COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Beales, Russell and Senior Judge Haley 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

JOQUAN WAYNE HAWKINS 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 0908-14-2 JUDGE JAMES W. HALEY, JR. 

 APRIL 21, 2015 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF CHARLES CITY COUNTY 

Thomas B. Hoover, Judge 

 David B. Hargett for appellant. 

 Eugene Murphy, Senior Assistant Attorney General (Mark R. 

Herring, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee. 

 In a jury trial, Joquan Wayne Hawkins, appellant, was convicted of aggravated malicious 

wounding.1

 On appeal, he argues “[t]he trial court erred in failing to grant the motion to strike the 

aggravated portion of the charge of aggravated malicious wounding because the only qualifying 

injury which was severe and permanent and significant physical impairment was the scar that was 

caused by the surgery rather than the shooting.” Finding no error, we affirm the conviction. 

Facts 

 This Court considers “the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth, the prevailing party below.” Bolden v. Commonwealth, 275 Va. 144, 148, 654 

S.E.2d 584, 586 (2008). 

 1

 Appellant was also convicted of two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a 

felony, malicious wounding, and three counts of shooting into an occupied vehicle. However, he 

challenges only the aggravated malicious wounding conviction on appeal. 

PUBLISHED 
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 Appellant shot the victim in the abdomen with a .45 caliber Glock pistol. The bullet caused 

a “through and through” wound, entering and exiting the victim’s abdomen. As a result of the 

shooting, the victim had surgery in his abdominal area, and he was hospitalized for two weeks. 

 At trial, the victim showed the two bullet holes to the jury. The record indicates he pointed 

to a wound located above his right hip and a wound located on the lower left quadrant of his 

abdomen. In addition, the victim exhibited the surgical scar to the jury. The trial court described 

the scar as follows. 

 The scar is a thick scar. This is not a hairline scar, this is a 

thick scar, half-inch wide. Midline surgical incision goes below 

his sternum, down to his navel. It curves around his navel and then 

goes a couple of inches, two, three inches down below his navel 

. . . . 

 The trial court also stated the scar was “very clear and obvious” eleven months after the 

injury, and the “points” where the staples or sutures entered the victim’s skin were still visible at 

the time of trial. 

 The Commonwealth presented no medical evidence. On cross-examination, the victim 

agreed that after the shooting, he is able to do all the physical activities he could perform prior to 

the shooting. When asked by the trial court if he had any “disabilities from the shooting,” 

appellant replied, “No, Sir, I mean I have . . . sometimes, every now and then, stomach pain as 

far as that.” 

 At the conclusion of the evidence, appellant made a motion to strike the aggravated 

portion of the charge. Appellant asserted that the bullet he fired did not cause the large scar, 

rather the surgery caused the scar. Appellant concluded he could not be held responsible for 

causing the surgical scar, the injury that the Commonwealth relied upon as proof that appellant 

committed aggravated malicious wounding. 
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 The trial court denied the motion to strike, ruling: 

 When you get a gunshot wound that goes from one side of 

your pelvis to the other side of the pelvis, it’s going to cause some 

kind of injury and the surgery has to be done. [The] surgical 

incision was obviously directly related to that and that significant 

surgical scar is sufficient for the Commonwealth to proceed on the 

charge of aggravated malicious wounding. 

Analysis 

 In ruling on a defendant’s motion to strike the Commonwealth’s evidence, a trial court 

must view that evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth. Cirios v. 

Commonwealth, 7 Va. App. 292, 298, 373 S.E.2d 164, 167 (1988). A motion to strike tests the 

legal sufficiency of the evidence. See Rule 3A:15. 

 Code § 18.2-51.2(A), the statute defining aggravated malicious wounding, provides in 

pertinent part: “If any person maliciously shoots . . . any other person . . . with the intent to 

maim, disfigure, disable or kill, he shall be guilty of a Class 2 felony if the victim is thereby 

severely injured and is caused to suffer permanent and significant physical impairment.” 

 Appellant does not deny that he fired the bullet that entered and exited the victim’s 

abdomen. Appellant does not deny that the surgical scar is a permanent and significant physical 

impairment pursuant to Code § 18.2-51.2. Appellant’s Brief at 3. See also Newton v. 

Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 86, 90, 462 S.E.2d 117, 119 (1995) (scars caused by defendant 

cutting victim with a box cutter visible after five months constituted “permanent and significant 

physical impairment”). Rather, appellant maintains that the scar is attributable to the surgery and 

not to his shooting the victim. Appellant asserts that a fair reading of Code § 18.2-51.2 “shows 

that the statute criminalizes acts which are attributable to” appellant, and appellant did not 

“directly” cause the surgical scar. 
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 When analyzing the offense of aggravated malicious wounding, it has been stated: 

 The impairment must be caused by the defendant. 

Presumably, as in homicide, there is both a cause-in-fact and 

proximate causation issue. The latter is obviously the more 

difficult. The rules applicable in homicide cases are probably 

transferrable so that if the defendant had the appropriate mental 

state and did the appropriate act, and the impairing outcome was 

foreseeable, he should be convicted. So if a victim with a 

preexisting weakness is maliciously shot by a defendant who 

intends to kill and the combination of weakness and injury 

produces impairment, the impairment is foreseeable and 

proximately caused by the defendant. 

Ronald J. Bacigal, Criminal Offenses and Defenses 56 (2014). 

 Therefore, in addressing appellant’s argument, we consider the principles of causation. 

Causation is circumscribed by reasonably foreseeable consequences of an act. The concept of 

proximate causation is “applicable in both civil and criminal cases.” Brown v. Commonwealth, 

278 Va. 523, 529, 685 S.E.2d 43, 46 (2009) (citing Robinson v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 45, 53, 

645 S.E.2d 470, 474 (2007)). “A proximate cause is ‘an act or omission that, in natural and 

continuous sequence unbroken by a superseding cause, produces a particular event and without 

which that event would not have occurred.’” Id. (quoting Williams v. Joynes, 278 Va. 57, 62, 

677 S.E.2d 261, 264 (2009)). “‘An intervening act which is reasonably foreseeable cannot be 

relied upon as breaking the chain of causal connection between an original act of negligence and 

subsequent injury.’” Gallimore v. Commonwealth, 246 Va. 441, 447, 436 S.E.2d 421, 425 

(1993) (quoting Delawder v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 55, 58, 196 S.E.2d 913, 915 (1973)). 

Furthermore, “an intervening event, even if a cause of the harm, does not operate to exempt a 

defendant from liability if the intervening event was put into operation by the defendant’s 

negligent acts.” Id. 

 “‘Generally, negligence (whether ordinary, gross, or willful and wanton), contributory 

negligence, and proximate cause are issues for a jury’s resolution. They only become questions 
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of law to be determined by a court, when reasonable minds could not differ.’” Forbes v. 

Commonwealth, 27 Va. App. 304, 309, 498 S.E.2d 457, 459 (1998) (quoting Tubman v. 

Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 267, 273-74, 348 S.E.2d 871, 875 (1986)). 

 Applying these principles to appellant’s case, we cannot say the trial court erred by 

denying appellant’s motion to strike the aggravated malicious wounding charge. Appellant shot 

the victim in the abdomen with a .45 caliber Glock pistol. But for appellant shooting the victim, 

the victim would not have had abdominal surgery resulting in the large scar, a permanent and 

significant physical impairment. In addition, the surgery did not relieve appellant from liability 

or break the chain of the causal connection between the shooting and the scar because the 

surgery was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the shooting. 

 As the Supreme Court has stated in the context of a murder conviction: 

 When a defendant has inflicted wounds upon a victim that 

result in an affliction or a disease, the defendant is criminally 

responsible for the victim’s death from that affliction or disease if 

the wounds caused the death indirectly through a chain of natural 

effects and causes. An intervening event, even if a cause of death, 

does not exempt the defendant from liability if that event was put 

into operation by the defendant’s initial criminal acts. 

Commonwealth v. Jenkins, 255 Va. 516, 521, 499 S.E.2d 263, 265-66 (1998) (citations omitted). 

 In Jenkins, the defendant shot the victim and the victim received medical treatment in the 

hospital. Four days later, the victim died while still in the hospital. The medical examiner 

testified the victim “‘died as a result of [the] aspiration following the gunshot wound to the 

abdomen.’” Id. at 518, 499 S.E.2d at 264. Other evidence indicated “many factors” contributed 

to the victim’s death “but all were” the result of the gunshot wound. Id. at 521, 499 S.E.2d at 

266. The Court found the evidence was sufficient to prove “the required causal connection 

between Jenkins’ acts and the victim’s death.” Id. 
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 We also find the analysis in Brown is instructive here. In Brown, the defendant was 

convicted of involuntary manslaughter where, during a high-speed chase of Brown, a police 

officer’s vehicle struck another vehicle, killing that driver, the victim. Brown argued his actions 

did not directly cause the death of the victim, but rather the victim died “solely because” the 

officer conducted a high-speed chase into a populated area. Brown, 278 Va. at 527, 685 S.E.2d 

at 45. The Court found the high-speed chase was “a direct result of Brown’s reckless driving” 

and his decision to flee. Id. at 530, 685 S.E.2d at 47. Furthermore, the Court found Brown’s 

actions “‘put into operation’” the high-speed chase, thus, Brown was responsible for the victim’s 

death and Brown’s conduct “was a cause without which [the victim]’s death would not have 

occurred.” Id. (citation omitted). 

 Similarly, here, appellant’s shooting of the victim “put into operation” the victim’s need 

for surgery, and appellant’s conduct was a cause “without which” the victim’s surgery and 

resulting surgical scar would not have occurred. 

 We find additional support for our conclusion in State v. Anderson, 370 N.W.2d 703 

(Minn. Ct. App. 1985), in which the court found the defendant responsible for causing a surgical 

scar where the defendant’s actions caused the need for the surgery. In Anderson, the defendant 

was convicted of assault in the first degree, which was defined as assaulting another and 

inflicting great bodily harm. Id. at 705. “Great bodily harm” was defined, in part, as: “Bodily 

injury which . . . causes serious permanent disfigurement . . . .” Id. (quoting Minn. Stat. 

§ 609.02, subd. 8 (1982)). 

 In Anderson, the evidence showed the defendant kicked and “stamped on” the victim’s 

stomach area, resulting in a lacerated liver. Surgical repair of that internal laceration created a 

scar. Id. Despite the fact that the defendant did not inflict the surgical incision that created the 
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scar, the court held the evidence was sufficient for the jury to find the surgical scar constituted 

“serious and permanent disfigurement.” Id. at 706. 

 We conclude the trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion to strike the 

evidence because the Commonwealth presented a prima facie case for consideration by the fact 

finder. Accordingly, we affirm appellant’s conviction. 

 Affirmed.