Michael Gardner v. Commonwealth of Virginia

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Elder, Petty and Beales
Argued at Chesapeake, Virginia
MICHAEL GARDNER
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 2367-09-1 JUDGE RANDOLPH A. BEALES
DECEMBER 14, 2010
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF SUFFOLK
Westbrook J. Parker, Judge
James L. Grandfield, Public Defender (Office of the Public
Defender, on brief), for appellant.
Rosemary V. Bourne, Assistant Attorney General (Kenneth T.
Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Michael Gardner (appellant) was convicted by the trial court of aggravated malicious
wounding (under Code § 18.2-51.2); shooting, stabbing, cutting, or wounding in the commission
of a felony (under Code § 18.2-53); and robbery (under Code § 18.2-58). 1 On appeal, appellant
argues that the trial court erred when it did not dismiss those charges for failure of the
Commonwealth to prosecute them within the time afforded by Virginia’s speedy trial statute,
Code § 19.2-243. For the following reasons, we affirm the convictions.
I. BACKGROUND
Appellant was indicted on June 25, 2008, was arrested the following day, and remained in
custody until his trial. At appellant’s July 23, 2008 arraignment, the parties agreed on a trial date of
*
Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not designated for publication.
1
Appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting these convictions in his
petition for appeal, but this Court did not grant an appeal on that issue.
October 6, 2008. Three days prior to this anticipated trial date, the trial court granted appellant’s
motion for a continuance and set a new trial date of January 15, 2009.
On January 14, 2009, the Commonwealth moved for a continuance claiming that one of
its witnesses, Detective McCarley, was on active military duty and unavailable to appear at trial.
The trial court conducted a hearing and granted the Commonwealth’s continuance motion,
noting in its written order that the continuance was granted under Code § 19.2-243(2) because
“Det. McCarley is currently on active military duty.” The court set a new trial date of April 23,
2009.
A transcript of the January 14, 2009 hearing is not a part of the record on appeal.
Appellant failed to file the transcript within sixty days after entry of the final judgment in the
trial court as explicitly required by the Rules of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. See Rule
5A:7(a)(7), 5A:8(a).
On April 23, 2009, appellant moved to dismiss the charges, contending that the trial had
not occurred within the statutory speedy trial period. Appellant’s counsel made no specific
arguments in support of this motion, and no evidence concerning the Commonwealth’s earlier
continuance motion was presented at that time. Noting that Detective McCarley had been “kept
away” under Code § 19.2-243(2), 2 the trial court denied appellant’s motion to dismiss the
charges.
II. ANALYSIS
Code § 19.2-243 provides that, “[i]f an indictment or presentment is found against the
accused but he has not been arrested for the offense charged therein,” the five-month statutory
2
Appellant never challenged the entry of the trial court’s written order of April 23, 2009,
nunc pro tunc January 29, 2009, in which the trial court found that Detective McCarley had been
“kept away” under Code § 19.2-243(2). This order replaced the trial court’s earlier January 29,
2009 written order granting the Commonwealth’s motion for a continuance.
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speedy trial period “shall commence to run from the date of his arrest thereon” – which, in this
case, was June 26, 2008. “The five-month requirement translates ‘to 152 and a fraction days.’”
Howard v. Commonwealth, 55 Va. App. 417, 423, 686 S.E.2d 537, 540 (2009) (quoting Ballance
v. Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 1, 6, 461 S.E.2d 401, 403 (1995)). However, Code § 19.2-243
provides for tolling of this time period for several reasons, such as “[f]or the witnesses for the
Commonwealth being enticed or kept away, or prevented from attending by sickness or
accident.” Code § 19.2-243(2). 3
Appellant argues that the continuance from January 15, 2009 to April 23, 2009, should be
included in the five-month limitation period set by Code § 19.2-243, which would put the start of
his trial outside the 152 and a fraction days. He claims that the “kept away” tolling provision in
Code § 19.2-243(2) does not include situations like Detective McCarley’s active military duty.
However, it is impossible for this Court to evaluate the propriety of the trial court’s finding that
Detective McCarley was “kept away” under subsection (2) of this statute. The record does not
contain the transcript of the January 14, 2009 hearing during which the parties addressed this
issue. 4
“[O]n appeal the judgment of the lower court is presumed to be correct and the burden is on
the appellant to present to us a sufficient record from which we can determine whether the lower
3
The statutory speedy trial time period is also tolled “[b]y continuance granted on the
motion of the accused or his counsel.” Code § 19.2-243(4). Appellant concedes that the
continuances from July 7, 2008 to July 23, 2008 and from October 6, 2008 to January 15, 2009
were not attributable to the Commonwealth under the speedy trial statute because those
continuances resulted from appellant’s own motions.
4
Appellant also contends that a witness is “kept away” within the meaning of Code
§ 19.2-243(2) only when the defendant is the cause for the witness being kept away. It is unclear
whether appellant actually made this specific argument to the trial court since the transcript of
the January 14, 2009 hearing is not a part of the record on appeal. Therefore, we do not address
the merits of this argument. See Rule 5A:8.
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court has erred in the respect complained of.” Justis v. Young, 202 Va. 631, 632, 119 S.E.2d 255,
256-57 (1961). “An appellate court must dispose of the case upon the record and cannot base its
decision upon appellant’s petition or brief, or statements of counsel in open court. We may act only
upon facts contained in the record.” Smith v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 630, 635, 432 S.E.2d 2,
6 (1993). Therefore, “[w]hen the appellant fails to ensure that the record contains transcripts or a
written statement of facts necessary to permit resolution of appellate issues, any assignments of
error affected by such omission shall not be considered.” Rule 5A:8(b)(4)(ii).
It is clear from the April 23, 2009 transcript, which is a proper part of the record on appeal,
that the factual circumstances pertinent to Detective McCarley’s inability to testify on the scheduled
January 15, 2009 trial date were developed and argued during the January 14, 2009 hearing on the
Commonwealth’s continuance motion. However, appellant failed to ensure that the transcript of the
January 14, 2009 hearing was a part of the record on appeal, and “[t]his Court has no authority to
make exceptions to the filing requirements” of the Rules of the Court. Turner v. Commonwealth,
2 Va. App. 96, 99, 341 S.E.2d 400, 402 (1986).
Furthermore, the transcript of the April 23, 2009 hearing contains only brief and incomplete
references to the facts presented at the January 14, 2009 hearing. For example, although the
prosecutor noted at the April 23, 2009 hearing that Detective McCarley was in Japan on active
military duty during January 2009, the transcript of that April 23, 2009 hearing sheds no light on
important factual considerations including, but not limited to, in what branch of the military the
detective served; what efforts, if any, the Commonwealth took to request the detective’s presence at
trial; what response, if any, the military made to this request; and what the military’s terms for
returning the detective to Virginia to appear at trial were (if the military even agreed to McCarley’s
returning to testify). This April 23, 2009 hearing transcript also contains no references to the
specific arguments appellant made in opposition to the Commonwealth’s motion for a continuance
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during the January 14, 2009 hearing. Thus, the transcript of the April 23, 2009 hearing certainly is
insufficient for evaluating the trial court’s ruling that Detective McCarley had been “kept away”
under Code § 19.2-243(2).
Based on this scant record, therefore, we cannot conclude that the trial court’s ruling that
Detective McCarley had been “kept away” under the speedy trial statute, which is presumed to be
correct, was instead erroneous. See Justis, 202 Va. at 632, 119 S.E.2d at 256-57.
III. CONCLUSION
Appellant failed to ensure that the record on appeal contained the transcript of the January
14, 2009 hearing, and this transcript is “necessary to permit resolution of appellate issues.” Rule
5A:8(b)(4)(ii). Therefore, the record on appeal is inadequate to determine whether the trial court
erred when it found that Detective McCarley was “kept away” under Code § 19.2-243(2).
Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm appellant’s convictions.
Affirmed.
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