Ronnie James Goode v. Commonwealth ( 1996 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Baker, Coleman and Elder
Argued at Salem, Virginia
RONNIE JAMES GOODE
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 1393-95-3 JUDGE SAM W. COLEMAN III
OCTOBER 15, 1996
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF LYNCHBURG
Mosby G. Perrow, III, Judge
Vanessa E. Hicks, Assistant Pubic Defender
(Office of the Public Defender, on brief),
for appellant.
John K. Byrum, Jr., Assistant Attorney
General (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney
General, on brief), for appellee.
Ronnie James Goode was convicted in a bench trial for
possession of cocaine with intent to distribute in violation of
Code § 18.2-248. Goode contends that the evidence is
insufficient to prove that he had the intent to distribute. We
find that the evidence is sufficient and affirm the defendant's
conviction.
On appeal, we review the evidence and all reasonable
inferences fairly deducible therefrom in the light most favorable
to the Commonwealth. Higginbotham v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. 349,
352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 537 (1975).
Where evidence of an intent to distribute is
entirely circumstantial, "all necessary
circumstances proved must be consistent with
guilt and inconsistent with innocence and
*
Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not
designated for publication.
exclude every reasonable hypothesis of
innocence." Thus, the sufficiency of
circumstances to prove an intent to
distribute depends upon the inferences
permissible from those circumstances. . . .
If, however, other evidence also tends to
prove the element of the crime required to be
proven, the probative weight of the inferred
fact need be no greater than that required of
any other evidence admitted for consideration
by the trier of fact, so long as all of the
evidence proves the element beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Morton v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 6, 9-10, 408 S.E.2d 583,
584-85 (1991) (citations omitted).
The defendant contends that the circumstantial evidence,
viewed in its most favorable light, proves that a drug sale was
taking place between the defendant and the driver of the vehicle.
He argues, however, that the evidence does not prove which of
them was the seller and it does not exclude the hypothesis that
he was purchasing cocaine, rather than distributing it. We
disagree.
The evidence presented was that the defendant was seen by
Officers Riley and Sawyers running from the porch of a known drug
house and entering the passenger side of a car. When the
officers approached the vehicle, they observed a twenty-dollar
bill resting on the seat between the defendant and the driver.
The defendant had his left hand clinched resting on his left
knee. Officer Riley asked the defendant to open his hand and he
did so, revealing a plastic baggie containing a white, rock-like
substance which in a field test proved to be cocaine. The
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defendant was arrested and a search incident to arrest revealed
$110 in mixed bills in the defendant's right front pocket.
The defendant contends that this evidence alone is not
sufficient to prove intent to distribute beyond a reasonable
doubt. The defendant relies upon the decisions in Rice v.
Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 370, 429 S.E.2d 879 (1993) (holding
possession of large amount of cash does not prove intent);
Morton, 13 Va. App. 6, 408 S.E.2d 583 (1991) (holding defendant's
approach of car did not exclude his being the buyer in
transaction); and Stanley v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 867, 869,
407 S.E.2d 13, 15 (1991) (holding amount of cocaine possessed too
small to have intent to distribute) to support his contention.
The circumstantial evidence in this case is not limited, as it
was in Rice, Morton, and Stanley, to a single item of evidence of
possessing a large amount of money, approaching a car, or having
an amount of cocaine too small to distribute. Here a combination
of factors preponderate to prove that the defendant was the
seller, not the purchaser. "While no single piece of evidence
may be sufficient, the 'combined force of many concurrent and
related circumstances, each insufficient in itself, may lead a
reasonable mind irresistibly to a conclusion.'" Stamper v.
Commonwealth, 220 Va. 260, 273, 257 S.E.2d 808, 818 (1979)
(quoting Karnes v. Commonwealth, 125 Va. 758, 764, 99 S.E. 562,
564 (1919)), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 972 (1980).
Officer Riley testified at trial without objection as to the
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custom in the area and as to this particular location for selling
drugs. He testified that
[w]hat they do there is they wait for a
customer to drive up and somebody will come
out from the outside of the porch area of the
house, come out to the vehicle, and make a
drug transaction, and then the vehicle will
leave. If nobody's there at that time the
vehicle would either go by -- go to another
location.
The defendant's actions at the time he was arrested matched this
description of how drug sales were made. Moreover, the
circumstances of the defendant leaving the house when a car
approached, engaging in a drug transaction in which he had a rock
of cocaine in his hand and a twenty-dollar bill was on the seat
between him and the driver, and having $110 in mixed bills in his
right front pocket, are sufficient to prove that he was the
seller, rather than the buyer. The Commonwealth's evidence
proved much more than that the defendant was present while a drug
transaction occurred in an area that had a reputation for a high
crime area, Riley v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 494, 412 S.E.2d
724 (1993), as he exited a known crack house and engaged in a
drug sale in a manner typical of drug dealers in that area.
Furthermore, Officer Riley testified that the driver of the
vehicle told him at the scene that the defendant was attempting
to sell him cocaine. Most importantly, Officer Sawyers testified
that the defendant told him, when interviewed at the station
house, that the twenty-dollar bill belonged to the driver of the
vehicle and that the driver wanted to buy drugs. The defendant's
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admission supports the inference that he was the seller in the
transaction.
The evidence is sufficient to sustain the defendant's
conviction for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the trial court.
Affirmed.
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