Case Title: King v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 012730

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2002-11-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
FRANK CLIFTON KING, JR. 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 012730 
JUSTICE LAWRENCE L. KOONTZ, JR. 
 
November 1, 2002 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the Court of Appeals of 
Virginia properly determined that the defendant’s failure to 
object to a subsequent jury instruction operated as a waiver of 
the issue of an alleged fatal variance between the charge in the 
indictment and the evidence at trial previously raised by the 
defendant’s motion to strike the evidence.  For the reasons that 
follow, we conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in holding 
that the defendant waived that issue for purposes of appeal. 
BACKGROUND 
Under familiar principles of appellate review, we examine 
the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 
the prevailing party below, granting to it all reasonable 
inferences fairly deducible therefrom.  Dowden v. Commonwealth, 
260 Va. 459, 461, 536 S.E.2d 437, 438 (2000).  In March 2000, 
Frank Clifton King, Jr. (King), then age 17, was living with 
Donald Lee King, his uncle, in the City of Richmond.  King and 
Antonio E. Harris (Harris) formulated a plan to rob Donald Lee 
King.  Daniel Bailey (Bailey), a friend of Donald Lee King, was 
visiting the elder King at his home at about 8:00 p.m. on March 
3, 2000, when Harris came through the front door brandishing two 
handguns.  Harris instructed both men to get down on the floor 
and demanded money.  King entered the room from his bedroom with 
a shotgun in his hand.  He stood over his uncle and then twice 
fired the shotgun at him.  The elder King was killed as a 
result.  Bailey escaped through the front door although Harris 
fired several shots and wounded him.  King also fired the 
shotgun once through a window at the fleeing Bailey. 
On March 9, 2000, a petition was filed in the City of 
Richmond Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court alleging 
that King “did on or about 3/3/00, unlawfully, feloniously and 
maliciously shoot/discharge a firearm within or at an occupied 
dwelling house in violation of section 18.2-279 of the 1950 Code 
of Virginia as amended.”  On May 1, 2000, after King was 
certified to be tried as an adult, the grand jury of the Circuit 
Court of the City of Richmond returned an indictment against 
King charging that he “did feloniously, unlawfully and 
maliciously shoot at or throw a missile at or against an 
occupied building or dwelling house located at 1220 N. 36th 
Street, thereby putting the lives of the occupants in peril.  
 
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Virginia Code Section §18.2-279.”1  No explanation for the 
variation in the description of the offense in the juvenile 
petition and the subsequent indictment appears in the record. 
At the trial, the evidence showed, as has been recounted 
above, that King only discharged the shotgun while within the 
house.  Accordingly, at the conclusion of all the evidence, 
King’s counsel moved to strike the evidence regarding a 
violation of Code § 18.2-279, arguing as follows: 
I move to strike Indictment No. 00F-1804, which is the 
charge of feloniously, unlawfully, and maliciously 
shooting at, or throwing a missile at or against an 
occupied building or dwelling house at 1220 North 36th 
Street. 
 
The Commonwealth has not proved that, Judge.  The 
language specific to the indictment contemplates 
throwing a missile at or shooting a missile at a 
dwelling.  That language contemplates further, 
shooting from outside into a dwelling.  The 
Commonwealth has not proved that.  It hasn’t met the 
language that they set out in the indictment. 
 
The trial court denied the motion.  Thereafter, the trial 
court gave the following instruction without objection from 
King: 
The defendant is charged with the crime of 
shooting within an occupied dwelling.  The 
Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt each 
of the following elements of that crime: 
 
                     
1 King was indicted for additional crimes arising from the 
robbery and murder of his uncle and was convicted of those 
crimes.  Those convictions are not at issue in this appeal. 
 
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(1) That the defendant shot within a building 
occupied by Donald Lee King and Danny Bailey; and  
 
(2) That the life or lives of such person may 
have been put in peril; and  
 
(3) That the act was done with malice. 
 
(Emphasis added). 
 
An instruction providing the form of the verdict, also 
given without objection from King, permitted the jury to find 
King “guilty of maliciously shooting within an occupied 
dwelling, as charged in the indictment.”  (Emphasis added).  
King was convicted and sentenced to a term of ten years, with 
five years suspended. 
King filed an appeal in the Court of Appeals asserting that 
the trial court had erred in failing to grant his motion to 
strike the evidence.  An appeal was granted and, following oral 
argument, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals in an 
unpublished opinion affirmed King’s conviction.  King v. 
Commonwealth, Record No. 2578-00-2 (November 13, 2001).  
Although the Commonwealth had not asserted any procedural bar in 
arguing against King’s appeal, the Court of Appeals, invoking 
its Rule 5A:18,2 determined that King had waived his objection to 
                     
2 In pertinent part, Rule 5A:18, applicable in the Court of 
Appeals, provides:  “No ruling of the trial court . . . will be 
considered as a basis for reversal unless the objection was 
stated together with the grounds therefor at the time of the 
 
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the trial court’s refusal to strike the evidence by his failure 
to object to the jury instruction that varied from the language 
of the indictment.  The Court reasoned that by failing to object 
to this instruction, King permitted the language of the 
instruction to become “the law of the case,” and that the “ends 
of justice” did not require the Court to overlook King’s failure 
to object “because no miscarriage of justice occurred.”  Id., 
slip op. at 5-7.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals did not 
reach the merits of King’s contention that the evidence adduced 
at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction under the 
wording of the indictment.  We awarded King this appeal, limited 
to the waiver issue. 
DISCUSSION 
King contends that under Code § 8.01-384(A) his objection 
to the trial court’s refusal to strike the evidence was 
sufficient to preserve for appeal the issue whether the evidence 
was insufficient to prove a violation of Code § 18.2-279 as 
specifically charged in the indictment.  Thus, he further 
contends that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that his 
failure to object to the jury instruction that varied from the 
                                                                  
ruling, except . . . to enable the Court of Appeals to attain 
the ends of justice.” 
 
 
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language of the indictment acted as a waiver of his prior 
objection. 
In 1992, Code § 8.01-384(A) was amended to provide, in 
pertinent part, as follows: 
Formal exceptions to rulings or orders of the 
court shall be unnecessary; but for all purposes for 
which an exception has heretofore been necessary, it 
shall be sufficient that a party, at the time the 
ruling or order of the court is made or sought, makes 
known to the court the action which he desires the 
court to take or his objections to the action of the 
court and his grounds therefor . . . .  No party, 
after having made an objection or motion known to the 
court, shall be required to make such objection or 
motion again in order to preserve his right to appeal, 
challenge, or move for reconsideration of, a ruling, 
order, or action of the court . . . .  Arguments made 
at trial via . . . oral argument reduced to 
transcript, or agreed written statements of facts 
shall, unless expressly withdrawn or waived, be deemed 
preserved therein for assertion on appeal. 
 
(Emphasis added). 
Unquestionably, at the conclusion of the evidence King made 
“known to the court the action which he desire[d] the court to 
take [and] his objections to the action of the court and his 
grounds therefor” by asserting in his motion to strike the 
evidence that the evidence presented by the Commonwealth was 
fatally at variance with the offense described in the 
indictment.  The Commonwealth does not assert that King 
expressly withdrew or affirmatively waived his objection.  Thus, 
it is clear that for purposes of appellate review King has 
preserved his objection to the trial court’s denial of his 
 
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motion to strike the evidence, unless the application of an 
implied waiver is appropriate under the circumstances of this 
case. 
Like the waiver of any legal right, the waiver referenced 
in Code § 8.01-384(A) “will be implied only upon clear and 
unmistakable proof of the intention to waive such right for the 
essence of waiver is voluntary choice.”  Chawla v. 
BurgerBusters, Inc., 255 Va. 616, 623, 499 S.E.2d 829, 833 
(1998).  In Chawla, the appellee also argued that the failure to 
object to a jury instruction was a waiver of a prior objection 
on the same issue.  Applying Code § 8.01-384(A), we rejected 
this argument, finding no support in the record for the 
conclusion that the appellant “abandoned or evidenced an intent 
to abandon the [prior] objection.”  Id. 
The same rationale applies to the circumstances of this 
case with equal, if not greater, force considering the gravity 
of applying an implied waiver in a criminal trial.  The 
undeniable purpose of Code § 8.01-384(A) is to relieve counsel 
of the burden of making repeated further objections to each 
subsequent action of the trial court that applies or implements 
a prior ruling to which an objection has already been noted.  In 
this regard, the statute and the contemporaneous objection rule 
contained in Rule 5A:18, applicable in the Court of Appeals, and 
in Rule 5:25, applicable in this Court, are entirely consistent. 
 
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The Commonwealth’s reliance on Fisher v. Commonwealth, 236 
Va. 403, 417, 374 S.E.2d 46, 54 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 
1028 (1989), and Spitzli v. Minson, 231 Va. 12, 19, 341 S.E.2d 
170, 174 (1986), cases which pre-date the 1992 amendment of Code 
§ 8.01-384(A), for the principle that the failure to object to 
instructions that are contrary to a position taken previously on 
an issue in a trial invites error and, thus, bars consideration 
of the issue on appeal is misplaced.  While the doctrine of 
invited error remains good law, it simply has no application 
where, as here, the record shows that a party clearly objected 
to a specific ruling of the trial court to which error is 
assigned on appeal, even if the party failed to object to 
instructions applying or implementing the trial court’s prior 
ruling.  See, e.g., Wright v. Norfolk and Western Railway Co., 
245 Va. 160, 170, 427 S.E.2d 724, 729 (1993) (distinguishing 
Spitzli). 
Although the parties have briefed the issue whether the 
trial court erred in failing to grant King’s motion to strike, 
we express no opinion on that aspect of the case because the 
Court of Appeals did not reach that issue.  Rather, we will 
remand the case to that Court in order to afford it the 
opportunity to review the issue upon which the appeal was 
originally awarded therein. 
 
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CONCLUSION 
For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
will be reversed, and the case will be remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with the views expressed in this opinion. 
Reversed and remanded. 
 
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