Title: Hawkins v. Commonwealth

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

PRESENT: Kinser, C.J., Lemons, Goodwyn, Millette, Mims, and 
Powell, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
CHARLES N. HAWKINS 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 131822 
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
 
 
 
October 31, 2014 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider the sufficiency of the evidence 
required to support a conviction for possession of counterfeit 
currency in violation of Code § 18.2-173. 
Facts and Proceedings 
 
Charles N. Hawkins was indicted in the Circuit Court of the 
City of Portsmouth for the possession of more than ten forged 
bank notes, as described in Code § 18.2-170, with the knowledge 
that they were forged and with the intent to utter or employ 
them as true.  At a bench trial, he was convicted and sentenced 
to five years imprisonment, with all but two years and two 
months suspended. 
 
At trial, Sergeant Travis Smaglo of the Portsmouth Police 
Department testified that on May 14, 2012 he was advised that a 
subject who was being sought on several felony arrest warrants 
could be found at a pool hall in Portsmouth known as "Big 
Daddy's."  The subject was described as a man wearing a white 
hat and blue checkered shorts who would be standing near the 
pool tables.  Because the outstanding warrants included charges 
 
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for murder and use of a firearm by a convicted felon, Smaglo 
went to the pool hall accompanied by several other officers.  
Entering the pool hall, Smaglo saw Hawkins standing near a pool 
table, wearing a white hat and blue checkered shorts. 
 
Smaglo and another officer approached Hawkins, who put his 
right hand into the right pocket of his shorts.  Smaglo told 
Hawkins to take his hand out of his pocket.  Hawkins hesitated.  
Smaglo then drew his weapon and ordered Hawkins to remove his 
hand from his pocket.  Hawkins complied, but when he withdrew 
his hand it contained what Smaglo described as a "large sum of 
money" that Hawkins threw to the floor.  Smaglo re-holstered his 
weapon and handcuffed Hawkins. 
 
Smaglo picked up the money he had seen Hawkins throw to the 
floor and took it outside, where Hawkins was being held under 
arrest.  Hawkins' possessions were being collected by the other 
officers.  Smaglo handed the cash to them and told them it was 
also Hawkins' personal property.  Hearing this, Hawkins said, 
"That's not my money."  Smaglo replied, "Well, yes it is.  You 
threw it on the floor.  Why would you not want your money?"  
Hawkins continued to insist that the money was not his. 
 
Later, the officers examined the money and concluded that 
it was counterfeit.  It consisted of 18 twenty-dollar bills.  
Among them, the bills shared only four serial numbers:  five 
bills shared one serial number, six shared a second number, four 
 
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shared a third number, and three bills shared a fourth number.  
At trial, the Commonwealth presented expert testimony, including 
that of an agent of the United States Secret Service, that the 
bills were counterfeit.  They were not printed on genuine 
currency paper, they lacked the color-shifting ink used on 
genuine currency, and they bore "tiny pink, blue and yellow dots 
. . . indicative of ink-jet printing." 
 
Hawkins moved to strike the Commonwealth's evidence.  The 
court denied the motion and heard defense testimony.  The court 
denied Hawkins' renewed motion to strike and found him guilty as 
charged.  Hawkins appealed to the Court of Appeals, which 
affirmed the conviction in an unpublished opinion.  Hawkins v. 
Commonwealth, Record No. 2098-12-1, 2013 Va. App. LEXIS 299, at 
*8 (Oct. 22, 2013).  We awarded Hawkins an appeal. 
Analysis 
 
Code § 18.2-173 provides: 
   If any person have in his possession forged 
bank notes or forged or base coin, such as are 
mentioned in § 18.2-170, knowing the same to 
be forged or base, with the intent to utter or 
employ the same as true, or to sell, exchange, 
or deliver them, so as to enable any other 
person to utter or employ them as true, he 
shall, if the number of such notes or coins in 
his possession at the same time, be ten or 
more, be guilty of a Class 6 felony; and if 
the number be less than ten, he shall be 
guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor. 
 
 
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Hawkins assigns error to the circuit court's denial of his 
motions to strike the Commonwealth's evidence and the Court of 
Appeals' affirmance of that ruling.  He contends that the 
Commonwealth failed to prove that he possessed the bills, that 
he knew they were forged, or that he had the intent to utter or 
employ them as true. 
 
In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a 
conviction, we will affirm the judgment unless it is plainly 
wrong or without evidence to support it.  Bolden v. 
Commonwealth, 275 Va. 144, 148, 654 S.E.2d 584, 586 (2008); Code 
§ 8.01-680.  In making this determination, we must examine the 
evidence that supports the conviction in the light most 
favorable to the Commonwealth, allowing it the benefit of all 
reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the evidence.  
Commonwealth v. McNeal, 282 Va. 16, 20, 710 S.E.2d 733, 735 
(2011). 
 
Sergeant Smaglo testified that he watched while Hawkins, at 
gunpoint, removed his right hand from his pocket, that Hawkins' 
hand held the money in question, and that Hawkins threw the 
money to the floor.  The trial judge, as trier of fact, found 
that testimony to be credible.  That alone is sufficient to 
support a finding that Hawkins possessed the bills. 
 
The circuit court could also draw the reasonable inference, 
from Hawkins' guilty behavior, that he knew the bills to be 
 
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counterfeit.  Guilty knowledge must often be shown by 
circumstantial evidence.  Circumstances tending to prove guilty 
knowledge include the defendant's acts, statements, and conduct.  
Young v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 587, 591, 659 S.E.2d 308, 310 
(2008).  Such conduct may serve as evidence that the defendant 
knew the nature and character of the contraband that was in his 
possession.  Id.  The court could reasonably infer Hawkins' 
guilty knowledge from his furtive behavior when the police 
approached him.  When Smaglo asked him to take his right hand 
out of his pocket, he hesitated.  Smaglo then had to order him 
at gunpoint to remove his hand from his pocket.  Hawkins only 
then complied, but in doing so, removed the bills from his 
pocket and threw them to the floor of the pool hall.  
Thereafter, he repeatedly denied that the bills were his. 
 
A false account, similar to flight from a crime scene, is a 
circumstance a fact-finder may properly consider as evidence of 
guilty knowledge.  Covil v. Commonwealth, 268 Va. 692, 696, 604 
S.E.2d 79, 82 (2004).  "Probably the strongest evidence of 
guilty knowledge is an attempt to abandon counterfeit currency 
when detection is feared."  Ruiz v. United States, 374 F.2d 619, 
620 (5th Cir. 1967); see also United States v. King, 326 F.2d 
415, 416 (6th Cir. 1964) (throwing counterfeit money to the 
floor cognizable in the circumstances showing knowledge and 
intent).  These circumstances were more than sufficient to 
 
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support an inference that Hawkins knew the bills to be 
counterfeit. 
 
Hawkins finally argues that the Commonwealth failed to 
prove that he possessed the bills with intent to utter or employ 
them as true.  "Utter" in this context "is an assertion by word 
or action that a writing known to be forged is good and valid." 
Bateman v. Commonwealth, 205 Va. 595, 600, 139 S.E.2d 102, 106 
(1964).  Intent may be inferred from the facts and circumstances 
of the case and shown by the acts of the defendant.  Wilson v. 
Commonwealth, 249 Va. 95, 101, 452 S.E.2d 669, 673-74 (1995). 
 
The federal statute applicable to the possession of 
counterfeit currency, 18 U.S.C. § 472, contains a similar 
element of intent to utter, and federal cases applying it are 
therefore helpful.  See, e.g., Andrews v. Browne, 276 Va. 141, 
147-48, 662 S.E.2d 58, 62 (2008) (observing that where Virginia 
and federal statutes regulating the same subject share common 
definition of statutory term, "it is appropriate to look to the 
federal courts' interpretation of the same term" when construing 
the Virginia statute).  Those cases hold that several 
circumstances will support a finding of the requisite intent.  
Among those are:  possession of a large number of counterfeit 
bills, United States v. Berrios, 443 F. Supp. 408, 410 (E.D. Pa. 
1978); taking counterfeit bills to a commercial establishment, 
where cash transactions are likely, see United States v. 
 
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Mitchell, 176 Fed. Appx. 676 (7th Cir. 2006); and segregating 
counterfeit bills from genuine currency.  United States v. 
Perez, 698 F.2d 1168, 1171 (11th Cir. 1983) (keeping counterfeit 
currency in a separate pocket). 
 
The Commonwealth's evidence established each of these 
circumstances.  Hawkins was shown to possess counterfeit 
currency having a facial value of $360, in 18 twenty-dollar 
bills.  He had taken it to a pool hall, where frequent cash 
transactions could be anticipated.  The record is silent as to 
whether Hawkins had any genuine currency with him when he was 
arrested, but if he did it was obviously segregated from the 
counterfeit bills he threw to the floor.  We hold these 
circumstances sufficient to support an inference that Hawkins 
had the requisite intent to utter the counterfeit money in his 
possession. 
 
Hawkins makes the ingenious additional argument that if he 
brought counterfeit bills to the pool hall to pay gambling debts 
or to purchase drugs or other contraband, he would have lacked 
the intent to employ them as true, as contemplated by Code 
§ 18.2-173.  This, he contends, is a reasonable hypothesis of 
innocence that the Commonwealth's evidence failed to exclude.  
We do not agree. 
 
Although federal counterfeiting laws have as their primary 
purpose the protection of the national currency, state laws on 
 
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the same subject are aimed primarily at protecting their 
citizens from thefts and forgeries.  Hendrick v. Commonwealth, 
32 Va. (5 Leigh) 707, 713 (1834); Brooks v. United States, 76 
F.2d 871, 872 (1935).  When counterfeit currency is put into 
circulation, even if originally for an illegal purpose, someone 
will ultimately be defrauded by its use.  United States v. 
Hagan, 487 F.2d 897, 898 (5th Cir. 1973). 
Conclusion 
 
For the reasons stated, we hold that the circuit court 
correctly denied the motions to strike the Commonwealth's 
evidence and that the Court of Appeals did not err in affirming 
the conviction.  We will affirm the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals. 
Affirmed.