COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judges Benton and Elder 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

CHARLES EDWARD ANDREWS, A/K/A 

 GILBERT ANDREWS 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 0565-94-2 JUDGE LARRY G. ELDER 

 MAY 9, 1995 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY 

John A. Jamison, Judge Designate 

 R. Ted Butler (Ellis & Lowery, P.C., on brief), 

 for appellant. 

 Michael T. Judge, Assistant Attorney General 

 (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on 

 brief), for appellee. 

 Charles Edward Andrews (appellant) appeals his conviction 

for grand larceny in violation of Code § 18.2-95. Appellant 

contends that the trial court erred in refusing to allow him to 

fully exercise his right of cross-examination by requiring codefendant's counsel to use a transcript from a preliminary 

hearing in order to impeach a prosecution witness. Because 

appellant failed to make a timely objection pursuant to Rule 

5A:18, he is procedurally barred from raising this issue on 

appeal. We therefore affirm his conviction. 

 Appellant was tried jointly with James Andrews (his 

brother), pursuant to Code § 19.2-262.1, for grand larceny. 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
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During trial, appellant's counsel cross-examined an employee of 

the convenience store from which the two brothers had taken 

$542.50 worth of cigarettes. Counsel for James Andrews, after 

beginning her cross-examination of the same employee asked the 

employee why she had testified at trial that no person was near 

the store's lottery stand during the events in question, but at 

the preliminary hearing had said that she had seen James Andrews 

standing next to the lottery stand. The Commonwealth's Attorney 

objected, arguing that since there was no transcript of the 

preliminary hearing, appellant and his co-defendant were bound by 

the employee's in-court statement. James Andrews' counsel 

explained that she was inquiring as to why the employee gave a 

prior inconsistent statement. The trial court, however, did not 

permit any impeachment by prior inconsistent testimony, as there 

was no transcript, and it would not accept an audiotape of the 

preliminary hearing in lieu of a transcript. 

 Appellant and James Andrews made separate motions to strike 

at the conclusion of the Commonwealth's evidence and at the 

conclusion of the defendants' evidence. The jury found appellant 

guilty, and the trial court sentenced him to five years in the 

penitentiary. 

 We hold that appellant is procedurally barred from raising 

on appeal the issue of whether his right to cross-examine a 

witness was violated. Rule 5A:18 states that "[n]o ruling of the 

trial court . . . will be considered as a basis for reversal 
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unless the objection was stated together with the grounds 

therefor at the time of the ruling." See Martin v. Commonwealth, 

13 Va. App. 524, 530, 414 S.E.2d 401, 404 (1992)(en banc). 

Appellant's counsel did not contemporaneously object to the trial 

court's ruling on the exclusion of the audiotape testimony. 

 Appellant cannot rely on any alleged error committed with 

respect to James Andrews' counsel's cross-examination of the 

employee. We find nothing to support the notion that any alleged 

error affecting one co-defendant is automatically "translated" to 

a co-defendant by virtue of a joint trial. Neither can we find 

in the record any indication that either counsel informed the 

trial court at the start of the trial that any objection made by 

one counsel would be automatically adopted by the other. 

Appellant's counsel had already completed his cross-examination 

of the witness before co-defendant's counsel began her separate 

cross-examination. Because a trial court's ruling may benefit 

one co-defendant while harming another, appellant's counsel was 

obligated to contemporaneously alert the trial court that he too 

objected to the exclusion of the audiotape evidence. 

 For the forgoing reasons the judgment of the trial court is 

affirmed. 

Affirmed.