Present: Carrico, C.J., Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, Koontz, and 

Kinser, JJ. and Poff, Senior Justice 

ALFRED DEARING 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 992215 SENIOR JUSTICE RICHARD H. POFF 

 November 3, 2000 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

 Alfred Lovell Dearing, Jr., was convicted by a jury of 

robbery and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. 

The Circuit Court of Arlington County imposed the jury's 

verdict, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in an 

unpublished opinion. Dearing v. Commonwealth, Record No. 1233-

98-4 (August 17, 1999) [hereinafter Dearing I]. We awarded 

Dearing an appeal. The Commonwealth now concedes that the trial 

court erred in admitting into evidence a co-defendant’s 

statements to police. Cf. Dearing v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 117, 

123, 524 S.E.2d 121, 124 (1999)(addressing similar issue from a 

different conviction). Thus, the dispositive issue is whether 

the Court of Appeals erred in holding that any error in 

admitting these statements was harmless beyond a reasonable 

doubt. 

 "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 in the circuit court]." Derr 

v. Commonwealth, 242 Va. 413, 424, 412 S.E.2d 662, 668 (1991). 

 At approximately 1:30 a.m. on August 7, 1997, Danny Neil, a 

pedestrian, was stopped on the sidewalk by two men in a white 

Honda automobile. The passenger in the front seat pointed a gun 

at Neil and commanded Neil to give him all his money. When Neil 

emptied his pockets to show that he had no money, the gunman 

required Neil to give him a gold chain fastened around his 

Neil’s neck. After the men in the Honda drove away, Neil placed 

a 911 emergency call. 

 Police officers on night patrol in the community, who had 

been following a white Honda automobile occupied by Dearing and 

Leroy Vernoise Dorsey, learned that a car matching that 

description may have been involved in the robbery and stopped 

the car. When an officer brought Neil to the place where 

Dearing and Dorsey were being detained, Neil identified Dearing 

as the Honda passenger with a gun and noted that his gold chain 

was around Dearing's neck. Neil testified that a gun found by 

the officers on a shoulder of a road traveled by the white Honda 

was the weapon Dearing had pointed at him. 

 Dearing and Dorsey were tried jointly. Over Dearing's 

objection, Detective Paul Larson was allowed to testify that 

Dorsey first denied any involvement in the crime, but after 

Larson told him that "honesty is always the best policy", Dorsey 

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stated that he had come over "from Maryland into Virginia to 

commit a robbery with his cousin . . . Alfred Dearing". Larson 

also testified that Dorsey had told him that he saw his cousin 

using a small black handgun to perform the crime. 

 The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United 

States provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the 

accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the 

witnesses against him", and this provision was held applicable 

to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment in Pointer v. 

Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 406 (1965). "[B]efore a federal 

constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be 

able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a 

reasonable doubt." Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 

(1967); accord Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 576 (1987). 

 "Whether such an error is harmless in a particular case 

depends upon a host of factors, all readily accessible to 

reviewing courts. These factors include the importance of the 

witness' testimony in the prosecution's case, whether the 

testimony was cumulative, the presence or absence of evidence 

corroborating or contradicting the testimony of the witness on 

material points, the extent of cross-examination otherwise 

permitted, and, of course, the overall strength of the 

prosecution's case." Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 

(1986); accord Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 18 (1999). 

3
 Significantly, the Chapman–Van Arsdall harmless error 

standard has been applied expressly by the Supreme Court of the 

United States in appeals in which the constitutional 

Confrontation Clause had been violated. Brown v. United States, 

411 U.S. 223 (1973); Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427 (1972); 

Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 (1969). We apply that 

standard here. 

 While it is true that the challenged testimony was 

incriminating, this testimony was merely cumulative of the other 

evidence adduced by the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's 

cardinal witness at the jury trial, an eyewitness to the robbery 

and criminal use of a gun, was the victim of the crime. In the 

presence of investigating officers, and later at trial, Danny 

Neil identified Dearing as the principal criminal agent, the gun 

found discarded on the shoulder of the road as the criminal 

instrument, and the victim's necklace as the fruit of the crime. 

4
 We declare, therefore, that the evidentiary error committed 

at trial was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.∗

 Accordingly, 

we will affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 

Affirmed. 

 ∗

 Appellant contends on brief that his assignments of error 

raise a question presented "whether admission of co-defendant's 

statements as a declaration against appellant's penal interest 

constitutes reversible error under Virginia law." We agree with 

the following ruling in the opinion of the Court of Appeals: 

Having concluded that any error was harmless 

under the more rigorous "beyond a reasonable doubt" 

standard applicable to constitutional error, we need 

not consider whether the admission of Dorsey's 

statement violated Virginia's hearsay rule and, if 

error, whether that error was harmless under the less 

exacting standard applicable to errors of state law. 

See generally Lavinder v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 

1003, 1005, 407 S.E.2d 910, 911 (1991) (en banc) 

(finding that the "federal standard is not required 

. . . for non-constitutional error"). Dearing I, slip 

op. at 6 n.1. 

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