Case Title: McDowell v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 060989

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2007-03-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Lemons, and Agee, 
JJ., and Carrico, S.J. 
 
LAWRENCE MCDOWELL 
                                           OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 060989            SENIOR JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO 
                                          March 2, 2007 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
The defendant, Lawrence McDowell, was convicted in a bench 
trial of grand larceny in violation of Code § 18.2-95 and grand 
larceny with intent to sell and distribute property with a value 
of $200.00 or more in violation of Code § 18.2-108.01(A).  Both 
convictions resulted from the shoplifting by the defendant and 
an accomplice of merchandise from a Rite-Aid drug store in the 
City of Norfolk.  In a published opinion, the Court of Appeals 
affirmed both convictions.  McDowell v. Commonwealth, 48 Va. 
App. 104, 628 S.E.2d 542 (2006).  This Court awarded the 
defendant an appeal. 
The record shows that Corey L. Woods, Sr., an undercover 
detective employed by Rite-Aid, observed the defendant and his 
accomplice removing merchandise from store shelves and stuffing 
it into their clothing.  However, the two thieves managed to 
escape from the store with the stolen merchandise and none of it 
was ever recovered. 
In shoplifting cases, Detective Woods uses a “Telethon gun” 
to conduct an inventory and verify what merchandise has been 
 
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stolen.  A Telethon gun is a hand-held computer device connected 
to Rite-Aid’s computer inventory system and linked with the 
store’s cash registers.  The gun reflects inventory on hand and 
is automatically updated immediately when merchandise is added 
or is sold. 
 
Within three to four hours before the theft in question 
occurred, a store-wide inventory had been conducted with the use 
of a Telethon gun by an outside contractor that happened to be 
the same company that supplied Telethon guns to Rite-Aid for 
inventory purposes.  With this inventory as his database, 
Detective Woods used the Telethon gun to inventory what 
merchandise was on hand after the theft and to produce a “Box-
List Sheets Report” (the Report).  The Report listed merchandise 
missing between the time the store-wide inventory was conducted 
on the day in question and the time Detective Woods used the 
Telethon gun to conduct his inventory after the defendant and 
his accomplice had left “gaps” and “holes” and “almost empty” 
shelves from which they had removed merchandise.  The Report 
described the stolen items and showed the “STORE SELLING PRICE” 
of each item, totaling $1,179.93. 
 
In the trial court, the Commonwealth offered the Report 
into evidence to establish the value of the stolen merchandise.  
Over the defendant’s objection that the Report was hearsay, the 
trial court admitted the Report under the business record 
 
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exception to the hearsay rule, but only as “circumstantial 
evidence of a price on a particular date.”  The defendant’s sole 
contention on appeal to this Court is that the trial court erred 
in admitting the Report into evidence as a business record and 
the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s 
ruling.1 
The defendant argues that the Report does not qualify as a 
business record because the Commonwealth did not call a 
representative of the outside contractor or a witness from Rite-
Aid’s management to verify the inventory conducted three to four 
hours before the theft or to testify that it was performed in 
the regular course of business.  The defendant also argues that 
“the inventory was not within [Woods’] personal knowledge nor 
was he sufficiently familiar with the regularity of those 
inventories in the course of business at Rite-Aid.”  
 
“[H]earsay evidence is inadmissible unless it falls within 
one of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule,” and “the 
party attempting to introduce a hearsay statement has the burden 
of showing the statement falls within one of the exceptions.”  
Robinson v. Commonwealth, 258 Va. 3, 6, 516 S.E.2d 475, 476-77 
                     
1 This Court has previously held that “[i]n determining the 
admissibility of computer records, when the argument has been 
advanced that they are inadmissible hearsay, [this Court has] 
employed the traditional business records exception to the 
hearsay rule.  Kettler & Scott, Inc. v. Earth Technology Cos., 
Inc., 248 Va. 450, 457, 449 S.E.2d 782, 785 (1994). 
 
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(1999).  “As a recognized exception to the hearsay rule, [this 
Court has] adopted the modern Shopbook Rule, allowing in given 
cases the admission into evidence of verified regular entries 
without requiring proof from the original observers or record 
keepers.”  Neeley v. Johnson, 215 Va. 565, 571, 211 S.E.2d 100, 
106 (1975).  See also Sparks v. Commonwealth, 24 Va. App. 279, 
282, 482 S.E.2d 69, 70 (1997). 
“In many cases,. . . practical necessity requires the 
admission of written factual evidence based on considerations 
other than the personal knowledge of the recorder, provided 
there is a circumstantial guarantee of trustworthiness.”  
"Automatic" Sprinkler Corp. of America v. Coley & Petersen, 
Inc., 219 Va. 781, 792, 250 S.E.2d 765, 773 (1979).  “The 
trustworthiness or reliability of the records is guaranteed by 
the regularity of their preparation and the fact that the 
records are relied upon in the transaction of business by the 
person or entities for which they are kept” and they are “kept 
in the ordinary course of business made contemporaneously with 
the event by persons having the duty to keep a true record.”  
Id. at 793, 250 S.E.2d at 773.  The final test “is whether the 
documents sought to be introduced are the type of records which 
are relied upon by those who prepare them or for whom they are 
prepared.”  Id. 
 
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These principles were applied in a strikingly similar 
situation in Ashley v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 705, 261 S.E.2d 323 
(1980).  There, in testimony offered to establish the number, 
weight, and value of hams the accused had stolen from the 
Gwaltney company in Smithfield, the company’s security director 
used an inventory prepared by other employees several days 
before the theft.  The inventory records were no longer in 
existence at the time of trial.  The accused argued that this 
testimony “was based upon business records that [the security 
director] did not maintain, rather than upon his personal 
observation, and was not admissible under the modern Shopbook 
Rule.”  Id. at 707, 261 S.E.2d at 324.  This Court rejected the 
argument, noting that the inventory records were “compiled in 
the regular course of employment as a security director, both 
from inventory taken and maintained by other employees in the 
regular course of business and from his own personal 
calculation.”  Id. at 708, 261 S.E.2d at 325. 
The only distinction between Ashley and this case is that 
the inventory was conducted there by other Smithfield employees 
while it was conducted here by an outside contractor.  But this 
is a distinction without a difference.  The outside contractor 
was an entity “having the duty to keep a true record,” Sprinkler 
Corp., 219 Va. at 793, 250 S.E.2d at 773, and it conducted 
inventories at the Rite-Aid store “maybe once every six months.” 
 
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Furthermore, Detective Woods testified that he was an 
eight-year employee of Rite-Aid, that he was familiar with how 
Rite-Aid kept “track of their inventory,” and that he was 
“knowledgeable” about the inventory conducted earlier on the day 
of the theft.  That inventory was conducted with Rite-Aid’s own 
Telethon gun, Woods had been trained by the supplier of the gun 
on its use “[t]o conduct inventory,” and he had used the gun to 
generate “Box-List Sheets Reports” for Rite-Aid over a period of 
four or five years “in many cases and many times” in his 
“capacity as a loss prevention officer” and “as part of [his] 
job typically,” that is to say, in the regular course of 
business. 
Hence, there was a “regularity of . . . preparation” of 
“Box-List Sheets Reports” upon which Rite-Aid relied “in the 
transaction of business,” thus guaranteeing “the trustworthiness 
or reliability” of the Report in this case.   Sprinkler Corp., 
Id. at 793, 250 S.E.2d at 773.  In these circumstances, it was 
not necessary for the Commonwealth to call a representative of 
the outside contractor or a witness from Rite-Aid’s management 
to verify the inventory conducted three to four hours before the 
theft or to testify that it was performed in the regular course 
of business.2 
                     
2 The defendant has argued on appeal that the Commonwealth 
“made no attempt to show that [a representative of the outside 
 
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We find that the Report qualifies as a business record 
under the Shopbook Rule.  The trial court did not err, 
therefore, in admitting the Report into evidence, and the Court 
of Appeals did not err in approving the trial court’s ruling.  
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals will be 
affirmed. 
Affirmed. 
                                                                  
contractor or a witness from Rite-Aid] were unavailable.”  
However, the defendant did not raise this point in the trial 
court, and this Court will not notice it now.  Rule 5:25.