COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Before: Judges Baker, Bray and Overton 

Argued at Norfolk, Virginia 

RONNIE LEE BANKS 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION*

v. Record No. 2219-96-1 BY JUDGE JOSEPH E. BAKER 

 SEPTEMBER 23, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NORFOLK 

Everett A. Martin, Jr., Judge 

 Kelly L. Daniels (Andrew A. Protogyrou; 

Knight, Dudley, Clarke & Dolph, P.L.C., on 

brief), for appellant. 

 Leah A. Darron, Assistant Attorney General 

(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General; 

 H. Elizabeth Shaffer, Assistant Attorney 

General; Monica S. McElyea, Assistant 

Attorney General, on brief), for appellee. 

 The sole issue presented by this appeal is whether there is 

sufficient evidence to support Ronnie Lee Banks' (appellant) jury 

trial conviction, approved by the Circuit Court of the City of 

Norfolk (trial court), for possession of heroin with intent to 

distribute in violation of Code § 18.2-248. Appellant does not 

contest the sufficiency of the evidence to prove he unlawfully 

possessed heroin. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment of 

the trial court. 

 Upon familiar principles, we view the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all inferences 

fairly deducible therefrom. See Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
 2 

 

App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987). Viewed accordingly, 

the record discloses that on December 14, 1995, Norfolk Police 

Officers D. B. Huffman and C. R. Amos were patrolling the Grandy 

Village section of Norfolk. They observed four men nearby, 

standing in a semi-circle, one of whom was appellant who was 

dressed entirely in brown clothing. As the officers neared the 

men, one of them looked toward the officers and spoke to the 

others standing with him. 

 Appellant immediately threw a box to the ground with his 

right hand and quickly walked away with another individual. As 

the officers exited their vehicle, appellant and his companion 

began to run and entered a residence at 2929 Kimball Terrace 

through the back door. Huffman recovered the box and discovered 

it contained heroin in eighteen individual glassine baggies. 

 Huffman and Amos then proceeded to the residence,1

 where 

Huffman identified appellant, who was dressed in brown, as the 

person who had thrown the box. Huffman and Amos apprehended 

appellant and placed him in custody on suspicion of possession 

with intent to distribute heroin. 

 John J. Monaghan, Jr., a vice and narcotics investigator for 

the Norfolk Police Department, testified that he had been a 

narcotics investigator for twenty-one years, had conducted 

investigations of both heroin users and sellers, and had made 

 1This was not appellant's residence. Appellant's residence 

was in Virginia Beach. 
 3 

arrests of between two hundred and three hundred heroin users and 

an equal number of heroin sellers. Without objection, he 

testified that, "[n]ormally, users would buy one or two packets 

to take back to their residence or to a shooting gallery, cook it 

up and inject it." He described a shooting gallery as a place 

where one could pay several dollars to the owner or the renter of 

the premises to "cook up [the] drugs" and inject them into one's 

arm. The total value of the heroin in this case was between $180 

and $200, each bag recovered being worth $10 to $12. The actual 

price usually depended upon the quality and the dealer. Monaghan 

also testified that, although he had seen users whose drug habits 

exceeded $100 to $200 a day, users do not buy such a quantity at 

one time for fear that, if caught, they will be charged with the 

greater offense of intent to distribute and will lose the supply 

necessary to their habit. 

 On his motion to strike the Commonwealth's evidence, counsel 

for appellant stipulated that the packaging of the heroin in 

eighteen baggies was inconsistent with personal use. Appellant 

provided no evidence that he was addicted to heroin or was a 

casual user. 

 "Intent necessarily must be proved by circumstances," and 

"[q]uantity, when greater than the supply ordinarily possessed by 

a narcotics user for his personal use, is a circumstance which, 

standing alone, may be sufficient to support a finding of intent 

to distribute," even where "the record is silent as to whether 
 4 

[the accused] was a user." Hunter v. Commonwealth, 213 Va. 569, 

570-71, 193 S.E.2d 779, 780 (1973). In the case before us, 

substantial evidence disclosed that the quantity and packaging of 

the drugs held by appellant were inconsistent with personal use, 

a fact that appellant conceded. 

 At trial, Monaghan, conceded to be an expert in illegal drug 

transactions, testified that the quantity of and method of 

packaging the heroin were inconsistent with personal use, and 

thereby, inferentially, that they were consistent with 

distribution. In Gregory v. Commonwealth, 22 Va. App. 100, 468 

S.E.2d 117 (1996), where there was no evidence proving the 

possessor was a user, we held that testimony such as Monaghan 

gave is sufficient to support a verdict that the defendant 

possessed the illegal narcotic with intent to distribute. See

id. at 110-11, 468 S.E.2d at 122-23. 

 Although Monaghan testified that in an extreme case a user 

could possess a similar quantity, he also indicated that users do 

not buy a quantity to satisfy their daily needs all at once for 

fear they will lose their supply if found in possession of the 

quantity found here. Notwithstanding similar testimony in 

Gregory, we held that such evidence, viewed in the light most 

favorable to the Commonwealth, is sufficient to support the 

jury's verdict. Id.

 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

 Affirmed.