COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Benton, Annunziata and Senior Judge Duff 

Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

CARSON RAY SHENK 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 1165-96-4 JUDGE CHARLES H. DUFF 

 JUNE 3, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF WARREN COUNTY 

Dennis L. Hupp, Judge 

 Christian J. Griffin, Assistant Public 

Defender, for appellant. 

 Monica S. McElyea, Assistant Attorney General 

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

brief), for appellee. 

 

 Carson Ray Shenk (appellant) was convicted of a second 

offense of driving after having been adjudicated an habitual 

offender. He alleges on appeal that the trial court erred in 

refusing to apply the habitual offender statute's "agricultural 

purposes" exemption to his operation of a tractor to his home 

from a residence where he previously had mowed the lawn. We 

disagree and affirm the conviction. 

 I. 

 On August 29, 1995, Town of Front Royal Police Sergeant R.E. 

Bukva received a report that appellant was operating a lawn 

tractor on the streets. Bukva knew that appellant was an 

habitual offender. Bukva first saw appellant standing in the 

yard of a single family dwelling at the corner of Brown Avenue 

and Cherrydale Avenue in Front Royal. The officer saw a lawn 

tractor, hooked to a small wagon, parked in front of the 

residence. Bukva parked his car where he could watch appellant. 
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 Within minutes, appellant began to drive the tractor on the 

street. 

 Bukva saw appellant make a u-turn with the tractor on Brown 

Avenue, then drive to Cherrydale Avenue. The officer drove to 

appellant's house on Duncan Avenue and saw appellant drive the 

tractor through his yard, toward the street. When appellant saw 

Bukva, he put the tractor out of gear, jumped off the tractor, 

and ran. The officer could not see where appellant ran. When 

Bukva and another officer knocked on the door to appellant's 

house, no one answered. Bukva testified that appellant drove the 

tractor 300 to 400 yards. 

 Bukva testified that the area where appellant drove the 

tractor is residential, containing single and multi-family 

dwellings. Bukva testified that the area contains no farms, and 

he did not see even a garden at appellant's residence. 

 The Commonwealth introduced records which established that 

appellant had been adjudicated an habitual offender and 

previously had been convicted of driving after having been so 

adjudicated. Dean Reynolds testified on behalf of appellant that 

appellant had mowed Reynolds' lawn the day before and had 

returned on August 29 to retrieve the lawn mower. 

 At appellant's bench trial, the trial judge found that 

appellant drove a tractor on the public highway, that he had been 

adjudicated an habitual offender, and that he previously had been 

convicted for violating that order of adjudication. The judge 

also found that appellant was not moving the tractor from one 

tract of land used for agricultural purposes to another tract of 
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land used for agricultural purposes. He noted, "According to the 

Statute, it is not the nature of the activity at the time but the 

nature of the use of the land at the time. What the land is 

commonly used for." The judge refused to apply the statutory 

exemption. 

 II. 

 Code § 46.2-357 provides that it is unlawful for one who has 

been adjudicated an habitual offender to drive a motor vehicle or 

self-propelled machinery or equipment on the highways during the 

pendency of the revocation of his driving privilege. The statute 

also provides the following exemption: 

 However, the revocation determination shall 

not prohibit the person from operating any 

farm tractor on the highways when it is 

necessary to move the tractor from one tract 

of land used for agricultural purposes to 

another tract of land used for agricultural 

purposes, provided that the distance between 

the said tracts of land is no more than five 

miles. 

 The parties do not dispute that appellant was operating a 

"farm tractor," within the meaning of the statute.1

 Nor do they 

contest that appellant operated the vehicle for less than five 

miles. Rather, the sole issue before this Court is whether 

appellant was moving the tractor from "one tract of land used for 

agricultural purposes to another tract of land used for 

agricultural purposes." 

 1Code § 46.2-100 defines "farm tractor" as "every motor 

vehicle designed and used as a farm, agricultural, or 

horticultural implement for drawing plows, mowing machines, and 

other farm, agricultural, or horticultural machinery and 

implements including self-propelled mowers designed and used for 

mowing lawns." 
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 In Newton v. Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 86, 462 S.E.2d 117 

(1995), we held: 

 Principles of statutory construction mandate 

that we "give effect to the legislative 

intent." While penal statutes must be 

strictly construed against the Commonwealth, 

"[t]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning 

of a statute is always preferred to any 

curious, narrow or strained construction; a 

statute should never be construed so that it 

leads to absurd results." 

Id. at 89, 462 S.E.2d at 119 (citations omitted). Accord Seke v. 

Commonwealth, 24 Va. App. 318, 322, 482 S.E.2d 88, 90 (1997). 

While the legislature did not define the term "agricultural 

purposes" in Title 46.2, we may look to other provisions of the 

Code for assistance in defining the term. See Branch v. 

Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 836, 839, 419 S.E.2d 422, 425 (1992) 

("[b]ecause the Code of Virginia is one body of law, other Code 

sections using the same phraseology may be consulted in 

determining the meaning of a statute"). 

 Code § 13.1-313, concerning Agricultural Cooperative 

Associations, defines "agricultural products" as "livestock and 

livestock products, dairy products, poultry and poultry products, 

seeds, nuts, ground stock, horticultural, floricultural, 

viticultural, forestry, bee and any and all kinds of farm 

products." Code § 18.2-121.2, which is entitled, "Trespass by 

spotlight on agricultural land," prohibits the willful use of a 
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spotlight or similar apparatus to "cast a light upon private 

property used for livestock or crops." Moreover, according to 

Black's Law Dictionary 68 (6th ed. 1990), "agricultural" pertains 

to land where farming is the "leading pursuit." 

 III. 

 The evidence in this case established that appellant drove 

the tractor in a residential area of the Town of Front Royal. 

Sergeant Bukva described the area as consisting of single and 

multi-family dwellings. He stated that there were no farms in 

the area. The trial judge rejected appellant's argument that his 

operation of the tractor