Title: Zimmerman v. Commonwealth

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

PRESENT: Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Lemons, and Agee, 
          JJ., and Compton, S.J. 
 
ROY WYLIE ZIMMERMAN  
 
OPINION BY 
 
 
 
SENIOR JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v.  Record No. 022359 
 
September 12, 2003 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
 
The sole question in this criminal appeal is whether the 
evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for assault upon 
a police officer.  
 
Defendant Roy Wylie Zimmerman was indicted for feloniously 
assaulting a law-enforcement officer, knowing or having reason 
to know that he was engaged in the performance of his public 
duties, in violation of Code § 18.2-57(C), and for operating a 
motor vehicle as an habitual offender, second or subsequent 
offense.  The accused was tried and convicted of both charges 
during a bench trial in the Circuit Court of Augusta County.  
Subsequently, the court sentenced defendant to incarceration on 
each charge. 
 
The Court of Appeals of Virginia, in an unpublished order, 
denied defendant's petition for appeal in which he challenged 
only the assault conviction.  Zimmerman v. Commonwealth, Record 
No. 2908-01-3 (September 16, 2002).  The court determined the 
Commonwealth's evidence sufficiently established that defendant 
was guilty of assault, and that the officer was engaged in the 
performance of his public duties at the time of the offense. 
 
We awarded the defendant this appeal, limited to the 
question whether his guilt of assault has been sufficiently 
proved. 
 
According to settled principles of appellate review, we 
shall consider "the evidence in the light most favorable to the 
Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the trial court, and will 
accord the Commonwealth the benefit of all reasonable inferences 
fairly deducible from that evidence."  Commonwealth v. Hill, 264 
Va. 541, 543, 570 S.E.2d 805, 806 (2002). 
 
Viewed in this manner, the following facts were established 
by the evidence.  On September 11, 2000 during daylight hours, 
John M. Wieger, an Augusta County Deputy Sheriff, had "just 
marked off duty" and had parked his police vehicle at the foot 
of his private driveway "a couple of feet off . . . Route 657," 
a public highway in the county.  Wieger, "dressed in a duty 
uniform," but without a hat, walked across the two-lane road to 
"check" his mail at a mailbox adjacent to the highway. 
 
As he was "checking" his mail, the officer heard the "roar" 
of a vehicle's engine approaching him from his "right side."  He 
"looked up" and "observed a dark-colored vehicle passing . . . a 
beige pickup truck" illegally across "dual yellow lines" on a 
nearby curve in the highway. 
 
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Wieger "went out into the middle of the road then and tried 
to flag [the vehicle] down," waving his arms and trying "to get 
it stopped."  He testified that "it was coming at me, and the 
engine started to gun and revved its engine, and it was coming 
at me at a high rate of speed."  At that point, feeling that his 
"safety was more paramount than trying to get this vehicle 
stopped," the officer "went off to the shoulder of the road, by 
the mailbox." 
 
As the speeding vehicle passed within five feet of the 
officer, he observed a male (later identified as the defendant) 
driving it, accompanied by a female passenger.  The officer in 
his patrol car pursued defendant's vehicle and, after losing 
sight of it for several minutes, finally "got the vehicle 
stopped" some distance away from the scene of the incident.  At 
that time, the female was operating the vehicle and the 
defendant was the passenger. 
 
An eyewitness, the operator of the pickup truck, testified 
that "after [the defendant] passed me, I saw the Deputy come out 
in . . . the road and tried to flag him down, but he went on 
around him." 
 
There is no dispute regarding the law applicable here.  
Code § 18.2-57(C) provides, as pertinent, that "if any person 
commits an assault" against another knowing or having reason to 
know that such other person is a law-enforcement officer engaged 
 
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in the performance of his public duties, the accused shall be 
guilty of a Class 6 felony. 
 
In this jurisdiction, we adhere to the common law 
definition of assault, there having been no statutory change to 
the crime.  In order to constitute an assault, there must be an 
attempt with force and violence, to do some bodily hurt to 
another, whether from wantonness or malice, by means calculated 
to produce the end if carried into execution; it is any act 
accompanied with circumstances denoting an intention, coupled 
with a present ability, to use actual violence against another 
person.  Harper v. Commonwealth, 196 Va. 723, 733, 85 S.E.2d 
249, 255 (1955).  See Commonwealth v. Vaughn, 263 Va. 31, 35, 
557 S.E.2d 220, 222 (2002) ("intent to put another in fear of 
bodily harm with a threat to use bodily force . . . is an 
assault"). 
 
An assault requires an overt act or an attempt, or the 
unequivocal appearance of an attempt, with force and violence, 
to do physical injury to the person of another.  Merritt v. 
Commonwealth, 164 Va. 653, 658, 180 S.E. 395, 397 (1935).  There 
is no requirement that a victim be physically touched to be 
assaulted.  Harper, 196 Va. at 733, 85 S.E.2d at 255 (assault 
occurs "though [the victim] be not struck"). 
 
On appeal, the defendant says the evidence merely shows 
that he "drove his car past an off-duty deputy sheriff who was 
 
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trying to get him to stop by means of waving his arms."  The 
defendant's sole contention is:  "There was no evidence that 
[he] swerved toward the police officer or did anything to try to 
hit the police officer.  In fact, the testimony of . . . the 
driver of the pickup truck following the defendant, indicates 
that the car was trying to avoid the deputy in that he says, 'he 
went on around him.'" 
 
Continuing, the defendant argues, "It is clear that [he] 
did not intend to stop for the police officer, but there is no 
evidence that he had any intent to do bodily harm to the 
officer.  There was no overt act by the defendant to show an 
attempt to do physical injury to Mr. Wieger." 
 
We do not agree with the defendant.  His contention ignores 
the evidence when it is viewed in the light most favorable to 
the Commonwealth, and when the Commonwealth is accorded the 
benefit of all reasonable inferences flowing from that evidence. 
 
The police officer was standing in the center of the 
highway in plain view of approaching motorists waving his arms.  
The defendant, an habitual offender, operated his vehicle 
unlawfully past another vehicle in a no-passing zone at a high 
rate of speed.  As the officer was standing there, the defendant 
gunned and revved the vehicle's engine, increasing its speed at 
a point so near the officer that he was put in fear of his 
 
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safety if he remained in the highway.  Manifestly, the defendant 
attempted to strike the officer and do bodily harm to him. 
 
The facts clearly establish a malicious attempt, with force 
and violence, to harm the officer by means calculated to produce 
that end if carried into execution.  The defendant committed the 
required overt act (aiming and gunning a speeding vehicle at the 
officer) in the course of his effort to escape apprehension as a 
repeat habitual offender. 
 
We are not persuaded by Bennett v. Commonwealth, 35 Va. 
App. 442, 546 S.E.2d 209 (2001), relied upon by the defendant.  
There, the Court of Appeals ruled the evidence was insufficient 
to support a conviction for assaulting two police officers.  
During a confrontation within a private residence, the accused, 
shouting profanities at the officers, was not armed and made no 
threatening gestures. 
 
The appellate court determined that, although the defendant 
"stood within inches of the officers, he made no overt act or 
attempt to physically harm either officer."  Id. at 449, 546 
S.E.2d at 212.  Here, in contrast, defendant committed the 
required overt act. 
 
Consequently, we hold the Court of Appeals in the present 
case did not err and its judgment confirming the conviction will 
be 
                                        Affirmed. 
 
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