Richard Lee Williams v. Commonwealth of Virginia ( 2024 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
UNPUBLISHED
Present: Judges Beales, Fulton and Lorish
RICHARD LEE WILLIAMS
MEMORANDUM OPINION*
v. Record No. 2212-23-1 PER CURIAM
NOVEMBER 6, 2024
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ACCOMACK COUNTY
W. Revell Lewis III, Judge
(Charles E. Haden, on brief), for appellant.
No brief for appellee.
Richard Williams appeals the circuit court’s denial of his motion to strike his charge of
distribution of cocaine, third offense. Williams argues that the evidence was insufficient to
prove his guilt because it was largely based on the testimony of an unreliable paid confidential
informant (CI). After examining the briefs and record, the panel unanimously holds that oral
argument is unnecessary because “the appeal is wholly without merit.” Code § 17.1-403(ii)(a); see
also Rule 5A:27(a). Because the credibility of a witness is a matter for the factfinder to determine,
and because the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable factfinder to conclude that Williams
participated in the transaction with the CI, we affirm.
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A).
STATEMENT OF FACTS1
In February 2023, a CI named Larry Mears contacted Sergeant Glen Bailey of the Eastern
Shore Drug Task Force (ESDTF). Mears told officers he could set up a purchase of a half-ounce
of cocaine from Williams. Mears, who had been in the company of Williams for most of the
day, arranged with police to be picked up and brought to a predetermined location. Officers
provided Mears with a phone, vehicle, and money for the purchase, and also outfitted Mears with
a video/audio recording device. Before the operation, a police officer searched Mears and the
vehicle he was provided, and found no contraband on him.
The plan called for Mears to notify officers after completing the controlled buy. While
wearing the recording device, Mears arranged to meet Williams at a house in Greenbush. While
Mears headed to the house to meet Williams, police remained at the predetermined location to
await the signal from Mears that the buy was completed. Inside the house, Mears and Williams
disagreed over the amount of cocaine Mears could buy, and Williams only gave him half of the
drugs, with the expectation that he return for the other half. Once the transaction was complete,
Mears put the camera and the plastic bag on the seat of his car and did not move or alter them in
any way. Afterward, Mears and the officers returned to a predetermined location where officers
collected the plastic bag and conducted another search of Mears and the vehicle. Task Force
Agent Lewis retrieved the plastic bag from the passenger seat of the vehicle. A drug analysis
later confirmed that the substance in the bag Mears received contained 2.83 grams of cocaine.
Williams was charged with distribution of cocaine, third offense.
1
“On appeal, we review the evidence in the ‘light most favorable’ to the Commonwealth,
the prevailing party in the trial court.” Yerling v. Commonwealth, 71 Va. App. 527, 530 (2020)
(quoting Vasquez v. Commonwealth, 291 Va. 232, 236 (2016)).
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At trial, Mears testified that he purchased the drugs from Williams. And the
Commonwealth introduced the audio and video recordings of the transaction, as recorded by
Mears. The Commonwealth also introduced still shots from the video that showed Mears inside
the home, holding cash that Mears testified that he gave to Williams. These still shots also
showed Williams holding the plastic bag that Mears testified was the bag of cocaine he got from
Williams and then later handed over to the officers. Mears also testified that he recognized
Williams’s voice in the recording talking about the bag and that the recording included their
disagreement over the amount of cocaine Mears was supposed to receive.
The video recordings submitted into evidence were intermittent and did not show the full
drug transaction. Relevant here, the video recordings do not show a hand-to-hand transaction
between Williams and Mears. In addition, based on video evidence and Mears’s testimony, there
were two other males and one female at the residence at the time of the transaction. Mears
testified, however, that he did not trade money or substances with any of the other individuals in
the room.
Mears has a criminal history that includes drug distribution charges from 2003, a firearm
offense from 2007, and a drug distribution offense from 2017. At the time of trial, he also had
pending felony drug charges in Virginia and Maryland. Mears acknowledged during his
testimony that he was still on probation for his 2017 distribution offense and was in jail at the
time of the trial. Mears denied that he gave information to the task force in exchange for
assistance with his legal charges. Instead, Mears testified that he was paid $100 for his
cooperation.
At trial, the Commonwealth also provided witness testimony from three of the members
of the ESDTF involved in the operation. Williams did not put on any evidence and instead
moved to strike the Commonwealth’s case on the grounds that Mears, with his extensive
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criminal record, was not a credible witness. Williams also argued that because the recording
showed other people from whom Mears could have purchased the drugs, and because it did not
show a hand-to-hand transaction between Mears and Williams, the Commonwealth had not
proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. The court denied the motion, finding that Mears’s
testimony was sufficiently corroborated by other evidence. The court found Williams guilty of
the distribution of cocaine, third offense. Williams appeals.
ANALYSIS
“When an appellate court reviews the sufficiency of the evidence underlying a criminal
conviction, its role is a limited one.” Commonwealth v. Garrick, 303 Va. 176, 182 (2024). “The
judgment of the trial court is presumed correct and will not be disturbed unless it is ‘plainly
wrong or without evidence to support it.’” Pijor v. Commonwealth, 294 Va. 502, 512 (2017)
(quoting Code § 8.01-680). “Thus, ‘it is not for this [C]ourt to say that the evidence does or does
not establish [the defendant’s] guilt beyond a reasonable doubt because as an original proposition
it might have reached a different conclusion.’” Commonwealth v. Barney, 302 Va. 84, 97 (2023)
(alterations in original) (quoting Cobb v. Commonwealth, 152 Va. 941, 953 (1929)). “[T]he
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.” Fletcher v. Commonwealth,
72 Va. App. 493, 502 (2020) (quoting Crawley v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 372, 375 (1999)).
“When the law says that it is for triers of the facts to judge the credibility of a witness, the issue
is not a matter of degree.” Towler v. Commonwealth, 59 Va. App. 284, 291 (2011) (quoting
Swanson v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 376, 379 (1989)). We will not disturb a credibility
finding “on appeal unless plainly wrong.” Maust v. Commonwealth, 77 Va. App. 687, 703
(2023) (quoting Towler v. Commonwealth, 59 Va. App. 284, 291 (2011)).
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Williams argues that his motion to strike should have been granted because Mears was
not a credible witness, and therefore the Commonwealth’s evidence failed to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that Mears had purchased cocaine from him. Williams contends that there
“exists a hypothesis of innocence consistent with the circumstantial evidence in this case,”
Scruggs v. Commonwealth, 19 Va. App. 58, 63 (1994), which requires us to reverse. According
to Williams, the evidence against him was merely circumstantial because Mears was
“suspicious” given his extensive criminal record, his history of dealing drugs, and his
implausible denials that he testified to receive some benefit related to his pending criminal
charges. Williams also argues that the Commonwealth failed to rule out the possibility that one
of the other adults present in the residence may have provided Mears the cocaine. He asserts that
“the wildly bouncing and jerky video recording” made it unclear whether Mears acquired the
cocaine from Williams and that the fact that the recording did not show a hand-to-hand
transaction meant that the Commonwealth did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Ultimately, Williams asks us to make our own determination about the credibility of
Mears’s testimony, which is something we cannot do. The trial court was aware of Mears’s
criminal history, and Williams had the opportunity to question Mears about his prior offenses at
trial. Even if Mears had ulterior motives for volunteering as a confidential informant—like
getting bond or a reduced sentence—the trial court was well-equipped to weigh the facts and
make its own determination about credibility. In addition, as the court found, there was
corroborating evidence to support Mears’s testimony. Mears was searched before and after the
controlled purchase by task force agents who found nothing on his person other than the
narcotics he acquired during the operation. Additionally, Mears was monitored throughout the
operation, and even though the recording was spotty, it remained on throughout the transaction.
Thus, objective evidence supported Mears’s testimony that he purchased drugs from Williams.
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Williams also argues that the lack of video evidence showing a hand-to-hand transaction
is sufficient to cast doubt on whether Williams (rather than someone else in the room)
participated in the controlled buy. But our prior cases foreclose this argument. Under similar
circumstances, this Court has found that circumstantial evidence can be sufficient to prove a
defendant’s guilt, even when police could not observe a CI during a drug transaction. For
example, where a CI was searched before a controlled buy, and ended up with two ounces of
cocaine after the purchase, we found that the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to establish
“an unbroken chain of possession of the cocaine” from the defendant to the CI and then to the
officer. Jones v. Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 435, 444 (1995). This was true even though the
police did not have the CI under constant surveillance. Id. We held that “[t]he fact that the
officers did not have [the CI] under surveillance the entire time he was away from [law
enforcement] does not establish a reasonable hypothesis that someone other than [the defendant]
was the source of the cocaine.” Id. The suggestion that the drugs could have been purchased
from someone else was “pure speculation and conjecture.” Id. at 443; see also Ray v.
Commonwealth, 74 Va. App. 291, 307-08 (2022) (finding that a CI who was searched before and
after a controlled buy, wearing an audio recording device and a GPS tracker, provided sufficient
evidence to support a reasonable factfinder’s conclusion that the CI obtained drugs from the
defendant).
There was plenty of evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could have rejected the
hypothesis of innocence that the drugs came from someone other than Williams. First, there was
Mears’s testimony that he purchased the drugs from Williams, as well as his identification of
Williams’s voice arguing about the quantity of drugs on the audio recording. As we already
discussed, the trial court was entitled to find Mears’s testimony credible. Next, the defense did
not dispute that Williams was the person depicted in the still photo inside the residence where the
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drug transaction took place, or that Williams was holding the plastic bag that contained the drugs
that Mears handed over to the investigating officers. Finally, Mears was searched before and
after he went into the residence with the cash he was provided. Officers found no contraband on
him before the controlled buy, and afterward, the cash was gone and replaced by a bag
containing cocaine. We therefore conclude that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable
to the Commonwealth, there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable factfinder to determine that
Williams provided Mears with the cocaine.
CONCLUSION
The trial court’s decision denying Williams’ motion to strike is not plainly wrong or without
evidentiary support. Thus, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Affirmed.
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