COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judge Coleman and Senior Judge Cole 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

PHILLIP D. WALLER, A/K/A 

 PHILLIP D. JACKSON 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 1873-95-2 JUDGE SAM W. COLEMAN III 

 AUGUST 12, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUISA COUNTY 

F. Ward Harkrader, Jr., Judge 

 John R. Maus for appellant. 

 H. Elizabeth Shaffer, Assistant Attorney 

General (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney 

General, on brief), for appellee. 

 The defendant, Phillip D. Waller, was convicted in a jury 

trial of distribution of cocaine. He was sentenced to twenty 

years in prison, with ten years suspended, and fined $5,000. On 

appeal, he asserts that the Commonwealth failed to prove the 

chain of custody of the substance that was determined to be 

cocaine after it was delivered to the Division of Forensic 

Science state laboratory. Thus, he contends that the trial court 

erred by admitting into evidence that substance which the 

laboratory determined to be cocaine and the Certificate of 

Analysis. We hold that the trial court did not err and, 

accordingly, we affirm the conviction. 

 A party who offers into evidence an object or item must 

 

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

designated for publication. 
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prove that the object or item is authentic -- that the item is 

what it purports to be. 1 Charles E. Friend, The Law of Evidence 

in Virginia § 13-5 (4th ed. 1993). The proponent of such 

tangible evidence authenticates it by proving "with reasonable 

certainty" a continuous unbroken chain at each relevant link or 

interval at which the authenticity of the evidence may be called 

into question. Robinson v. Commonwealth, 212 Va. 136, 138, 183 

S.E.2d 179, 180 (1971). The party must also establish that the 

evidence continues to be the same item in all relevant or 

essential characteristics. 

 Where the nature, quantity, quality, or physical or chemical 

characteristics of the item are relevant, "authentication 

requires proof . . . 'that the item [has] not been altered, 

substituted, or contaminated prior to analysis, in any way that 

would affect the results of the analysis.'" Reedy v. 

Commonwealth, 9 Va. App. 386, 387, 388 S.E.2d 650, 650-51 (1990) 

(quoting Washington v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 535, 550, 323 S.E.2d 

577, 587 (1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1111 (1985)). Although 

the proponent has the burden of proving an unbroken chain of 

custody or possession with reasonable certainty, the party "is 

not required to exclude every conceivable possibility of 

substitution, alteration, or tampering. . . . All that is 

required in order to establish a chain of custody is that the 

[proponent's] evidence 'afford reasonable assurance that the 

exhibits at trial are the same and in the same condition as they 
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were when first obtained.'" Pope v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 114, 

121, 360 S.E.2d 352, 357 (1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1015 

(1988) (citations omitted). 

 Although the proponent must prove with reasonable assurance 

an unbroken chain and that the evidence has not been altered or 

tampered with in any relevant respect, the legislature has 

determined, as a matter of policy, that for evidence analyzed in 

specified laboratories, including the Division of Forensic 

Science, a duly attested report by the person examining or 

analyzing the evidence shall be prima facie proof of the chain of 

custody, including the fact that the evidence has not been 

altered or tampered with from the time it was delivered to the 

lab until it was released. Code § 19.2-187.01;1Cirios v. 

Commonwealth, 7 Va. App. 292, 300, 373 S.E.2d 164, 168 (1988) 

 

 1 Code § 19.2-187.01. Certificate of analysis as evidence 

of chain of custody of material described therein. -- A report of 

analysis duly attested by the person performing such analysis or 

examination in any laboratory operated by (i) the Division of 

Consolidated Laboratory Services, the Division of Forensic 

Science or any of its regional laboratories, or by any laboratory 

authorized by either Division to conduct such analysis or 

examination, . . . shall be prima facie evidence in a criminal 

. . . proceeding as to the custody of the material described 

therein from the time such material is received by an authorized 

agent of such laboratory until such material is released 

subsequent to such analysis or examination. Any such certificate 

of analysis purporting to be signed by any such person shall be 

admissible as evidence in such hearing or trial without any proof 

of the seal or signature or of the official character of the 

person whose name is signed to it. The signature of the person 

who received the material for the laboratory on the request for 

laboratory examination form shall be deemed prima facie evidence 

that the person receiving the material was an authorized agent 

and that such receipt constitutes proper receipt by the 

laboratory for purposes of this section. 
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(quoting Babbitt v. Miller, 192 Va. 372, 379, 64 S.E.2d 718, 722 

(1951)). Thus, in order to relieve every examiner, analyst, or 

person who may have had possession of the evidence at the 

specified laboratories from being required to testify in every 

case in order to establish the chain of custody for each item of 

evidence, the legislature has provided that if the analyst 

certifies that he or she examined or analyzed a particular item, 

a rebuttable presumption shall exist that the object or item 

returned to the court is the same one that was delivered to the 

lab and analyzed and that it was not changed, altered, or 

contaminated in any relevant way. Thus, while Code § 19.2-187.01 

provides for a presumption of regularity based upon an 

attestation by the examiner, that presumption may be rebutted. 

Furthermore, Code § 19.2-187.1 expressly provides: 

 The accused in any hearing or trial in which 

a certificate of analysis is admitted into 

evidence pursuant to § 19.2-187 or 

§ 19.2-187.01 shall have the right to call 

the person performing such analysis or 

examination or involved in the chain of 

custody as a witness therein, and examine him 

in the same manner as if he had been called 

as an adverse witness. 

 In the present case, the Commonwealth proved that 

Investigator Lowe received custody of a substance from a person 

who had purchased the substance from the defendant, that Lowe 

marked the substance for identification, and that he personally 

delivered the substance to a security officer at the forensic 

laboratory. The evidence proved that W. E. Beasley, the chief 
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security officer, signed for receipt of the substance at the lab. 

 Investigator Lowe later retrieved from the lab a package 

containing a substance bearing the same identifying numbers which 

he had placed on the package when he delivered it to the lab. 

Lowe accounted for the substance until it was introduced into 

evidence at trial along with the accompanying Certificate of 

Analysis. 

 The defendant, in an effort to rebut the presumption of 

regularity as to the chain of custody while the substance was at 

the forensic laboratory, called Donald C. King as a witness. 

King was the forensic scientist who attested to the Certificate 

of Analysis and certified that he had examined the substance and 

determined it to be cocaine. King testified to and accounted for 

the substance at all times after one of the security officers 

delivered it to him for analysis. Through King, the defendant 

did not present any evidence that the substance had been tampered 

with, contaminated, adulterated, or substituted for, or that 

another person had any contact with the substance after it was 

delivered to him and before he analyzed it. Although the 

evidence proved that the assistant director of the lab had a key 

to the locked drawer in which King stored the substance, the 

defendant presented no evidence that rebutted the presumption of 

regularity by proving that the assistant director had tampered 

with or accessed the substance. 

 In addition, the defendant established through King the 
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names of the other persons at the lab who were in the chain of 

custody or had possession of the substance after Investigator 

Lowe delivered it. The defendant did not, however, call any of 

those persons as witnesses or make any effort to determine 

whether they had or were aware of any mishandling, tampering, 

adulteration, contamination, substitution, or irregularity that 

would break the chain of custody. Nevertheless, the defendant's 

argument is that he rebutted the prima facie proof of the chain 

of custody when he proved that the analyst King, whom Code 

§ 19.2-187.1 declares to be an adverse witness, could not account 

for the substance while it was in the possession of other persons 

at the forensic lab and he could not verify that those persons or 

someone else did not alter, contaminate, or substitute the 

substance during the time that King could not account for it. 

 A defendant does not rebut the presumption of an unbroken 

chain of custody by failing to offer proof of who had possession 

of the substance at a given time or by failing to account for how 

the person handled the substance at that time. Had the defendant 

proved that the laboratory had lost the substance, misplaced, or 

could not account for it, or that the substance was readily 

accessible to persons other than those at the laboratory who 

should have been in the chain of custody, then the presumption 

may have been sufficiently rebutted to exclude the evidence or to 

require the Commonwealth to explain the break in the chain. 

However, a defendant cannot rebut the presumption by offering 
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evidence that tends to prove only a single link in the chain and 

by then claiming that the evidence fails to prove or account for 

the other links. 

 Next, the defendant argues that the description of the 

substance that was analyzed at the laboratory and returned to the 

court so differed from the description of the substance that was 

delivered to the lab that there can be no "reasonable assurance" 

that they were the same substance. Therefore, he argues that the 

varying descriptions between the two substances rebuts the prima

facie case established by the attested certificate and that the 

trial court erred by admitting the substance and Certificate of 

Analysis into evidence. The argument fails because the 

descriptions are not so dissimilar that they prove that the 

substance analyzed was different from that submitted. Moreover, 

the identifying numbers and initials of those persons who 

delivered and analyzed the substance and their testimony that the 

substance appeared to be that which they delivered and analyzed 

was sufficient to prove with "reasonable assurance" that they 

were the same. The fact that Investigator Lowe chose the 

descriptive terms, "two (2) off white rock like substances" and 

on another occasion "two off-white tannish substances" and that 

King characterized it as "white solid material" is insufficient 

to rebut the presumption. As King explained, the varying 

descriptions were nothing more than two people using slightly 

different terminology to describe the same substance. The 
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identifying numbers, the testimony of the witnesses, and the 

presumption provided by Code § 19.2-187.01 that the substance 

delivered to the lab was the same one that was returned to the 

court, proves that the substance analyzed as cocaine was the 

substance purchased from the defendant. 

 Accordingly, the trial judge did not err by admitting the 

cocaine or the Certificate of Analysis into evidence. 

 Affirmed.