Case Title: Hickson v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 982618

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 1999-09-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
ROBERT WAYNE HICKSON, JR. 
v. Record No. 982618   OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  September 17, 1999 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
 
The defendant, Robert Wayne Hickson, Jr., was 
convicted of arson in a bench trial in the Circuit Court of 
Montgomery County.1  In an unpublished opinion, the Court of 
Appeals found sufficient evidence to support the conviction 
and affirmed the judgment of the circuit court.  We granted 
the defendant this appeal in which he again challenges the 
sufficiency of the evidence.  Because we conclude that the 
evidence fails, as a matter of law, to establish that the 
defendant was the person who committed the arson, we will 
reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
FACTS 
A mobile home in which Charles Michael Eastridge, 
Judith Eastridge, and Samantha Ray Thompson (the 
Eastridges) lived was destroyed by fire on August 10, 1995.  
                     
1 The circuit court found the defendant guilty pursuant 
to Code § 18.2-77.  In pertinent part, that section 
prohibits the malicious burning of any dwelling house or 
manufactured home.  The court sentenced the defendant to 
five years incarceration, with three years and six months 
suspended. 
 
Their home was located in Elliston, behind a post office, 
across railroad tracks, and near a river.  It was situated 
approximately one-half mile from Route 460 "[b]y the way a 
crow flies." 
Norman Croy, a Deputy Sheriff Investigator with the 
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the fire.  
Croy discovered a red gasoline container at the rear of the 
mobile home approximately six feet from the steps that led 
up to the porch.  Croy testified that the container smelled 
like gasoline and that a "minute amount" of gasoline 
remained in the container.  He also discovered a “flammable 
liquid pour pattern” on the wooden back porch steps and 
detected a gasoline odor in the soil underneath those 
steps.  Thus, Croy concluded that the fire started on those 
steps as a result of gasoline having been poured on them 
and ignited.2
According to Croy, when a fire, such as the one in the 
present case, is first ignited, there is a "flash" 
accompanied by a "[v]ery audible" "whooshing sound."  
However, he did not believe that the "whooshing sound" 
could have been heard from a distance of one-half mile. 
                     
2 Through his investigation, Croy ruled out possible 
accidental causes of the fire. 
 
 
2
 
The Commonwealth’s evidence linking the defendant to 
the fire was circumstantial.  Gary Hall Spence testified 
that he and the defendant met at a campground in Radford on 
or about August 10, 1995.  Spence stated, "To the best of 
my recollection I can’t swear on the date."  While at the 
campground, Spence heard the defendant say that somebody 
owed him money. 
Spence and the defendant left the campground sometime 
between 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and went riding around the 
Elliston area.  At an unspecified time during their 
journey, the pair stopped at a house to look at the 
defendant’s race car.  When Spence was asked what they did 
after seeing the race car, he responded, "[W]e rode down on 
[Route] 460 I guess it was and stopped on the side of the 
road."  After the defendant got out of the car, Spence 
"heard the trunk lid open."  Spence did not know where the 
defendant went at that point, but Spence later heard an 
explosion and saw flames "[o]ff to [his] left hand side."  
After the defendant got back into the car, he and Spence 
returned to the campground.  Spence testified that the 
defendant made some kind of reference to a fire. 
On cross-examination, Spence admitted that he had a 
"pretty good buzz on" from the beer he had been drinking 
 
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earlier that night.  He stated, "I was drunk[.]  I can 
drink 12 beers and still not be drunk." 
 
Michelle Nicole Price, a neighbor of the Eastridges, 
testified that, while she was walking her dog on the 
morning of the day that the mobile home burned, she 
observed a "white" car stop in front of the Eastridges’ 
yard.3  She then heard someone yelling and thought that she 
also heard rocks being thrown at a sign.  Price believed 
that the individual was a man, but she could neither see 
what the person was doing nor hear what the individual was 
yelling.  She also thought that there was a second person 
in the car but could not ascertain whether that individual 
was a man or a woman. 
STANDARD OF REVIEW 
When, after being convicted of a crime, a defendant 
challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court must 
view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth and accord the evidence all reasonable 
inferences fairly deducible from it.  Horton v. 
Commonwealth, 255 Va. 606, 608, 499 S.E.2d 258, 259 (1998).  
Since the defendant in this case was convicted by a trial 
court sitting without a jury, the trial court’s judgment is 
 
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entitled to the same weight as a jury verdict and will not 
be disturbed on appeal unless it is “plainly wrong or 
without evidence to support it.”  King v. Commonwealth, 217 
Va. 601, 604, 231 S.E.2d 312, 315 (1977); Code § 8.01-680.  
However, "it is just as obligatory upon the appellate 
court, to set aside . . . the judgment of a court, when it 
is, in its opinion, contrary to the law and evidence, and 
therefore plainly wrong, as it is to sustain it when the 
reverse is true."  Bland v. Commonwealth, 177 Va. 819, 821, 
13 S.E.2d 317, 317 (1941). 
ANALYSIS 
"Arson is a crime of stealth" and "[t]he proof is 
often necessarily circumstantial."  Cook v. Commonwealth, 
226 Va. 427, 432, 309 S.E.2d 325, 329 (1983).  
Circumstantial evidence in a case of arson, as in every 
criminal case, can support a conviction if it sufficiently 
excludes every reasonable hypothesis of innocence.  Id. at 
433, 309 S.E.2d at 329. 
 
In a prosecution for arson, the Commonwealth must 
prove that “the fire was of incendiary origin and that the 
accused was a guilty agent in the burning.”  Augustine v. 
Commonwealth, 226 Va. 120, 123, 306 S.E.2d 886, 888 (1983).  
                                                             
3 During the course of his investigation, Croy learned 
that Hickson was “associated” with a “white Chevrolet 
 
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The only issue in this appeal is whether the defendant was 
the "guilty agent."  Id. 
 
With regard to this issue, the defendant argues that 
the evidence fails to "'point unerringly'" to him as the 
person who committed the arson.  Id. (quoting Poulos v. 
Commonwealth, 174 Va. 495, 499, 6 S.E.2d 666, 667 (1940)).  
He contends that the Commonwealth’s evidence, which is 
entirely circumstantial, does not exclude every reasonable 
hypothesis of innocence and that the chain of necessary 
circumstances "of motive, time, place, means, and conduct 
[do not] concur to form an unbroken chain which links [him] 
to the crime beyond a reasonable doubt."  Bishop v. 
Commonwealth, 227 Va. 164, 169, 313 S.E.2d 390, 393 (1984).  
Thus, he asks that his conviction be reversed. 
 
In contrast, the Commonwealth argues that sufficient 
reasonable inferences flow from the evidence to prove that 
the defendant was the criminal agent in the arson.  These 
inferences, according to the Commonwealth, are that the 
defendant, on the morning of the arson, argued with someone 
at the Eastridges’ home about money, later stopped at the 
spot on Route 460 nearest to the mobile home, retrieved a 
gasoline can from the rear of the car, walked the one-half 
mile to the Eastridges’ home, and set it on fire.  The 
                                                             
Chevette.” 
 
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Commonwealth contends that the testimony of Spence and 
Price provides a sufficient evidentiary foundation for 
these inferences. 
 
After reviewing the evidence under the applicable 
standard of appellate review and considering the parties’ 
arguments, we conclude that the circumstantial evidence in 
the present case with regard to "motive, time, place, 
means, and conduct" fails "to form an unbroken chain which 
links the defendant to the crime beyond a reasonable 
doubt."  Bishop, 227 Va. at 169, 313 S.E.2d at 393.  We 
find numerous breaks in the chain that lead us to this 
conclusion. 
First, although Spence testified that he heard the 
defendant state that somebody owed him money, Spence 
admitted that the defendant did not say anything more 
specific about that subject.  The Commonwealth contends 
that the defendant argued with someone at the Eastridges’ 
mobile home about money on the morning of the fire, but 
Price, the neighbor, did not identify the defendant as that 
person and could not hear the substance of what the 
individual was yelling. 
Next, Spence could not "swear" as to the date that he 
and the defendant were riding around the Elliston area.  
Spence also only "guess[ed]" that he and Hickson were on 
 
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Route 460 when they stopped on the side of the road.  Even 
if Spence was correct about the road number, he never 
specified the spot on Route 460 where they stopped.  The 
evidence establishes that the point on Route 460 nearest to 
the Eastridges’ mobile home was one-half mile away "[b]y 
the way a crow flies."  So, assuming that they stopped at 
that point on Route 460, the defendant would have had to 
walk one-half mile to the Eastridges’ home, pour gasoline 
on the steps, ignite it, and walk one-half mile back to the 
car.  But, Spence did not state anything about the length 
of time that the defendant was gone after they stopped on 
the side of the road or how much time elapsed from when he 
heard the explosion until the defendant returned to the 
car.  Furthermore, Croy doubted that the sound that would 
have been produced when this fire was ignited could have 
been heard one-half mile away. 
Finally, Spence testified that he saw flames "[o]ff to 
[his] left hand side."  However, the record contains no 
evidence establishing which direction Spence and the 
defendant were travelling when they stopped on Route 460.  
Thus, a trier of fact could not determine, without 
speculating, whether the flames Spence observed "[o]ff to 
[his] left hand side" originated in the area where the 
Eastridges’ mobile home was located. 
 
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Thus, we conclude that the evidence in this case is 
insufficient as a matter of law to support the defendant’s 
conviction.  Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of 
the Court of Appeals and dismiss the indictment. 
Reversed and dismissed. 
 
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