COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Willis, Elder and Annunziata 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER JAMES HUBBARD 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 2345-00-2 JUDGE LARRY G. ELDER 

 NOVEMBER 6, 2001 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF MECKLENBURG COUNTY 

Leslie M. Osborn, Judge 

 Jennifer LeLacheur Jones, Assistant Public 

Defender (Office of the Public Defender, on 

brief), for appellant. 

 Robert H. Anderson, III, Assistant Attorney 

General (Randolph A. Beales, Acting Attorney 

General, on brief), for appellee. 

 Christopher James Hubbard (appellant) appeals from his 

bench trial conviction for perjury in violation of Code 

§ 18.2-434. We hold that the evidence proved his statement was 

willful and was sufficiently corroborated and that the trial 

court did not impermissibly shift the burden of proof to 

appellant. Therefore, we affirm appellant's conviction. 

 When considering the sufficiency of the evidence on appeal, 

we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth. See Higginbotham v. Commonwealth, 216 Va. 349, 

352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 537 (1975). "Circumstantial evidence is as 

 

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

designated for publication.
competent and is entitled to as much weight as direct evidence, 

provided it is sufficiently convincing to exclude" all 

reasonable hypotheses of innocence. Coleman v. Commonwealth, 

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

To establish willful falsity,1 see Mendez v. Commonwealth, 

220 Va. 97, 102, 255 S.E.2d 533, 535 (1979), the Commonwealth 

must prove not only "that the statements made under oath by the 

defendant were false," Holz v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 876, 880, 

263 S.E.2d 426, 428 (1980), but also that the defendant knew the 

statements were false, see id., or that he should have known 

they were false, Snead v. Commonwealth, 11 Va. App. 643, 646, 

400 S.E.2d 806, 807 (1991) (stating that willful 

"characterize[s] a thing done without ground for believing it is 

lawful"). 

 Here, the only reasonable hypothesis flowing from the 

circumstantial evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to 

the Commonwealth, is that when appellant testified under oath in 

general district court, he knew his Integon insurance policy had 

not been in effect at the time of his auto accident. Appellant 

made a down payment on the Integon policy on June 11, 1999, and 

agreed simultaneously to a payment schedule which required him 

to make monthly payments thereafter, but appellant failed to 

 1

 On appeal, appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of 

the evidence to prove that his statement was made under oath or 

that it was material to a proper matter of inquiry. 

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make the July payment or any subsequent payments. As a result, 

Integon cancelled his policy on July 16, 1999, and notified him 

of the cancellation by letter sent to the address he provided 

when he had obtained the policy only five weeks earlier. 

 Even assuming appellant did not receive notice of the 

cancellation of his policy, he could not reasonably have 

believed when he testified in general district court that his 

insurance policy with Integon remained valid when the accident 

occurred on September 7, 1999, after he already had failed to 

make two of the monthly premium payments to which he had agreed. 

Appellant's statement on September 7, 1999 that he was insured 

by Geico rather than Integon further supports the conclusion 

that appellant knew his policy with Integon was no longer valid 

on that date. The evidence also established that appellant 

never reported the accident to Integon or its agents. Thus, 

when appellant testified in general district court that he was 

insured by Integon on September 7, 1999, he did so "without 

ground for believing [his testimony was] lawful." Snead, 11 Va. 

App. at 646, 400 S.E.2d at 807. 

When a perjury conviction is supported by the testimony of 

only one witness, the testimony must be corroborated. Stewart 

v. Commonwealth, 22 Va. App. 117, 120, 468 S.E.2d 126, 127 

(1996). However, the corroborating evidence "need not be equal 

in weight to the testimony of a second witness," id., as long as 

the evidence confirms the single witness' testimony in a manner 

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strong enough "'to turn the scale and overcome the oath of the 

[defendant] and the legal presumption of his innocence,'" Keffer 

v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 545, 548, 404 S.E.2d 745, 746-47 

(1991) (quoting Schwartz v. Commonwealth, 68 Va. (27 Gratt.) 

1025, 1027 (1876)). 

 Here, the testimony of Insurance Agent William Wells 

regarding the status of appellant's insurance coverage with 

Integon as of September 7, 1999 was sufficiently corroborated by 

both Integon's notification letter to appellant that his policy 

had been cancelled for nonpayment, see Holz, 220 Va. at 882, 263 

S.E.2d at 429, and appellant's conflicting statements regarding 

the identity of his insurance carrier at the time of the 

September 7, 1999 accident, see Stewart, 22 Va. App. at 121-22, 

468 S.E.2d at 128. Wells testified that when appellant obtained 

the policy through Wells' agency, appellant agreed to make 

monthly premium payments but failed to make even the first 

payment, which resulted in Integon's canceling his coverage on 

July 16, 1999. Finally, appellant's statement on September 7, 

1999 that he was insured by Geico further corroborated Wells' 

testimony that appellant's Integon policy was not in effect on 

that date and that appellant was aware of this fact. 

 Lastly, we reject appellant's contention that the trial 

court drew an improper inference from his failure to testify 

and, in effect, shifted the burden to him to prove his false 

statement was not willful because he was unaware that the 

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Integon policy had been cancelled. The trial court is presumed 

to know the law and to apply it properly. Yarborough v. 

Commonwealth, 217 Va. 971, 978, 234 S.E.2d 286, 291 (1977). 

Once the Commonwealth presents a prima facie case of guilt, the 

burden of production shifts to the accused to rebut that prima

facie case. See, e.g., Overstreet v. Commonwealth, 193 Va. 104, 

110-11, 67 S.E.2d 875, 879 (1951). Although generally "'the 

state must prove all the essential facts entering into the 

description of the offense[,] . . . when a negation of a fact 

lies peculiarly within the knowledge of the defendant[,] it is 

incumbent on him to establish that fact.'" Mayhew v. 

Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 484, 490, 458 S.E.2d 305, 308 (1995) 

(quoting State v. Williamson, 206 N.W.2d 613, 618 (Wis. 1973)). 

 Here, the trial court expressly acknowledged that "the 

Commonwealth bears the burden" of proving appellant's false 

testimony was willful. In commenting on appellant's failure to 

testify, the trial court merely emphasized the fact that 

appellant failed to offer any evidence to rebut the 

Commonwealth's prima facie case on that element of the offense. 

Had appellant testified that he was confused about his duty to 

pay monthly premiums or that he did not understand any 

cancellation notice he may have received, such testimony would 

have provided the trial court with a basis for concluding that 

appellant's false testimony was accidental rather than willful. 

However, in the absence of such testimony, the trial court, as 

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the finder of fact, was entitled to conclude the only hypothesis 

flowing from the circumstantial evidence was that appellant was 

aware of his duty to pay monthly premiums, understood his 

failure to pay those premiums would void or nullify his policy, 

and knew at least by the time he testified under oath in general 

district court that his Integon policy was not in effect at the 

time of the accident. 

 For these reasons, we affirm appellant's perjury 

conviction. 

Affirmed.

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