COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Willis and Bumgardner 

Argued at Salem, Virginia 

JOHN RANDOLPH HAIRSTON 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 2896-97-3 JUDGE RUDOLPH BUMGARDNER, III 

 JANUARY 12, 1999 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF MARTINSVILLE 

Charles M. Stone, Judge 

 Elwood Earl Sanders, Jr. (S. Jane Chittom; 

Public Defender Commission, on briefs), for 

appellant. 

 Donald E. Jeffrey, III, Assistant Attorney 

General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 John Randolph Hairston appeals his conviction of robbery. 

He argues that the pretrial and in-court identifications of him 

were insufficient to support his conviction. Finding no error, 

we affirm the conviction. 

 The defendant neither challenged the admissibility of the 

evidence nor claimed it violated his rights to due process 

because it was not reliable. The issue is whether the evidence 

was sufficient to identify the defendant as one of the two men 

who robbed the victim. When reviewing the sufficiency of the 

evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable inferences fairly 

deducible from the evidence. See Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code § 17-116.010, 

this opinion is not designated for publication. 
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App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). 

 Viewed by that standard, two men robbed the 

eighty-one-year-old victim while he was walking down an alley. 

The robbers approached from behind, cornered the victim, sprayed 

pepper in his eyes, and took his billfold. The victim yelled and 

attempted to chase them though he had dropped his glasses and 

cane. Walter Webster heard the yelling as he was driving down 

the street. He got a good look at the man who was running away. 

 The victim told Webster that the man running away had robbed 

him. Webster went down the street and saw the defendant, who was 

the man he had seen run away, meet another man and then take off 

together. 

 Webster went to the police station and reported the robbery. 

 He described the robbers as two black males, one light skinned, 

the other dark. The codefendant was wearing a dark green or 

brown jacket, and the taller defendant wore orange. Officer 

Gilbert drove Webster around for thirty to forty minutes when 

Webster said, "Those are the two men I saw" and identified the 

defendant and the codefendant. Officer Gilbert arrested the two 

and found a canister of pepper spray in the defendant's front 

pocket. 

 David Joyce, an attorney, heard a noise outside his office 

and went outside to investigate. He noticed a grocery bag, hat, 

and cane in the alley, saw two black males walking away, and then 

saw the victim. Joyce recognized the victim, helped him retrieve 
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his things, and accompanied him to the police station. When 

leaving the station, Joyce observed two black males with Officer 

Gilbert. He returned to the station and reported that the two 

were wearing the same clothing as the men he had seen earlier. 

 While at the police station, the victim heard a radio 

transmission that they had arrested two suspects. An officer 

told him that "one of the officers just found some people he 

thinks did this." That officer took the victim to identify the 

suspect. While sitting in the police car, the officer said 

either, "We have the suspects in custody. Can you identify 

them?" or "Are these the ones?" The police had handcuffed the 

suspects and brought them to the cruiser one at a time. One 

officer asked the victim, "Was this one of the people who took 

your wallet?" He identified the defendant as the one "who 

sprayed . . . that stuff in my eyes" and the codefendant as the 

one who took his wallet. At trial, the victim identified the 

defendant by name and the codefendant as the one who stole his 

billfold. 

 The defendant moved to strike the Commonwealth's evidence on 

the ground that the identifications were flawed because neither 

the victim nor Webster got a good look at the robbers and seeing 

the defendant in police custody tainted their identifications. 

The defendant argues that the victim's identification was weak 

because his opportunity to view the perpetrators during the 

robbery was fleeting, and he could not describe the defendants' 
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clothing. The defendant noted that the victim was an aging man 

with poor eyesight. The defendant claims that Webster's 

identification had similar defects. Webster did not see the 

crime, briefly saw the men from the back, and only observed two 

men running and one trying to give the other a bag. 

 The defendant's arguments suggest how the trier of fact 

should evaluate the evidence, but they suggest no reason the 

evidence is unbelievable as a matter of law. The defendant has 

shown no reversible error caused by the officers' comments to the 

victim. See Hill v. Commonwealth, 2 Va. App. 683, 704, 347 

S.E.2d 913, 925 (1986) (fact that officer wants witness to view a 

suspect carries with it the "necessarily unavoidable" implication 

that the officer believes he is guilty). Pretrial show-ups are 

not per se violations of constitutional rights. See Yarborough 

v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 638, 643, 426 S.E.2d 131, 134 

(1993), rev'd on other grounds, 247 Va. 215, 441 S.E.2d 342 

(1994). This show-up was to decide whether the suspects were the 

robbers. A show-up may be the quickest and easiest way to 

confirm or dispel an officer's belief that suspects are the 

perpetrators. Cf. United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 685-86 

(1985) (appropriate to assess length of detention by whether the 

police "diligently pursued" their investigation). Viewing a 

suspect in handcuffs is not impermissibly suggestive. See Thomas 

v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 851, 859, 434 S.E.2d 319, 324 

(1993), aff'd en banc, 18 Va. App. 454, 444 S.E.2d 275 (1994). 
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 We find that police conduct did not taint Webster's 

identification. Webster identified the suspects to the police, 

so no improper suggestion occurred. He testified that he got a 

good look, he observed the defendants after hearing the cry for 

help, and he identified the defendants within thirty to forty 

minutes of when he first saw them fleeing from the scene. 

"[U]nequivocal evidence of identification immediately following 

the offense may provide sufficient corroboration to overcome 

difficulties arising from in-court identifications . . . ." 

Smallwood v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 527, 532, 418 S.E.2d 567, 

570 (1992) (citation omitted). 

 Joyce observed the defendants in police custody and said 

they were dressed the same as the men he observed walking quickly 

away from the victim after the incident. When eyewitness 

identification is an issue, the defendant's proximity to the 

robbery scene is probative of guilt. See Manson v. Brathwaite, 

432 U.S. 98, 116 (1977). The trial court did not accept the 

explanation of defendant's possession of the pepper spray. That 

is further evidence of guilt because a trier of fact is entitled 

to infer from a false explanation that the defendant is lying to 

conceal his guilt. See Speight v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 83, 

88, 354 S.E.2d 95, 98 (1987) (en banc). 

 The court noted that the victim "was pretty concrete about 

[what happened] and [it] was pretty impressed by his testimony 

. . . [which was] pretty well corroborated by the rest of the 
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Commonwealth's case." Similarly, Webster got a "good look" at 

the defendant running, promptly reported his identification to 

Officer Gilbert, and was unequivocal when he identified the 

assailants from the cruiser. 

 The fact finder considered and rejected the defendant's 

arguments of how it should evaluate the evidence, what weight it 

should give to the testimony, and what inferences it should draw 

from it. See Cook v. Commonwealth, 226 Va. 427, 432, 309 S.E.2d 

325, 329 (1983). Viewed in the light most favorable to the 

Commonwealth and discarding the evidence of the accused in 

conflict with the Commonwealth, see Cirios v. Commonwealth, 7 Va. 

App. 292, 295, 373 S.E.2d 164, 165 (1988), we find evidence 

sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of robbery. 

 Affirmed.