COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Bray, Frank and Senior Judge Hodges 

Argued at Chesapeake, Virginia 

LEMAR JAMIE ANDERSON 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 0235-99-1 JUDGE ROBERT P. FRANK 

 JULY 25, 2000 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH 

H. Thomas Padrick, Jr., Judge 

 Cal T. Bain, Senior Assistant Public Defender 

(Office of the Public Defender, on brief), 

for appellant. 

 (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General; Michael T. 

Judge, Assistant Attorney General, on brief), 

for appellee. Appellee submitting on brief. 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code 

§ 17-116.010, this opinion is not designated for publication.

Lemar Jamie Anderson (appellant) appeals his conviction for 

the unlawful wounding of Ashanti Brown. On appeal, he contends 

the trial court erred in denying his motion to strike the 

Commonwealth's evidence. We agree and reverse appellant's 

conviction. 

I. BACKGROUND 

 On November 28, 1997, Mishelene Minott and Nathaniel Brown, 

Jr., lived with their daughter, Ashanti Brown, at 5502 Gates 

Landing Road in Virginia Beach. Minott was in an upstairs 

bedroom with Ashanti when she heard voices downstairs. Then, 
she saw a man standing in the bedroom doorway with a gun in his 

hand. He asked where the safe was, and she told him. He 

removed several bundles of money from the safe in the bedroom 

and told her to go downstairs. She went downstairs, taking 

Ashanti with her. 

 At the bottom of the stairs, she saw appellant standing by 

the front door. He did not have a weapon. Brown was lying on 

the floor. Minott also was forced to lie down on the floor. 

She placed Ashanti next to her. Then, Minott and Brown were 

tied up with tape. 

 Shortly, Minott's brother, Ricardo, arrived and also was 

forced to lie on the floor. Bags were placed over their heads. 

Minott was shot in the arm. When she heard the front door open 

and close, she removed the bag and ran to seek help. 

 After summoning help, Minott returned to find Ashanti. 

Ashanti had scratches on her forehead, scalp, and toes and a 

scratch on her thigh. At the hospital, a doctor cleaned glass 

from her hair and toes. A videotape of the crime scene showed 

glass on the floor that came from a table that was damaged 

during the incident. Minott testified that Ashanti did not have 

the scratches before the incident. 

 Appellant moved to strike the malicious wounding charge at 

the close of the Commonwealth's case, renewed the motion at the 

conclusion of his evidence, and moved to set aside the verdict 

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as contrary to the law and evidence after the jury found him 

guilty of unlawful wounding, a lesser-included offense. 

II. PROCEDURAL DEFAULT 

 The Commonwealth argues that appellant did not properly 

preserve the appeal of his conviction for unlawful wounding 

because his petition for appeal references his motion to strike 

the malicious wounding charge. The Commonwealth also argues 

that appellant did not raise specific objections once the jury 

convicted him of unlawful wounding. 

 We hold that appellant did not procedurally default this 

issue. When he made his motion to strike at the conclusion of 

the Commonwealth's evidence, his argument was a causation 

argument. In essence, he argued there was no evidence to prove 

that a gunshot broke the table. Instead, he argued, Ashanti 

could have received her injuries by crawling or rolling on the 

broken glass. He renewed his motion at the conclusion of his 

evidence and after the jury's verdict with his motion to set 

aside the verdict. 

 We believe appellant's causation argument preserves the 

appeal of his conviction for unlawful wounding. 

III. ANALYSIS 

 Appellant contends the trial court erred in denying his 

motion to strike the evidence on the charge of malicious 

wounding. We agree and reverse the conviction. 

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 "When considering the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal 

in a criminal case, we view the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable 

inferences fairly deducible therefrom." Conrad v. Commonwealth, 

29 Va. App. 661, 667, 514 S.E.2d 364, 366-67 (1999) (citing 

Higginbotham v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. 349, 352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 

537 (1975)). Circumstantial evidence "'is as competent and is 

entitled to as much weight as direct evidence, provided it is 

sufficiently convincing to exclude every reasonable hypothesis 

except that of guilt.'" Crawley v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 

372, 375, 512 S.E.2d 169, 171 (1999) (quoting Coleman v.

Commonwealth, 226 Va. 31, 53, 307 S.E.2d 864, 876 (1983)). 

 To prove unlawful wounding, the Commonwealth must show: 1) 

the defendant shot, stabbed, cut, or wounded the victim or by 

any means caused the victim bodily injury; 2) the defendant 

acted with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill; and 

3) the defendant's action was unlawful. See Code § 18.2-51. 

 Appellant argues there was no evidence to establish that he 

wounded Ashanti Brown, what caused the glass to be on the floor, 

or the cause of the injuries to Ashanti. 

 We agree. The Commonwealth's evidence was purely 

circumstantial. In order to convict appellant, the Commonwealth 

was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant 

or one of his cohorts: 1) broke the table, 2) intending to 

cause injury, and 3) did so unlawfully. There was no evidence, 

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even by inference, that appellant or the other men broke the 

glass table, that the glass caused Ashanti's injuries, or that 

they intended to injure someone by breaking the table. The 

table could have been inadvertently broken in a scuffle, and 

Ashanti's injuries could have been received in some other 

manner. We hold that every reasonable hypothesis of guilt was 

not excluded by the Commonwealth's evidence. For these reasons, 

we reverse and dismiss the conviction for unlawful wounding. 

Reversed and dismissed.

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