiently support the conviction. Moreover, the Commonwealth
did not rely solely upon the witness identifications but, in
addition, introduced still photographs of the robber taken
during the robbery by the bank's surveillance cameras.
In his brief, Williams has challenged the admissibility of
the identifications by the tellers. However, we awarded no
appeal on this issue and will not now consider it. See Rule
5A:12(c) and Rule 5A:18.
Williams also argues that the jury's verdicts were
inconsistent and show that the jury compromised on its verdict
and did not address the evidence. The jury convicted Williams
of robbery, but acquitted him of a companion charge of use of a
firearm in the commission of a felony. The evidence, however,
supports the verdicts. The jury believed Williams was the
robber. Walker's testimony that she saw what she thought was
the handle of a handgun, however, may not have convinced the
jury that Walker actually possessed a firearm. See Code
§ 18.2-53.1; Sprouse v. Commonwealth, 19 Va. App. 548, 551-52,
453 S.E.2d 303, 306 (1995). Furthermore, an inconsistent
verdict is not grounds for reversal.
[T]he United States Supreme Court addressed
the issue of legal inconsistency in the case
of United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57- 3 -
(1984). The Court unanimously reaffirmed
. . . that a criminal defendant convicted by
a jury on one count could not attack that
conviction because it was inconsistent with
the jury's verdict of acquittal on another
count.
Wolfe v. Commonwealth, 6 Va. App. 640, 647, 371 S.E.2d 314, 318
(1988).
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Affirmed.
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