COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judges Elder and Clements 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

MARCUS ANTONIO CAMPBELL 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 1485-00-2 CHIEF JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK 

 OCTOBER 2, 2001 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 

Thomas N. Nance, Judge 

 Carol A.N. Breit for appellant. 

 Susan M. Harris, Assistant Attorney General 

(Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief), 

for appellee. 

 Marcus Antonio Campbell (appellant) appeals his conviction 

of possession of cocaine.1 He contends the trial court erred 

when it admitted the lab report into evidence and the evidence 

was insufficient to prove he possessed the cocaine. For the 

following reasons, we affirm appellant's conviction. 

I. BACKGROUND 

 Under familiar principles of appellate review, we examine 

the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 

the prevailing party below, granting to that evidence all 

 

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

designated for publication.

1

 Appellant was also convicted of obstruction of justice, 

attempting to elude the police, and disregarding a stop sign, 

but those convictions are not before the Court. 
reasonable inferences fairly deducible therefrom. See Juares v. 

Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 154, 156, 493 S.E.2d 677, 678 (1997). 

The trial court's judgment will not be set aside unless plainly 

wrong or without evidence to support it. Hunley v. 

Commonwealth, 30 Va. App. 556, 559, 518 S.E.2d 347, 349 (1999). 

 In the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the 

evidence established that Officer Jack Hurley observed appellant 

fail to stop his vehicle at a clearly posted stop sign. Hurley 

activated his lights and signaled appellant to pull over. 

Appellant fled, and Hurley pursued appellant for a period of 

eight to ten minutes. During this time, appellant drove 

erratically. He disregarded traffic control signs and went the 

wrong way on one-way streets. Appellant lost control of his 

vehicle, crashed into a fence and fled on foot. Hurley ran 

after appellant and saw him toss two objects to the ground that 

landed between two parked vehicles, fifteen to twenty feet away 

from the crash site. Hurley was approximately thirteen to 

fifteen feet behind appellant at the time he threw the items to 

the ground. After a chase of another block and a half, Hurley 

caught appellant. He returned to the crash site with appellant 

in custody and found two motorcycle officers standing in the 

place where the objects were discarded. He saw the two items 

between the two parked vehicles he had observed during the 

chase. There were no other objects and no other people in the 

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area except for the police officers. He retrieved the items and 

took them into his possession. 

 Appellant, a convicted felon, denied he dropped or threw 

anything between the vehicles. He stated he ran because he 

believed he was an habitual offender. 

 At the close of the Commonwealth's case, appellant made a 

motion to strike and argued that the lab report had not been 

admitted into evidence and that the evidence was insufficient to 

show he had possession of the cocaine. Appellant's motion was 

denied. 

II. ADMISSION OF THE ITEMS AND LAB CERTIFICATE 

 "The admissibility of evidence is within the broad 

discretion of the trial court, and a ruling will not be 

disturbed on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion." 

Brown v. Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 552, 555, 466 S.E.2d 116, 117 

(1996). "'The purpose of the chain of custody rule is to 

establish that the evidence obtained by the police was the same 

evidence tested.'" Id. at 555, 466 S.E.2d at 117 (quoting 

Robertson v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 854, 857, 406 S.E.2d 417, 

419 (1991)). 

 Appellant contends that the Commonwealth failed to move to 

introduce the certificate of analysis into evidence and, 

therefore, there was no evidence that the items found on the 

street were cocaine. 

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 Officer Hurley testified that he saw appellant drop the 

items on the street. Hurley kept these items in his exclusive 

possession and control until he submitted them to the lab for 

testing. The certificate of analysis, the lab report finding 

that the items were cocaine, was properly filed with the trial 

court. Appellant objected to the Commonwealth's introduction of 

the lab report. The trial judge conditionally admitted the lab 

report at the time of the objection, "mark[ing] it for 

identification until you have an opportunity to voir dire," on 

the chain of custody. 

 Thereafter, appellant's counsel questioned Officer Hurley 

about where he retrieved the items, but did not ask any 

questions about the chain of custody of the drugs or about the 

lab report. Without these questions there was no evidence to 

consider contrary to admitting the lab report. As appellant's 

counsel did not voir dire as to these subjects, we cannot say 

that the trial court erred by admitting the certificate of 

analysis. 

III. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE 

 To support a conviction based on 

constructive possession, the Commonwealth 

must point to evidence of acts, statements 

or conduct of the accused or other facts and 

circumstances which tend to show the 

defendant was aware of both the presence and 

character of the substance and that it was 

subject to his dominion and control. Where 

the Commonwealth's case rests entirely upon 

circumstantial evidence, as in this case, 

the evidence not only must be consistent 

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with guilt, but it also must exclude every 

reasonable hypothesis of innocence. 

Staton v. Commonwealth, 36 Va. App. 282, 287, 549 S.E.2d 627, 

629 (2001) (citing Clodfelter v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 619, 

622-23, 238 S.E.2d 820, 822 (1977)). 

 In assessing witness credibility, the fact finder may 

accept the parts of a witness' testimony it finds believable and 

reject other parts as implausible. Moyer v. Commonweath, 33 Va. 

App. 8, 28, 531 S.E.2d 580, 590 (2000) (en banc). Similarly, 

"[d]etermining the credibility of witnesses who give conflicting 

accounts is within the exclusive province of the [fact finder], 

which has the unique opportunity to observe the demeanor of the 

witnesses as they testify." Lea v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 

300, 304, 429 S.E.2d 477, 479 (1993). 

 Here, the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to 

the Commonwealth, established that Hurley saw appellant toss 

items, the drugs, between two parked cars. Other officers were 

at the place when the items were recovered. This case is 

distinguishable from Gordon v. Commonwealth, 212 Va. 298, 183 

S.E.2d 735 (1971), because in the instant case there is no 

"fatal gap in the circumstantial evidence." Id. at 301, 183 

S.E.2d at 737. This was not an area "on which numerous persons 

were gathered," id., and Officer Hurley saw appellant drop the 

items between the two parked cars where the drugs were 

recovered. 

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 The trial court, as the finder of fact, was entitled to 

conclude that Hurley was testifying truthfully and to rely on 

his observations. 

 For these reasons, we affirm the trial court. 

 Affirmed. 

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