COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Elder and Overton 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

WALTER E. PATTERSON, JR. 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 2676-96-2 CHIEF JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK 

 MARCH 3, 1998 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF CHESTERFIELD COUNTY 

William R. Shelton, Judge 

 Andrea C. Long (David E. Boone; Boone, Beale, 

Cosby & Long, on brief), for appellant. 

 Ruth Ann Morken, Assistant Attorney General 

(Richard Cullen, Attorney General, on brief), 

for appellee. 

 Walter E. Patterson, Jr. (appellant) was convicted in a jury 

trial of breaking and entering, grand larceny, and assault and 

battery. On appeal, he contends the trial court erroneously: 

(1) admitted a criminal complaint of unverified authorship, and 

(2) allowed the Commonwealth to refer to it on rebuttal. For the 

following reasons, we affirm the convictions. 

 I. 

 At approximately 1:10 p.m. on February 7, 1996, Charles and 

Michelle Spencer returned to their home at 11630 Old Centralia 

Road for lunch. They stopped in the garage to feed the dog 

before climbing the exterior stairwell to their front door. 

While they were in the garage, the couple heard footsteps on the 

 

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

designated for publication. 
 2 

floor above them. Charles immediately ran upstairs while 

Michelle called 911 from a telephone in the garage. 

 As Charles reached the top of the stairwell, he met a man 

running out of the Spencer home with a bag. The man lowered his 

head to push Charles out of the way. Charles grabbed the man, 

and they fell together down the steps to a landing where Charles 

wrestled the bag away from the intruder. The man jumped over the 

railing, looked up at Charles for a moment and then ran back up 

to the landing and continued to wrestle over the bag. He told 

Charles he had a gun, and Charles let go of the bag. The man ran 

off toward the woods in the direction of Chester Middle School. 

The Spencers recovered their stolen property, valued at 

approximately $4,650, from the ground beneath the landing, where 

it had fallen during the scuffle over the bag. 

 Chesterfield Police Officer R.L. Hutchison, Jr. was one 

block away from the Chester Middle School when he received the 

radio dispatch regarding the break-in at the Spencer home. 

Hutchison proceeded to the school, where he spotted a man 

matching Michelle Spencer's description. After a foot chase, 

Hutchison apprehended appellant. 

 At trial, Hutchison identified appellant as the man he 

chased and apprehended and the bag as the one he recovered. 

Michelle Spencer testified that the bag Hutchison recovered was 

the bag over which the intruder and her husband had fought. 

Charles Spencer identified appellant as the man with whom he 
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struggled and the bag as the one the intruder carried from his 

house. 

 The Commonwealth offered into evidence a criminal complaint 

signed by appellant alleging that at approximately 1:15 p.m. on 

February 7, 1996, Charles Spencer committed an assault and 

battery on him at 11630 Old Centralia Road. The document was 

obtained from the district court clerk's office and certified as 

an accurate copy of the complaint on file in that court. Over 

defense objection, the trial court admitted the complaint. 

 Appellant presented no evidence, and in closing argument, 

his counsel suggested mistaken identity. "There's only one 

person that claims that he saw him, and that's the upset 

homeowner." The Commonwealth, on rebuttal, referred to the 

criminal complaint as evidence that placed appellant at the 

Spencer home around the time of the break-in and subsequent 

scuffle. The jury found appellant guilty on all three counts. 

 II. 

 Appellant first contends the criminal complaint was 

inadmissible because the Commonwealth failed to offer evidence 

that appellant authored the complaint. "'The admissibility of 

evidence is within the broad discretion of the trial court, and a 

ruling will not be disturbed on appeal in the absence of an abuse 

of discretion.'" Brown v. Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 171, 181, 

487 S.E.2d 248, 253 (1997) (quoting Blain v. Commonwealth, 7 Va. 

App. 10, 16, 371 S.E.2d 838, 842 (1988)). "The records of any 
 4 

judicial proceeding and any other official records1

 of any court 

of this Commonwealth shall be received as prima facie evidence 

provided that such records are authenticated and certified by the 

clerk of the court where preserved to be a true record." Code 

§ 8.01-389. "[T]he terms 'authenticated' and 'certified' are 

basically synonymous" in this context. Owens v. Commonwealth, 10 

Va. App. 309, 311, 391 S.E.2d 605, 607 (1990). In the instant 

case, the complaint was certified by the proper clerk, and it was 

therefore admissible as prima facie evidence. 

 Appellant next suggests that the Commonwealth had an 

additional burden of establishing that he authored the complaint. 

 His argument lacks merit. The presumption of regularity of 

court documents attached to the criminal complaint and 

established the requisite prima facie case. "'[E]very act of a 

court of competent jurisdiction shall be presumed to have been 

rightly done, till the contrary appears.'" Nicely v. 

Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 579, 584, 490 S.E.2d 281, 283 (1997) 

(citation omitted). "In the absence of clear evidence to the 

contrary, courts may presume that public officers have properly 

discharged their official duties." Robertson v. Commonwealth, 12 

Va. App. 854, 856-57, 406 S.E.2d 417, 418 (1991). Appellant 

failed to argue that the signature on the complaint was not his, 

and he offered no evidence that it was not genuine. In the 

 

 1"Records" includes "any memorandum, report, paper, data 

compilation, or other record in any form, or any combination 

thereof." Code § 8.01-389(D). 
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absence of such evidence, the complaint is presumed to be 

accurate and we cannot hold the trial court abused its discretion 

in admitting it.2

 Additionally, appellant contends the trial court erred in 

allowing the Commonwealth to refer to the assault complaint on 

rebuttal. "A trial court has broad discretion in the supervision 

of . . . closing argument." O'Dell v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 672, 

703, 364 S.E.2d 491, 509 (1987), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 871 

(1988). "'This Court will not interfere with the exercise of 

this broad discretion unless it affirmatively appears that such 

discretion has been abused and that the rights of the complaining 

litigant have been prejudiced.'" Canipe v. Commonwealth, 25 Va. 

App. 629, 639, 491 S.E.2d 747, 752 (1997) (citation omitted). 

"'In rebuttal argument, a prosecutor has the right to answer the 

argument made by defense counsel and to refer to evidence and 

fair inferences suggested by the evidence touching the subjects 

covered by the adversary.'" Clark v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 

474, 483, 351 S.E.2d 42, 46 (1986) (citation and emphasis 

omitted) (prosecutor allowed to use statements of an individual 

not mentioned in defense counsel's closing for the purpose of 

rehabilitating witnesses attacked in closing). 

 

 2To the extent that appellant suggests the clerk should have 

certified both the authenticity of the record and that she had 

independent knowledge of the facts therein, this dual 

authentication argument was rejected in Owens, 10 Va. App. at 

311, 391 S.E.2d at 607 ("Authentication is merely the process of 

showing that a document is genuine and that it is what its 

proponent claims it to be."). 
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 In the instant case, the closing defense argument attacked 

Charles Spencer's identification of appellant as the person with 

whom he struggled and who attempted to steal his property. This 

clearly raised a claim of mistaken identity. On rebuttal, the 

Commonwealth was allowed to rehabilitate its eyewitness and 

answer the mistaken identity defense. It did so by reference to 

the criminal complaint, which tended to show appellant's presence 

at the Spencer home at the time of the break-in. Use of the 

complaint was not beyond the scope of rebuttal, and the trial 

court did not abuse its discretion. For the foregoing reasons, 

we affirm. 

 Affirmed.