Title: Ronney Turner v. Commonwealth

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, and Kinser, JJ., 
Poff and Stephenson, Senior Justices 
 
RONNEY EARL TURNER 
 
v.  Record No. 992005   OPINION BY JUSTICE BARBARA MILANO KEENAN 
 
 
 
April 21, 2000 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court erred 
in permitting the Commonwealth to present evidence of other 
crimes committed by a defendant more than 13 years before the 
crimes charged in this prosecution. 
Ronney Earl Turner was indicted by a grand jury on charges 
including abduction with intent to defile, carjacking in 
violation of Code § 18.2-58.1, forcible sodomy, aggravated 
sexual battery, two counts of rape, and attempted robbery.  He 
was tried by a jury in the Circuit Court of the City of Virginia 
Beach, and was found guilty of these offenses.  The jury fixed 
his punishment at separate terms of life imprisonment on each of 
the rape, abduction with the intent to defile, forcible sodomy, 
and carjacking offenses.  The jury also set his punishment at 20 
years' imprisonment for sexual battery and ten years' 
imprisonment for attempted robbery.  The trial court sentenced 
Turner in accordance with the jury verdicts. 
Before trial, Turner filed a motion in limine to prevent 
the Commonwealth from introducing evidence that he had raped and 
abducted two other women in 1984.  Turner argued that the prior 
crimes were too remote in time and were factually different from 
the pending charges, which were alleged to have occurred in 
1998, rendering the prior offenses irrelevant.  Turner also 
asserted that the prejudicial effect of this evidence would 
outweigh its probative value. 
At a hearing on the motion in limine, the Commonwealth 
proffered the substance of the proposed testimony and evidence 
that Turner had been incarcerated from 1986 to 1996 as a result 
of the prior crimes.  The trial court denied Turner's motion, 
based on the court's conclusion that there was a "close 
similarity" between the prior crimes and the pending charges.  
The trial court further stated that the "time factor is 
minimized by the fact that the defendant . . . was actually 
incarcerated for a majority of the time that had passed in 
between the alleged offense[s] here and the prior acts." 
 
Turner filed a petition for appeal in the Court of Appeals 
challenging the trial court's admission of the evidence of other 
crimes.  The Court of Appeals denied Turner's petition for 
appeal, concluding that the trial court did not abuse its 
discretion in admitting the challenged evidence.  Turner v. 
 
2
Commonwealth, Record No. 0495-99-1 (August 3, 1999).  We awarded 
Turner an appeal limited to this same issue. 
 
We will state the evidence presented at trial in the light 
most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party below.  
Hussen v. Commonwealth, 257 Va. 93, 94, 511 S.E.2d 106, 106 
cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 119 S.Ct. 1792 (1999).  On February 
13, 1998, the victim, a 17-year-old high school student, was 
employed at the Pembroke Shopping Mall in Virginia Beach.  The 
victim left work that evening about 9:00 p.m. and walked across 
the parking lot to the van that she had driven to work.  As she 
was in the process of placing her belongings inside the van, 
Turner jumped on her back, cupped her mouth with his hand, and 
placed a "shining" object to her head that she thought was a 
gun.  Turner told her to "shut up" or he would shoot her. 
 
Turner directed the victim to crouch on the van floor 
between the two front seats and to look down at the floor.  
Turner then took the victim's van keys and drove the van for 
five or ten minutes to an unknown location.  After Turner 
stopped the van, he covered the victim's face with a sweatshirt.  
He asked her whether she had a boyfriend, what her name was, and 
where she lived.  After directing the victim to remove some of 
her clothing and threatening to kill her if she resisted, Turner 
directed her to move to the van's back seat, where he "fondled" 
her vagina, raped her twice, and orally sodomized her.  He then 
 
3
"squirted something" on the victim's vagina and directed her "to 
rub it in." 
 
After raping the victim, Turner apologized and said that it 
was "something he had to do before he went to Texas."  Turner 
asked the victim if she had any money and examined the contents 
of her purse, moving her driver's license from its usual 
location.  Afterward, he drove the van again for a few minutes, 
during which time the victim remained on the van floor with the 
sweatshirt covering her face.  Upon stopping the van, Turner 
told the victim that he was going to leave her van key outside 
the van near the left front tire.  He directed the victim to 
count to 100 before attempting to retrieve the key or he would 
shoot her.  The victim eventually found the key near the front 
tire of the van, drove to her boyfriend's house, and reported 
the crimes to the police.  During the entire time that Turner 
was in the van, the victim either had her face to the van floor 
or had the sweatshirt over her eyes and, thus, was not able to 
see Turner. 
 
The victim was examined at a hospital later that night, 
where vaginal swab samples were taken.  David A. Pomposini, a 
forensic scientist at the Virginia Division of Forensic Science 
laboratory in Norfolk, testified that he found spermatozoa in 
seminal fluid on the vaginal swabs, and that he isolated DNA 
from the spermatozoa for analysis.  Pomposini submitted the 
 
4
results of his analysis to the Commonwealth's DNA data bank in 
Richmond.  Of the 10,938 DNA profiles on record in the data 
bank, one profile matched the DNA from the spermatozoa on the 
vaginal swabs.  This matching profile belonged to Turner, who is 
an African-American. 
 
Pomposini testified that he also analyzed DNA from a blood 
sample taken from Turner after he became a suspect in the 
present offenses.  Pomposini stated that he analyzed the profile 
of five "genetic loci" on the DNA from the vaginal swab and 
concluded that the profile matched the DNA from Turner's blood 
sample.  Pomposini further stated that the probability of 
randomly selecting an individual in the Black population with 
the same DNA profile was about one in one hundred million. 
 
The Commonwealth also presented the testimony of the 
victims in the prior crimes.  Each described how she had been 
abducted and raped by Turner about 14 years earlier.  The first 
prior victim testified that between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. on 
September 7, 1984, Turner abducted her just after she entered 
her car in the parking lot of Military Circle Mall in Norfolk.  
He reached in through her open car window, placed his hand over 
her mouth, held either a knife or a gun to the side of her back, 
and threatened to kill her if she screamed. 
 
Turner instructed her to slide over to the passenger side 
of the front seat and repeatedly told her not to look at him, 
 
5
but to keep her head turned.  Turner asked her whether she had a 
boyfriend, and he demanded to see her driver's license to 
determine where she lived so that he could "get" her if she 
contacted the police. 
 
Turner drove her in her car to a wooded area, where he 
ordered her to remove her pants and get out of the car.  He 
inserted his finger in her vagina and then raped her.  After 
raping her, Turner said that he was sorry and then drove her 
back to a building near Military Circle Mall.  He told her to 
keep her head down and to wait for 15 minutes before retrieving 
her car key from outside the car.  He stated that if she did not 
wait the specified time, he "would be around."  She eventually 
found her key on the ground on the driver's side of her car.  
Based on these events, Turner was convicted in 1986 in the 
Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk of rape and abduction with 
the intent to defile. 
 
The second prior victim testified that about 9:30 p.m. on 
December 21, 1984, Turner abducted her from the parking lot of 
the Janaf Shopping Center in Norfolk, which is located across 
the street from the Military Circle Mall.  She had just entered 
her car when Turner approached and tapped on her window.  After 
she rolled down her window a little, Turner asked if she had any 
"jumping cables."  She replied that she did not and had begun to 
 
6
move her car when Turner pointed a gun through the window at her 
face. 
 
Turner ordered her not to scream and directed her to slide 
over and "[d]uck down" low on the passenger side of the front 
seat and to keep her head turned away from him.  Turner 
repeatedly told her to "[d]uck down" and not look at him as he 
drove her to an area behind the shopping center.  He asked her 
for money and asked where she kept her driver's license.  After 
looking at her license, Turner stated that since he knew where 
she lived, he would kill her if she told anyone what he had 
done.  He ordered her to remove her panties and performed oral 
sodomy on her.  He then directed her to move to the car's back 
seat, where he raped her.  Before leaving, Turner told her that 
he would put the car key outside the car, and that she was to 
wait a specified period of time before attempting to retrieve 
it.  Based on these events, Turner was convicted of abduction in 
1986 in the Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk. 
 
After the Commonwealth rested its case, Turner presented an 
alibi defense in which he testified that he was home with his 
former wife, Valerie Shoulders, at the time the crimes were 
committed.  Valerie Shoulders also testified that she was with 
Turner at his home at the time the crimes occurred. 
 
On appeal, Turner argues that the trial court abused 
its discretion in allowing the Commonwealth to present 
 
7
evidence of the crimes he committed against the prior 
victims to prove the identity of the perpetrator of the 
crimes for which he was being tried.  He contends that 
since the prior crimes occurred over 13 years before the 
crimes for which he was on trial, the evidence concerning 
the prior crimes lacked probative value. 
 
Turner also argues that several factual differences 
between the prior crimes and the present offenses rendered 
the challenged evidence inadmissible as proof of identity.  
He states that the victim in this case is Caucasian and was 
17 years old at time she was attacked, while both prior 
victims are African-American and were 27 and 29 years old, 
respectively, at the time of the offenses against them.  
Turner also notes that the crimes against the prior victims 
occurred in Norfolk, while the crimes against the victim in 
this case occurred in Virginia Beach.  Finally, he states 
that the first prior victim was abducted during daylight 
hours and raped outside her car, while the victim in this 
case was abducted at night and raped in the back seat of 
her van.  We disagree with Turner's arguments. 
 
The standard governing the admission of evidence of other 
crimes in the guilt phase of a criminal trial is well 
established.  Evidence that shows or tends to show that a 
defendant has committed a prior crime is generally inadmissible 
 
8
to prove the crime charged.  Guill v. Commonwealth, 255 Va. 134, 
138, 495 S.E.2d 489, 491 (1998); Kirkpatrick v. Commonwealth, 
211 Va. 269, 272, 176 S.E.2d 802, 805 (1970).  There are several 
exceptions to this general rule.  One exception is that evidence 
of other crimes is admissible to prove a perpetrator's identity 
when certain requirements are met.  We discussed these 
requirements in Chichester v. Commonwealth, 248 Va. 311, 326-27, 
448 S.E.2d 638, 649 (1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1166 (1995): 
[O]ne of the issues upon which "other crimes" evidence 
may be admitted is that of the perpetrator's identity, 
or criminal agency, where that has been disputed.  
Proof of modus operandi is competent evidence where 
there is a disputed issue of identity. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
[E]vidence of other crimes, to qualify for 
admission as proof of modus operandi, need not bear 
such an exact resemblance to the crime on trial as to 
constitute a "signature."  Rather, it is sufficient if 
the other crimes bear a "singular strong resemblance 
to the pattern of the offense charged."  That test is 
met where the other incidents are "sufficiently 
idiosyncratic to permit an inference of pattern for 
purposes of proof," thus tending to establish the 
probability of a common perpetrator. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
If the evidence of other crimes bears sufficient 
marks of similarity to the crime charged to establish 
that the defendant is probably the common perpetrator, 
that evidence is relevant and admissible if its 
probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect 
. . . .  The trial court, in the exercise of its sound 
discretion, must decide which of these competing 
considerations outweighs the other.  Unless that 
discretion has been clearly abused, we will affirm the 
trial court's decision on this issue. 
 
9
 
Id. (quoting Spencer v. Commonwealth, 240 Va. 78, 89-90, 393 
S.E.2d 609, 616-17, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 908 (1990)(citations 
omitted)); see also Johnson v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. ___, ___, 
___ S.E.2d ___, ___ (2000), decided today; Guill v. 
Commonwealth, 255 Va. at 138-39, 495 S.E.2d at 491-92. 
 
Applying this standard, we hold that the trial court did 
not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony of the prior 
victims, as well as evidence that Turner was convicted of the 
prior crimes.  While there were minor factual differences among 
the offenses, they shared several sufficiently idiosyncratic 
features which, considered as a whole, reflected a pattern in 
the prior crimes that bore a singular strong resemblance to the 
pattern of the present offenses, thus tending to prove the 
probability of a common perpetrator. 
 
In each case, the attacker assaulted his victim in the 
parking lot of a shopping center in the late afternoon or 
evening hours.  The victim in this case was abducted from a 
shopping center that is within a 15-minute drive of the shopping 
centers where the prior crimes were committed.  Each victim was 
assaulted when she entered, or was in the process of entering, 
her vehicle.  The attacker used a weapon in all three cases, and 
he threatened to kill each victim if she did not cooperate with 
him.  The attacker attempted to obtain or obtained each victim's 
 
10
name and address, and he handled each victim's driver's license.  
In each case, the attacker ordered the victim to avoid looking 
at him, obtained the keys to the victim's vehicle, and drove the 
victim to a different location. 
 
After raping each victim, the attacker drove each to yet 
another location where he ordered each victim to wait a certain 
period of time or to count to a certain number before attempting 
to leave.  The attacker warned each victim that if she left the 
vehicle before the designated amount of time had elapsed, he 
would know that fact.  In each case, the attacker told the 
victim he would leave her vehicle keys outside the vehicle, 
actually left the keys near the vehicle, and fled from the 
vehicle on foot. 
 
We also conclude that the trial court did not abuse its 
discretion in concluding that the probative value of this 
evidence outweighed its prejudicial effect. First, we disagree 
with Turner's contention that the period of time between the 
prior crimes and the offenses charged in this case eliminated 
the probative value of the evidence of the prior crimes.  In 
determining whether a prior crime is too remote in time to be 
considered by the fact finder, the trial court may consider the 
length of time that a defendant has been incarcerated between 
the date of the prior crime and the date of the offense charged.  
See State v. Davis, 398 S.E.2d 645, 650 (N.C. Ct. App. 1990).  
 
11
Turner was incarcerated in 1986 after being convicted of the 
prior crimes, which occurred in 1984, and he was imprisoned 
without interruption from 1986 until two years before the 
present offenses were committed.  Thus, since the prior crimes 
occurred during the last four years that Turner was not 
incarcerated before the date of the present offenses, the prior 
crimes were not too remote in time to be considered by the jury. 
 
Second, we disagree with Turner's argument that the 
differences among the offenses, such as the race and age of the 
victims, and the particular locations where the crimes occurred, 
materially affected the probative value of the challenged 
evidence.  These facts cannot be isolated from the entire record 
before the trial court which, considered in its entirety, 
supports the court's discretionary determination. 
 
For these reasons, we will affirm the Court of Appeals' 
judgment. 
Affirmed. 
 
12