Title: Williams v. Commonwealth

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton,1 Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, 
Koontz, and Kinser, JJ. 
 
CARL LEE WILLIAMS 
 
 
            OPINION BY JUSTICE LEROY R. HASSELL, SR. 
v.  Record No. 990774 
March 3, 2000 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether police officers 
violated a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights to be free from 
unreasonable searches and seizures and whether the evidence 
was sufficient to support the defendant's convictions for 
murder, robbery, and statutory burglary. 
I. 
 
A grand jury in the City of Richmond indicted Carl Lee 
Williams for the following offenses:  murder in violation of 
Code § 18.2-32, robbery in violation of Code § 18.2-58, and 
statutory burglary in violation of Code § 18.2-91.  Williams 
was tried at a bench trial in the Circuit Court for the City 
of Richmond and found guilty of the charged offenses.  The 
circuit court fixed his punishment as follows:  life 
imprisonment for the murder conviction, life imprisonment for 
the robbery conviction, and 20 years imprisonment for the 
statutory burglary conviction.  Williams appealed the circuit 
                     
1 Justice Compton participated in the hearing and decision 
of this case prior to the effective date of his retirement on 
February 2, 2000. 
court's judgment to the Court of Appeals, claiming that the 
circuit court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence 
obtained from a warrantless search and seizure of his boots 
that were in the possession of the Sheriff of the City of 
Richmond.  Williams also argued that the evidence was 
insufficient to support his convictions.  The Court of Appeals 
affirmed the judgment of the circuit court, Williams v. 
Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 297, 512 S.E.2d 133 (1999), and 
Williams appeals. 
II. 
 
On Sunday morning, November 3, 1996, the victim, Leslie 
Anne Coughenour, left her home in Henrico County and went to a 
law office, where she was employed, at 416 West Franklin 
Street in the City of Richmond.  Coughenour had informed her 
roommate, Andrea Melillo, that Coughenour would return to 
their home on Sunday evening.  When Melillo arrived at their 
home about 8:00 p.m. that evening, she was concerned because 
Coughenour was not there.  Melillo made a telephone call to 
Coughenour's office, but no one answered the telephone. 
 
Around 10:30 p.m., Melillo went to Coughenour's office,  
but she was unable to enter the building.  Melillo observed 
Coughenour's car parked in front of the building.  Melillo 
placed a note on the car, returned to her home, and waited for 
Coughenour to arrive.  
 
2
 
Sometime after midnight, Melillo placed a telephone call 
to the Richmond Police Department, and it dispatched a police 
officer who met her at Coughenour's office around 1:00 a.m.  
The police officer checked the exterior of the building and 
found nothing unusual. 
 
Melillo returned to her home, and she made a telephone 
call to a friend, who contacted Coughenour's employer, Carolyn 
Carpenter.  Carpenter met Richmond police officer Charles A. 
Bishop and another officer at the building about 3:25 a.m. 
Monday morning, November 4, 1996.  When they entered the 
building, they learned that the office alarm system was not 
activated.  However, an inner set of doors, which should have 
been locked, was unlocked.  The doors to a cabinet were open, 
and certain items had been removed. 
 
The officers walked up a stairway to the second floor of 
the building.  Officer Bishop opened the door to a storage 
room, examined the room using his flashlight, and found 
Coughenour's body situated in a swivel chair, which was tied 
to a radiator.  The body was bound to the chair with two sets 
of ligatures.  The victim's hands were tied to the chair, and 
her ankles were also bound.  The victim's head was covered 
with a scarf.  A plastic bag, which contained a rubber ball, 
had been placed in the victim's mouth so tightly that the bag 
filled the entire outer part of the victim's oral cavity.  The 
 
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victim's throat had been slashed.  The victim's right wrist 
had been cut, and a number of tendons and the radial artery 
had been severed.  Carpet on the floor below the victim's 
right hand was soaked with blood.  The victim had contusions 
and abrasions to her head and had suffered a hemorrhage to her 
brain caused by the infliction of blows to the side of her 
head.  She had bruises on her arm.  Dr. Glen R. Groben, a 
medical examiner, testified that the cause of Coughenour's 
death was asphyxiation, with bleeding from the wrist as a 
contributing factor.  He opined that her death would have 
occurred within three to five minutes after the plastic bag 
had been forced into her mouth.  
 
Melillo testified that when Coughenour left their home 
about 11:45 a.m. on November 3, she had about ten dollars in 
cash.  She was wearing a gold rope chain bracelet, a gold 
herringbone necklace, and a gold diamond and sapphire ring.  
She also wore a diamond earring in her left ear and other 
assorted earrings in both ears and a "Mickey Mouse" watch.  
She had in her possession a laptop computer and a black and 
gold Central Fidelity bank card which bore her name.  The card 
could be used to access a joint account that Coughenour and 
Melillo shared.  The police officers did not find any of these 
items at the murder scene. 
 
4
 
An examination of the crime scene revealed that a window 
in a men's restroom on the second floor of the building had 
been broken.  The window is adjacent to a fire escape.  Broken 
glass from the window had been placed in a trashcan in the 
restroom.  Occupants of the office building testified that the 
window had not been in that condition on the Friday before 
Coughenour's death.  Additionally, a hole had been "knocked 
in" a wall adjoining the room where the victim's body was 
found.  This damage did not exist on the Friday before the 
victim's body was found.  Tenants of the building reported 
that two laptop computers, a computer printer, a black 
portable compact disc player which contained a compact disc 
entitled "Classical Cuts," a Rolodex address and telephone 
card index, a small pair of Bushnell brand binoculars, a 
small, folding multi-purpose tool, and $50 in cash were 
missing. 
 
The police investigators found an imprint of the bottom 
of a boot on a plywood wall panel near the top of the stairs 
on the second floor.  Forensic detectives removed this piece 
of plywood from the wall and forwarded it to a forensic 
laboratory for an analysis. 
 
On Saturday night, November 2, 1996, the evening before 
Coughenour was last seen alive, Cherry A. Wright had a party 
at her apartment in the Gilpin Court housing development in 
 
5
Richmond.  Several persons, including the defendant, attended 
the party.  According to Wright, everyone was "drinking and 
doing cocaine."  The defendant became "frustrated" and "angry" 
because he did not have any cocaine or money to purchase 
cocaine.  The defendant removed some of his clothing and 
traded it for $10 or $15 worth of cocaine.  Williams left 
Wright's apartment at 2:00 a.m., November 3, 1996. 
 
Between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m. on November 3, the defendant 
returned to Wright's apartment.  When she opened the door, the 
defendant asked if she was alone.  When she responded yes, he 
entered her apartment and told her that he had a box he wished 
to place in her closet.  He also had a "liquor box" and a 
compact disc player.  Williams asked Wright did she "want to 
party," he "pulled out some cocaine," "[h]e pulled out a 
watch," and "he had a ring on his finger."  He also had "a wad 
of money."  The ring that he was wearing looked like the ring 
that had been taken from Coughenour.  The defendant gave 
Wright $25, a small quantity of cocaine, and a "Mickey Mouse" 
watch which looked like Coughenour's watch.  The portable 
compact disc player that the defendant had taken to Wright's 
apartment was similar to the compact disc player that had been 
taken from the murder scene, and the compact disc player 
contained a compact disc entitled "Classical Cuts," the 
identical name of the compact disc that had been taken from 
 
6
the murder scene.  The defendant also had a small pair of 
Bushnell brand binoculars and a small hand tool that resembled 
similar items removed from the building where the murder 
occurred.  
 
On Wednesday, November 6, 1996, the defendant returned to 
Wright's apartment and told her "he was broke and that he 
needed some more money . . . to get high."  He directed her to 
retrieve the box which he had hidden in her closet.  He opened 
the box, which contained two laptop computers and a computer 
printer.  
 
Wright's son, William Wright, found a black and gold 
Central Fidelity bank card in Wright's apartment.  When the 
defendant saw that Wright's son had the card, the defendant 
took the card and stated that "I thought I got rid of this."  
Wright also observed that the defendant had a small card with 
telephone numbers which resembled the Rolodex address and 
telephone card that had been taken from the building where the 
victim worked.  
 
Cynthia Lafawn Tyler, a resident of the Gilpin Court 
housing development, saw the defendant "a day or two" after 
November 2, 1996.  The defendant had a compact disc player 
that she wanted to buy, but the defendant would not sell it to 
her.  The defendant reached in his pocket, "pulled out his own 
[cocaine] and his own money.  He flashed it."  Tyler testified 
 
7
that the defendant's actions meant that he had his own money 
and cocaine and that he did not need her money.  The defendant 
had a "Mickey Mouse" watch and a ring that looked like the 
victim's ring.  The defendant asked Tyler to take him to a 7-
Eleven store on Chamberlayne Avenue in Richmond because he 
wanted to use an ATM machine that did not have a video camera 
that recorded automated transactions.  Someone used 
Coughenour's ATM card to obtain $300 in cash, from the account 
the victim shared with Melillo, utilizing ATM machines, 
including the ATM machine at the 7-Eleven store where Tyler 
had taken the defendant.  
 
Guy Lee Robinson, another resident of the Gilpin Court 
housing development, gave the defendant $150 worth of cocaine 
in return for one of the laptop computers and a printer.  
Robinson saw the "Mickey Mouse" watch that the defendant had 
given to Wright.  Later, Robinson's sister-in-law acquired the 
watch.  Robinson destroyed the watch and threw the computer 
and printer in a creek when he learned that the defendant may 
have taken these items from the building where Coughenour's 
body was found. 
 
The defendant was arrested for a parole violation and 
placed in a jail.  When he was released from jail, the 
defendant had a conversation with Wright.  Wright informed him 
that people in the neighborhood had been talking and asking 
 
8
questions; so she asked him whether he had anything to do with 
the lawyer.  The defendant said "that it had to do — [do you] 
want to know what happened with the lawyer?"  Wright said no. 
 
On November 30, 1996, the defendant was incarcerated at 
the Richmond City Jail on an unrelated charge.  When he was 
processed as a prisoner, he was relieved of his property, 
including his clothing, a strip search was conducted, and an 
inventory was taken of his property.  The only items that he 
was allowed to keep were his socks and underwear. 
 
In accordance with the Richmond Sheriff's policies and 
procedures, each prisoner's property is placed in a separate 
bag, and the prisoner's initials are affixed to the bag.  A 
prisoner does not have free access to the property.  Fifteen 
officers who work in the jail's quartermaster section have 
access to any property seized from prisoners.  The property is 
returned to a prisoner when the prisoner is released from 
custody.  Lieutenant Clarence L. Jefferson, a deputy sheriff, 
testified that prisoners' shoes are taken from them and 
prisoners are issued "jail shoes" because hard-sole shoes or 
street shoes have hard heels which are dangerous to officers 
and inmates.  
 
Richmond police detective James Hickman received a "tip" 
that Williams' boot matched the boot impression that was found 
at the scene of the crimes.  The Richmond Sheriff's deputies 
 
9
received a request to examine the defendant's boots from the 
Richmond police officers.  The deputy sheriffs gave the 
defendant's boots to the police officers without a search 
warrant. 
 
Robert B. Hallett qualified as an expert witness on the 
subject of shoe print impressions.  He conducted tests on the 
defendant's boots.  Hallett testified that the boot impression 
on the wall at the murder scene was either made by the 
defendant's right boot or a boot that was identical in size, 
shape, tread pattern, and the locations and configurations of 
two cuts which had been inflicted on the bottom of the 
defendant's boot by sharp objects.  Even though there was a 
deviation in general wear between the boot that left the 
impression at the crime scene and the boot that was taken from 
the defendant, Hallett testified that he had never seen two 
different boots with such identical characteristics.  
 
Richmond police detective James Hickman testified that 
when he served the indictments upon the defendant, the 
defendant stated that he had been in New York from October 
through the end of December 1996.  Richmond police sergeant 
Gary Keith Ladin, however, testified that he saw the defendant 
in Richmond on November 29, 1996.  
 
Keitha Lasha Thomas, the defendant's girlfriend, 
testified that while she was incarcerated at a correctional 
 
10
facility in Goochland County, the defendant sent a letter to 
her describing his crimes.  The defendant stated, in the 
letter, that he entered the building where the victim worked 
when it was "dark outside" and that the victim arrived when 
"it had got[ten] light."  The defendant told Thomas that he 
had taken some computers, the victim's ring, and a bank card 
because she did not have much money.  The defendant stated 
that "he tried to smother the bitch but the bitch wouldn't die 
fast enough."  He stated that "he cut her throat.  Then he 
went on to say he cut her wrists." 
 
The defendant testified that he did not commit the 
crimes, but admitted possession of some of the stolen 
property.  He claimed that he obtained the stolen property and 
the boots from a man whom he identified as Mark Cromartie.  
The defendant denied that he told Detective Hickman that he 
had been in New York from October through December and 
insisted that he had said he had been in New York until the 
end of November instead.  The defendant also admitted that he 
acquired money to purchase drugs by committing "B&E[s]."  
III. 
 
The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence 
related to the examination of his boot.  He argued that the 
Richmond police officers violated his rights guaranteed by the 
Fourth Amendment when the officers obtained his boots from the 
 
11
Richmond Sheriff and conducted tests on the boots.  The 
circuit court denied the defendant's motion, and the Court of 
Appeals agreed with the circuit court's ruling.  The defendant 
makes the same argument on appeal.  We disagree with the 
defendant. 
 
Initially, we observe that the Fourth Amendment protects 
the privacy interests of persons.  Katz v. United States, 389 
U.S. 347, 350-51 (1967).  In Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 
170, 177 (1984), the Supreme Court stated that:  "[s]ince Katz 
. . . the touchstone of [Fourth] Amendment analysis has been 
the question whether a person has a 'constitutionally 
protected reasonable expectation of privacy.'  Id., at 360 
(Harlan, J., concurring).  The Amendment does not protect the 
merely subjective expectation of privacy, but only those 
'expectation[s] that society is prepared to recognize as 
"reasonable."'  Id., at 361." 
 
In United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800 (1974), the 
Supreme Court considered whether the Fourth Amendment required 
that police officers obtain a search warrant before searching 
an arrestee's clothing.  Edwards was lawfully arrested and 
charged with attempting to break into a post office.  He was 
taken to a local jail.  An investigation revealed that the 
perpetrator of the crime for which Edwards was charged had 
attempted to gain entry into the post office through a wooden 
 
12
window which had been pried with a pry bar, thereby causing 
paint chips to fall on a window sill and a wire mesh screen.  
Edwards, 415 U.S. at 801-02. 
 
Edwards spent the night in the jail.  The next morning, 
jail officials seized the clothing that he had been wearing at 
the time of and since his arrest and held the clothing as 
evidence.  Examination of the clothing revealed paint chips 
that matched the samples taken from the post office window.  
Edwards' clothing and evidence of the paint chips were 
admitted in evidence at trial over Edwards' objection.  Id. at 
802. 
 
The Supreme Court, approving the admission of the 
evidence without a search warrant, held: 
"With or without probable cause, the authorities 
were entitled at that point [in the booking process] 
not only to search Edwards' clothing but also to 
take it from him and keep it in official custody.  
There was testimony that this was the standard 
practice in this city.  The police were also 
entitled to take from Edwards any evidence of the 
crime in his immediate possession, including his 
clothing." 
 
Id. at 804-05.  Moreover, the Supreme Court observed:  
"Indeed, it is difficult to perceive what is 
unreasonable about the police's examining and 
holding as evidence those personal effects of the 
accused that they already have in their lawful 
custody as the result of a lawful arrest." 
 
Id. at 806.  Concluding, the Supreme Court stated in Edwards: 
 
13
"'While the legal arrest of a person should not 
destroy the privacy of his premises, it does — for 
at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable 
extent — take his own privacy out of the realm of 
protection from police interest in weapons, means of 
escape, and evidence.'" 
 
Id. at 808-09 (quoting United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 
493 (1970)). 
 
We conclude that the defendant, Williams, had no 
expectation of privacy in his boots that society is prepared 
to recognize as reasonable.  The boots were in the custody of 
the Richmond City Sheriff pursuant to administrative booking 
policies and procedures.  We hold that when a person, such as 
the defendant, has been lawfully arrested and his property has 
been lawfully seized by law enforcement personnel pursuant to 
that arrest, the arrestee has no reasonable expectation of 
privacy in that property, and later examination of the 
property by another law enforcement official does not violate 
the Fourth Amendment.2  See United States v. Turner, 28 F.3d 
981, 983 (9th Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1158 (1995) 
(postal service inspector's removal of a cap without a warrant 
from defendant's property bag at a jail does not violate the 
                     
2 We find no merit in Williams' argument that Edwards is 
not controlling because the clothing examined in Edwards 
related to the charge for which Edwards had been arrested.  
This distinction is legally insignificant because the 
dispositive inquiry remains whether the defendant, Williams, 
had an expectation of privacy in the seized items.  The 
defendant had no such expectation. 
 
14
defendant's Fourth Amendment rights because initial search and 
seizure of defendant's personal items was lawful); United 
States v. Thompson, 837 F.2d 673, 676 (5th Cir. 1988), cert. 
denied, 488 U.S. 832 (1988) (subsequent inspection of keys by 
a federal agent did not unduly intrude upon defendant's 
expectation of privacy when police lawfully viewed the keys 
earlier at the time of inventory); United States v. Johnson, 
820 F.2d 1065, 1072 (9th Cir. 1987); United States v. 
Burnette, 698 F.2d 1038, 1049 (9th Cir. 1983), cert. denied 
461 U.S. 936 (1983) ("once an item in an individual's 
possession has been lawfully seized and searched, subsequent 
searches of that item, so long as it remains in the legitimate 
uninterrupted possession of the police, may be conducted 
without a warrant"); United States v. Phillips, 607 F.2d 808, 
809-10 (8th Cir. 1979); United States v. Oaxaca, 569 F.2d 518, 
524 (9th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 926 (1978) 
(seizure of defendant's shoes six weeks after his arrest while 
defendant was still in custody at the county jail did not 
violate defendant's Fourth Amendment rights); United States v. 
Jenkins, 496 F.2d 57, 73 (2nd Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 
U.S. 925 (1975) (federal agent can view money to compare 
serial numbers when police seized the money after arresting 
defendant on unrelated state charges and kept money in an 
envelope in a jail safe for safekeeping apart from defendant's 
 
15
other belongings); State v. Copridge, 918 P.2d 1247, 1251 
(Kan. 1996); State v. Wheeler, 519 A.2d 289, 292 (N.H. 1986); 
Contreras v. State, 838 S.W.2d 594, 597 (Tex. App. 1992). 
IV. 
 
Williams argues that the evidence is insufficient to 
support his convictions.  We disagree.  
 
Applying well-established principles of appellate review, 
we must consider the evidence and all reasonable inferences 
fairly deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth, the prevailing party below.  Phan v. 
Commonwealth, 258 Va. 506, 508, 521 S.E.2d 282, 282 (1999); 
Derr v. Commonwealth  242 Va. 413, 424, 410 S.E.2d 662, 668 
(1991).  The burden is upon the Commonwealth, however, to 
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was the 
perpetrator of these crimes.  Phan, 258 Va. at 511, 521 S.E.2d 
at 284.  Additionally, circumstantial evidence is as 
competent, and entitled to the same weight, as direct 
testimony, if that circumstantial evidence is sufficiently 
convincing.  Epperly v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 214, 228, 294 
S.E.2d 882, 890 (1982); Stamper v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 260, 
272, 257 S.E.2d 808, 817 (1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 972 
(1980). 
 
The evidence, which is summarized in Part II of this 
opinion, and which we need not repeat here, was sufficient to 
 
16
permit the circuit court to find beyond a reasonable doubt 
that the defendant was the perpetrator of these crimes.  
Moreover, as we have already stated, the defendant admitted to 
Thomas that he killed Coughenour and he asked Wright if she 
wanted to know how the murder occurred.  The defendant 
admitted that he often committed "B&E[s]" when he needed money 
to purchase cocaine.  The defendant possessed property taken 
from the scene of the murder soon after the crimes occurred.  
V. 
 
We find no merit in the defendant's remaining arguments.  
For the reasons stated, we will affirm the judgment of the 
Court of Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
 
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