COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Elder, Frank and Felton 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

TOBIAS NORRELL, S/K/A 

 TOBIAS L. NORRELL 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 0978-02-2 JUDGE LARRY G. ELDER 

 APRIL 22, 2003 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 

Robert W. Duling, Judge Designate 

 John W. Luxton (Morchower, Luxton & Whaley, 

on brief), for appellant. 

 Donald E. Jeffrey, III, Assistant Attorney 

General (Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General; 

Linwood T. Wells, Jr., Assistant Attorney 

General, on brief), for appellee. 

 Tobias Norrell (appellant) appeals from his bench trial 

conviction for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. 

On appeal, he contends the evidence was insufficient to prove 

his constructive possession of cocaine found inside a safe. We 

hold the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to prove his 

constructive possession, and we affirm. 

Under familiar principles of appellate review, we examine 

the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 

granting to the evidence all reasonable inferences fairly 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not 

designated for publication.
deducible therefrom. Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438, 

443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). Circumstantial evidence is 

sufficient to support a conviction provided it excludes every 

reasonable hypothesis of innocence flowing from the evidence. 

Hamilton v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 751, 755, 433 S.E.2d 27, 

29 (1993). 

 The possession necessary to support a conviction for the 

possession of cocaine may be actual or constructive. See, e.g., 

Logan v. Commonwealth, 19 Va. App. 437, 444, 452 S.E.2d 364, 368 

(en banc). Establishing constructive possession requires proof 

"that the defendant was aware of both the presence and character 

of the [item] and that it was subject to his dominion and 

control." Powers v. Commonwealth, 227 Va. 474, 476, 316 S.E.2d 

739, 740 (1984). A person's ownership or occupancy of premises 

on which the subject item is found, proximity to the item, and 

statements or conduct concerning the location of the item are 

probative factors to be considered in determining whether the 

totality of the circumstances supports a finding of possession. 

Archer v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 1, 12, 492 S.E.2d 826, 

831-32 (1997). Possession "need not always be exclusive. The 

defendant may share it with one or more." Josephs v. 

Commonwealth, 10 Va. App. 87, 89, 390 S.E.2d 491, 497 (1990) (en

banc). 

 Here, although Officer Kenneth Cornett said appellant 

entered the apartment through a window after trying to make sure 

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no one was watching, appellant said he had a key to the 

apartment and denied entering through the window. When asked if 

he lived there, appellant responded, "I stay here, it's my 

brother's house." When asked for identification, appellant 

said, "[I]t's back here," and walked immediately toward the rear 

of the residence. Appellant later went directly to one of the 

apartment's two bedrooms where he examined the pockets of three 

articles of clothing located on the floor and the bed of that 

room. Although appellant said he could not locate his 

identification, police subsequently found appellant's current 

Virginia identification card in a tennis shoe in the closet of 

that room. Also in the room were appellant's J. Sargeant 

Reynolds picture student i.d. and two photographs of appellant. 

This evidence, including appellant's statements that he 

"stay[ed]" in the apartment and had a key, supported the 

inference that appellant occupied the bedroom in which the above 

items were found. 

 Other evidence linked appellant to the contents of the safe 

found beneath the bed in that room, despite the fact that a key 

to the safe was not found in his possession. When police opened 

the safe, they found a contract for a cellular telephone bearing 

the signature of Tobias Norrell as the guarantor and dated 

October 1, 2001, only two days prior the officers' search of the 

apartment. By comparing the signature on the cellular telephone 

contract with the signatures on appellant's Virginia and J. 

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Sargeant Reynolds identification cards, both of which contained 

appellant's photograph, the finder of fact could conclude that 

appellant was the person who had signed the cell phone contract. 

See Wileman v. Commonwealth, 24 Va. App. 642, 647, 484 S.E.2d 

621, 623-24 (1997) (noting that fact finder may conduct 

"side-by-side comparison of genuine samples and alleged samples" 

to determine whether handwriting is that of a particular 

person). 

Also in the safe was a box for a cellular telephone. At 

the time of appellant's arrest, he had in his possession a 

cellular telephone that matched the picture on the box. Thus, 

the only reasonable hypothesis flowing from the evidence is that 

appellant had access to the safe and constructively possessed 

the quantity of cocaine also found in the safe, either jointly 

or exclusively. See Birdsong v. Commonwealth, 37 Va. App. 603, 

607-10, 560 S.E.2d 468, 470-72 (2002) (holding evidence need not 

establish defendant knew combination to safe containing cocaine 

where direct evidence linked him to other evidence in safe and 

circumstantial evidence established his constructive possession 

of drugs). The fact that an identification card for Eric 

Pretty, the person who rented the apartment, was found beneath 

the safe and that Pretty may also have had possession of the 

cellular telephone matching the box in the safe on the day of 

the search does not require a different result. 

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 For these reasons, we hold the circumstantial evidence 

proved appellant constructively possessed the cocaine found in 

the safe. Thus, we affirm his conviction for possession of 

cocaine with intent to distribute. 

Affirmed. 

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