COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Moon, Judges Elder and Fitzpatrick 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

WALTER LYNN SIMMONS 

v. Record No. 1782-94-2 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

 CHIEF JUDGE NORMAN K. MOON 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA DECEMBER 29, 1995 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF HENRICO COUNTY 

James E. Kulp, Judge 

 Craig S. Cooley for appellant. 

 Marla Graff Decker, Assistant Attorney General 

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

 brief), for appellee. 

 Walter Lynn Simmons appeals his conviction for the rape of 

Leticia Laster on April 16, 1994. He claims that the evidence 

was insufficient to support the conviction and that the trial 

judge erred in excluding testimony concerning the victim's 

reputation for truthfulness. We find that the evidence was 

sufficient and that the trial judge was correct in excluding the 

evidence, and therefore affirm. 

 The victim in this case was Mr. Simmons' eleven-year-old 

stepdaughter. The rape occurred at Simmons' home while his wife, 

the victim's mother, was visiting family in New York. Simmons 

was convicted based on the testimony of the victim, who gave a 

detailed account of the rape. The victim told her mother about 

the rape a few days after it occurred, and her mother informed 

 

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

designated for publication. 
- 2 - 

Simmons' sister. Both women testified about Simmons' statements 

concerning his contact with the victim, and this testimony 

corroborated the victim's account. The nurse who examined the 

victim provided corroborating physical evidence. The jury 

acquitted the defendant of an additional count of rape and of 

attempted sodomy. 

 When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, 

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

Commonwealth and give it all reasonable inferences fairly 

deducible therefrom. We should affirm the judgment unless it 

appears from the evidence that the judgment is plainly wrong or 

without evidence to support it." Higginbotham v. Commonwealth, 

216 Va. 349, 352, 218 S.E.2d 534, 537 (1975). 

 The credibility of the witnesses and the weight accorded 

their testimony are matters exclusively for the jury. Gray v. 

Commonwealth, 233 Va. 313, 344, 356 S.E.2d 157, 174 (1985); Myers 

v. Commonwealth, 11 Va. App. 634, 635, 400 S.E.2d 803, 804 

(1991). It is the jury's function to weigh the evidence and 

resolve any conflicts in the evidence. Lewis v. Commonwealth, 8 

Va. App. 574, 582, 383 S.E.2d 736, 741 (1989) (en banc). 

 Simmons' attack on the sufficiency of the evidence is 

essentially an attack on the victim's credibility. However, the 

jury has resolved this issue in favor of the victim. That 

finding will not be disturbed on appeal unless as a matter of 

law, the victim's testimony was inherently incredible, or so 

contrary to human experience as to render it unworthy of belief. 
- 3 - 

Fisher v. Commonwealth, 228 Va. 296, 299-300, 321 S.E.2d 202, 

204 (1984); Willis and Bell v. Commonwealth, 218 Va. 560, 563, 

238 S.E.2d 811, 812-13 (1977). 

 The victim's testimony was not unbelievable as a matter of 

law, and in fact was corroborated by the testimony of other 

witnesses. Two of these witnesses recounted Simmons' own 

statements, which were highly incriminating. The evidence is 

sufficient to sustain the conviction for rape. 

 The defendant also claims that the trial court erred in 

excluding testimony about the victim's reputation for 

truthfulness. A trial judge's ruling on the admissibility of 

evidence will not be disturbed absent an abuse of discretion. 

Hunter v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 717, 724, 427 S.E.2d 197, 202 

(1993). 

 The defense attempted to introduce testimony by Cloe Wilson, 

a sixteen-year-old who lived with the victim and her family for 

two and one half months around the time of the rape. Ms. Wilson 

testified on voir dire that she had discussed the victim's 

reputation for truthfulness with the victim's mother and sister 

and with someone in the neighborhood, whom she did not name. 

 When evidence on reputation for truth is rejected, the 

proponent of the evidence must make a proffer of the expected 

answer in order to preserve the issue for appeal. Mostyn v. 

Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 920, 924, 420 S.E.2d 519, 521 (1992). 

Although Simmons on voir dire of Ms. Wilson described the sources 

of her proposed testimony, he did not make a proffer of the 
- 4 - 

substance of the testimony. 

 We do not need to invoke the good cause or the ends of 

justice exception to waive the requirement of a proffer, because 

the trial judge clearly did not abuse his discretion in excluding 

this evidence. The testimony would have consisted primarily of 

the victim's reputation for truthfulness within her immediate 

family, with only one unidentified witness from the neighborhood. 

 Testimony about truthfulness must concern the witness' "bad 

general reputation for truth and veracity in the community where 

he lives or works, or among his neighbors and acquaintances 

. . . ." Clark v. Commonwealth, 202 Va. 787, 789, 120 S.E.2d 

270, 272 (1961) (emphasis added).1 The trial judge in his 

discretion could have found that the testimony offered here had 

too narrow a basis to be admissible as evidence of the victim's 

 

 1 The community from which a child's reputation is drawn 

may be more circumscribed than for an adult. See Commonwealth v. 

Healey, 27 Mass. App. Ct. 30, 39, 534 N.E.2d 301, 307 (Ct. App. 

1989). However, the testimony concerning the child's reputation 

should emanate from an identifiable group, and the sources of the 

information on reputation should be sufficiently numerous to 

assure trustworthy testimony. Id. Here, given the nature of the 

proposed testimony, we do not need to identify the eleven-yearold victim's community for purposes of reputation testimony. It 

was well within the trial judge's discretion to decide that 

testimony based on information from only two family members, 

combined with one unidentified individual from the neighborhood, 

had too few sources to assure trustworthy testimony. Compare

Commonwealth v. Arthur, 31 Mass. App. Ct. 178, 179-80, 575 N.E.2d 

1147, 1148 (Ct. App. 1991) (evidence on reputation for 

truthfulness properly admitted where the impeaching witness 

identified a discrete community, i.e., the victim's eighth grade 

class, and a substantial number of students within that community 

had expressed views to the witness about the victim's reputation 

for veracity.) 
- 5 - 

general reputation for truthfulness. For these reasons, we 

affirm the defendant's conviction for rape. 

 Affirmed.