COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Elder, Bray and Fitzpatrick 

Argued at Salem, Virginia 

COURTNEY DARNELL BROADNAX 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 0225-96-3 JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK 

 JUNE 3, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY 

William N. Alexander, II, Judge 

 W. Clarke Whitfield, Jr. (Turner, Haskins & 

Whitfield, P.L.C., on brief), for appellant. 

 

 Michael T. Judge, Assistant Attorney General 

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

brief), for appellee. 

 On November 8, 1995, Courtney Darnell Broadnax (appellant), 

a juvenile, was tried as an adult and convicted in the Circuit 

Court of Pittsylvania County of malicious wounding, use of a 

firearm while committing robbery, and robbery. On appeal, he 

argues that the trial court erred in finding that the juvenile 

and domestic relations district court (juvenile court) had no 

jurisdiction to hear his petitions because he had been certified 

previously to stand trial as an adult. He contends that because 

he was not convicted on the earlier charge, Code § 16.1-271 did 

not divest the juvenile court of its responsibility to conduct a 

transfer hearing. For the reasons that follow, we find no error 

in the trial court's judgment, and we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

 In 1994, appellant was charged with an unrelated robbery. 
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At that time, he was certified by the juvenile court to stand 

trial as an adult pursuant to Code § 16.1-269.1, and the matter 

was transferred to the circuit court. At trial, appellant was 

acquitted of this 1994 robbery charge. 

 On the evening of March 28, 1995, an altercation occurred 

between appellant and Alphonso Wilkerson (Wilkerson). While at 

the home of a mutual friend, appellant approached Wilkerson and 

attempted to sell him drugs. When Wilkerson refused, appellant 

demanded Wilkerson's money and assaulted him. A fight ensued. 

During their struggle, appellant and Wilkerson ended up in the 

kitchen, in front of the refrigerator. Appellant shot Wilkerson 

in the leg at close range. The bullet passed through Wilkerson's 

leg and through the refrigerator door. When Wilkerson fell to 

the floor, appellant stood over him and demanded his money at 

gunpoint. Wilkerson handed appellant all of his money. At the 

time of this incident, appellant was sixteen years old. 

 As a result of this event, appellant was charged on July 10, 

1995, with robbery, malicious wounding, breaking and entering in 

the nighttime with intent to commit larceny while armed with a 

deadly weapon, and use of a firearm in the commission of a 

felony. These charges were brought initially by petition in the 

juvenile court. 

 On July 26, 1995, a transfer hearing was held in the 

juvenile court. At that time, the juvenile court found that it 

had no jurisdiction over appellant, because he had been 
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previously certified as an adult and transferred to the circuit 

court in 1994, on the unrelated robbery charge. Appellant 

appealed the juvenile court's finding of no jurisdiction to the 

circuit court, arguing that the juvenile court's interpretation 

of Code § 16.1-271 wrongly divested appellant of a transfer 

hearing. Appellant argued, in the alternative, that the first 

two paragraphs of Code § 16.1-271 are at odds with each other and 

should be strictly construed against the Commonwealth. 

 On August 22, 1995, the circuit court found that appellant 

was not entitled to a transfer hearing and stated: 

 [T]he first paragraph of the statute says 

unequivocally that the trial or treatment of 

a juvenile as an adult shall preclude the 

[j]uvenile [c]ourt from taking jurisdiction, 

and that statute was amended in 1994 to leave 

out the word, not, so I have to conclude that 

the [l]egislature meant exactly what it said. 

 Then the question is, is whether that 

paragraph is inconsistent with the second 

paragraph which it seems to be on the first 

reading, and the second paragraph, of course, 

provides that a juvenile who is tried and 

convicted in a [c]ircuit [c]ourt as an adult, 

then shall be considered and treated as an 

adult thereafter for all purposes . . . . 

* * * * * * * 

 . . . I [] conclude [] that the first 

paragraph was intentionally done. It has got 

to be read as consistent[ly] as possible. It 

is consistent with the second paragraph in 

that the first paragraph precludes the 

[j]uvenile [c]ourt from taking jurisdiction. 

 Then the second paragraph when read in that 

light would . . . be that after a juvenile 

has been convicted, has been transferred and 

convicted in the [c]ircuit [c]ourt, then any 

other proceedings which were then pending, 

regardless of whether they were antecedent or 

subsequent would then be transferred to the 
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[c]ircuit [c]ourt, and if you're going under 

the first paragraph then if the defendant had 

been transferred, then the [c]ourt loses 

jurisdiction of any subsequent offenses, but 

it does not lose jurisdiction of any other 

offenses that might have been occurring at 

the same time. So, my ruling will be is that 

the [c]ourt, the [j]uvenile [c]ourt did lose 

jurisdiction. It did not have jurisdiction 

to conduct a transfer hearing or a probable 

cause hearing, the probable cause hearing 

being part of the transfer hearing, and as a 

result now the [c]ourt had no jurisdiction to 

do anything in this case whatsoever. 

 Following the court's ruling, new warrants were issued in 

the general district court, which certified the charges to the 

grand jury. The grand jury indicted appellant on all four 

charges. At the bench trial in the circuit court on November 8, 

1995, the court struck the breaking and entering charge, 

convicted appellant of robbery, malicious wounding, and use of a 

firearm in the commission of a felony, and sentenced him to serve 

twenty-three years. 

II. JURISDICTION UNDER CODE § 16.1-271

 Appellant contends that the trial court erred in its 

interpretation of Code § 16.1-271 and therefore improperly denied 

appellant a transfer hearing. Appellant argues that under Code 

§ 16.1-271, before the juvenile court loses jurisdiction over a 

juvenile in a criminal proceeding, the juvenile must have been 

tried and convicted by the circuit court. We disagree. 

 Code § 16.1-271 provides as follows: 

 The trial or treatment of a juvenile as 

an adult pursuant to the provisions of this 

chapter shall preclude the juvenile court 

from taking jurisdiction of such juvenile for 
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subsequent offenses committed by that 

juvenile. 

 Any juvenile who is tried and convicted

in a circuit court as an adult under the 

provisions of this article shall be 

considered and treated as an adult in any 

criminal proceeding resulting from any 

alleged future criminal acts and any disposed 

of by the juvenile court at the time of the 

criminal conviction. 

 All procedures and dispositions 

applicable to adults charged with such a 

criminal offense shall apply in such cases, 

including, but not limited to, arrest; 

probable cause determination by a magistrate 

or grand jury; the use of a warrant, summons, 

or capias instead of a petition to initiate 

the case; adult bail; preliminary hearing and 

right to counsel provisions; trial in a court 

having jurisdiction over adults; and trial 

and sentencing as an adult. The provisions 

of this article regarding a transfer hearing 

shall not be applicable to such juveniles.

(Emphasis added.) Prior to July 1, 1994, the first paragraph of 

Code § 16.1-271 provided that "[t]he trial or treatment of a 

juvenile as an adult . . . shall not preclude the [juvenile] 

court from taking jurisdiction of such juvenile for subsequent 

offenses committed by that juvenile." (Emphasis added.)1

 

 We will "construe a statute to promote the end for which it 

was enacted, if such an interpretation can reasonably be made 

from the language used. Generally, the words and phrases used in 

a statute should be given their ordinary and usually accepted 

 

 1The Editor's Note following Code § 16.1-271 summarizes the 

amendment as follows: "The 1994 amendment . . . deleted 'not' 

preceding 'preclude' in the first paragraph, rewrote the second 

paragraph, and substituted 'this article' for '§ 16.1-269' in the 

second sentence of the third paragraph." 
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meaning unless a different intention is fairly manifest." 

Woolfolk v. Commonwealth, 18 Va. App. 840, 847, 447 S.E.2d 530, 

534 (1994) (citations omitted). "The plain, obvious, and 

rational meaning of a statute is always preferred to any curious, 

narrow or strained construction . . . ." Branch v. Commonwealth, 

14 Va. App. 836, 839, 419 S.E.2d 422, 424 (1992). 

 Additionally, we apply the following principle of statutory 

construction when an amendment to a statute is clear and 

unambiguous: 

 "'While in the construction of statutes 

the constant endeavor of the courts is to 

ascertain and give effect to the intention of 

the legislature, that intention must be 

gathered from the words used, unless a 

literal construction would involve a manifest 

absurdity. Where the legislature has used 

words of a plain and definite import the 

courts cannot put upon them a construction 

which amounts to holding the legislature did 

not mean what it has actually expressed.'" 

Weinberg v. Given, 252 Va. 221, 225-26, 476 S.E.2d 502, 504 

(1996) (quoting Barr v. Town & Country Properties, 240 Va. 292, 

295, 396 S.E.2d 672, 674 (1990)) (citations omitted). A 

presumption normally arises that the legislature intends a 

substantive change in the law when it adds a new provision to an 

existing statute by an amendatory act. See, e.g., Werres v. 

Commonwealth, 19 Va. App. 744, 746, 454 S.E.2d 36, 37 (1995). 

 Finally, we assume that the legislature's amendments to the 

law are purposeful and not unnecessary. See Cape Henry Towers, 

Inc. v. National Gypsum Co., 229 Va. 596, 600-01, 331 S.E.2d 476, 
 7 

479 (1985). We presume that the legislature acted with full 

knowledge of the law as it affected the subject matter. Id. It 

is our task to adopt a construction that gives import to the 

legislative purpose and the words used. 

 The intent and effect of the legislature's deletion of the 

word "not" in the first paragraph of Code § 16.1-271 by the 1994 

amendment could not be clearer. The language indicates, without 

question, that the legislature intended this amendment to divest 

the juvenile court of jurisdiction over a juvenile once the 

juvenile has been previously tried or treated as an adult under 

this chapter. Further, the language is mandatory: The juvenile 

court "shall" be precluded from exercising jurisdiction of any 

"such juvenile for subsequent offenses committed by that 

juvenile." See Code § 16.1-271 (emphasis added). These 

provisions are not ambiguous, and must be given their plain, 

obvious, and rational meaning. 

 Additionally, the three paragraphs of Code § 16.1-271 are 

not necessarily inconsistent. The first paragraph specifically 

applies to "subsequent offenses." The second paragraph concerns 

the effect of a juvenile's conviction in circuit court as an 

adult with respect to any charges pending in the juvenile court 

at the time of conviction, regardless of whether the pending 

charge was prior to or subsequent to the charge upon which the 

juvenile was transferred, tried, and convicted as an adult. 

Finally, the third paragraph was not substantially changed by the 
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1994 amendment, and addresses the particular procedures that 

apply to a juvenile charged as an adult under this chapter. 

 To adopt a different construction would render the statute 

strained, ambiguous, illogical, and in contravention of the 

legislature's clear intent when it deleted the word "not" from 

the first paragraph. Prior to 1994, the treatment of a juvenile 

as an adult specifically did not prohibit the juvenile court from 

exercising jurisdiction on subsequent charges. However, the 1994 

amendment intentionally altered that procedure and now precludes 

the juvenile court from exercising jurisdiction over a juvenile 

once the juvenile has been tried or treated as an adult on an 

earlier charge. 

 For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court 

is affirmed. 

 Affirmed.