Title: Esteban v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 022524
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: October 31, 2003

PRESENT: Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, and 
Lemons, JJ., and Compton, S.J. 
 
DEENA ANNE ESTEBAN  
 
OPINION BY 
 
 
 
SENIOR JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v.  Record No. 022524 
 
October 31, 2003 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
The dispositive question in this criminal appeal is whether 
the statute proscribing possession of a firearm on school 
property is one of strict criminal liability, or whether proof 
of mens rea or scienter is required to support a conviction for 
its violation. 
 
Code § 18.2-308.1(B), as pertinent here, provides that 
"[i]f any person possesses any firearm designed or intended to 
expel a projectile . . . while such person is upon . . . any 
public . . . elementary . . . school, including buildings and 
grounds, . . . he shall be guilty of a Class 6 felony." 
 
Indicted by a grand jury in Prince William County for 
violation of the foregoing statute, defendant Deena Anne Esteban 
was tried by a jury in October 2000.  During the trial, the 
court refused to grant an instruction tendered by the defendant 
requiring the Commonwealth to prove mens rea or scienter.  The 
court ruled "that this is a strict liability crime."  The 
defendant was found guilty and sentenced to a suspended term of 
incarceration plus a fine. 
 
Upon review, a panel of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, 
one judge dissenting, affirmed the conviction in an unpublished 
order and opinion.  Esteban v. Commonwealth, Record No. 0028-01-
4 (August 27, 2002).  The Court of Appeals stated:  "Assuming, 
but not deciding, that a mens rea instruction regarding whether 
Esteban knowingly possessed the firearm should have been given, 
we find any error in the trial court's failure to [so] instruct 
the jury to be harmless." 
 
We awarded the defendant this appeal limited to 
consideration of the harmless error issue and to the claim that 
the Court of Appeals erred "in not holding that mens rea is an 
element of Code § 18.2-308.1[(B)]."  In the view we take of the 
case, the only issue we need discuss is the mens rea question. 
 
The facts are uncomplicated.  In our summary, when there 
are conflicting facts, we shall recite them in the light most 
favorable to the defendant.  This is in accord with the settled 
rule of appellate procedure that "[w]hen reviewing a trial 
court's refusal to give a proffered jury instruction, we view 
the evidence in the light most favorable to the proponent of the 
instruction."  Commonwealth v. Vaughn, 263 Va. 31, 33, 557 
S.E.2d 220, 221 (2002).  See Commonwealth v. Leal, 265 Va. 142, 
145, 574 S.E.2d 285, 287 (2003). 
 
On March 6, 2000, a Monday, a teacher in a public 
elementary school in Prince William County discovered a zippered 
 
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yellow canvas bag on her classroom floor about 1:30 p.m.  The 
bag contained a loaded .38 caliber revolver, as well as other 
items, belonging to the defendant. 
 
The bag had been left there by the defendant, employed by 
the school system as an art teacher.  She had come to the room 
earlier that day to teach the students, most of whom were in 
wheelchairs due to physical handicaps. 
 
According to the defendant, she had removed numerous items 
from the bag on the previous Saturday, placed the gun in the 
bag, and took "it down to the store with me."  Upon returning to 
her home from shopping, she placed the bag in a closet without 
removing the gun. 
 
On Monday, the day of the incident, defendant took the 
yellow bag, along with a portfolio case and a book bag, to the 
school.  She usually carried in the bag small tools, which she 
used in her instruction to fourth-grade students.  As she 
entered the classroom, she carried the yellow bag containing the 
revolver and a number of teaching aids.  Later, as defendant 
left the classroom, she took the teaching aids but left the 
yellow bag. 
 
When confronted with the presence of the gun in the bag on 
school property, defendant said, "I don't usually carry the bag.  
I forgot it was in there.  I had been using it over the 
weekend."  Defendant maintained there was nothing about the bag 
 
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that led her to believe the firearm was inside.  However, she 
did not dispute that she was in possession of the bag and thus 
the revolver. 
 
At trial, the instruction in issue would have required the 
Commonwealth to prove that defendant "knew she possessed the 
firearm."  The defendant contends the trial court erred in 
refusing the instruction because, she argues, mens rea is an 
element of this statutory offense. 
 
In support of her argument, the defendant refers to Code 
§ 1-10, which provides that the common law of England, "insofar 
as it is not repugnant to the principles of the Bill of Rights 
and Constitution of this Commonwealth, shall continue in full 
force within the same, and be the rule of decision, except as 
altered by the General Assembly."  See Weishaupt v. 
Commonwealth, 227 Va. 389, 399-400, 315 S.E.2d 847, 852 (1984). 
 
The defendant relies upon the proposition, set forth in 
Wicks v. Charlottesville, 215 Va. 274, 276, 208 S.E.2d 752, 755 
(1974), that a statute must be "read along with the provisions 
of the common law, and the latter will be read into the statute 
unless it clearly appears from express language or by necessary 
implication that the purpose of the statute was to change the 
common law."  This is because the General Assembly "is presumed 
to have known and to have had the common law in mind in the 
enactment of a statute."  Id.
 
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Continuing, the defendant relies upon the following 
statement in Parrish v. Commonwealth, 81 Va. 1, 14 (1884), that 
"whenever a statute makes any offence [a] felony, it 
incidentally gives it all the properties of a felony at common 
law."  The defendant points out that the requirement of some 
mens rea for a crime was deeply embedded in the common law, and 
that the existence of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the 
exception to, the principles of Anglo-American criminal 
jurisprudence, citing Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 
605 (1994). 
 
Thus, defendant contends, because the offense charged here 
is a felony, mens rea must be read into the statute as an 
element of the offense, even though the statute does not include 
an express mens rea element.  We do not agree with defendant. 
 
At the outset, it should be recognized that Code § 18.2-
308.1 is purely a statutory offense, there being no equivalent 
common law crime.  And, as the Attorney General points out, the 
defendant does not argue that the General Assembly could not 
have dispensed with a mens rea element in enacting § 18.2-
308.1(B); she merely argues that it did not do so.
 
Additionally, the law is clear that the legislature may 
create strict liability offenses as it sees fit, and there is no 
constitutional requirement that an offense contain a mens rea or 
scienter element.  Maye v. Commonwealth, 213 Va. 48, 49, 189 
 
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S.E.2d 350, 351 (1972).  Thus, courts construe statutes and 
regulations that make no mention of intent as dispensing with it 
and hold that the guilty act alone makes out the crime.  
Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 256, 258 (1952); 
Makarov v. Commonwealth, 217 Va. 381, 385-86, 228 S.E.2d 573, 
575-76 (1976) (statute on its face did not support contention 
that a mens rea or scienter requirement should be read into the 
enactment). 
 
In the final analysis, the issue whether mens rea or 
scienter is a necessary element in the indictment and proof of a 
particular crime becomes a question of legislative intent to be 
construed by the court.  United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 
251-52 (1922). 
 
A statute must be construed with reference to its subject 
matter, the object sought to be attained, and the legislative 
purpose in enacting it; the provisions should receive a 
construction that will render it harmonious with that purpose 
rather than one which will defeat it.  Stanley v. Tomlin, 143 
Va. 187, 195, 129 S.E. 379, 382 (1925). 
 
Clearly, the intent underlying Code § 18.2-308.1(B) is to 
assure that a safe environment exists on or about school 
grounds.  Manifestly, the General Assembly recognized that the 
presence of a loaded revolver on school property creates great 
dangers for students, teachers, and other school personnel, 
 
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either from the accidental or intentional discharge of the 
weapon.  The fact that a person, under the circumstances of this 
case, innocently brings a loaded revolver onto school property 
does not diminish that danger. 
 
Thus, to insert a mens rea element into the offense, and to 
require proof thereof, would defeat the statutory purpose, which 
is to criminalize the introduction of firearms into a school 
environment.  So we will not add, by implication, language to 
the statute that the legislature expressly has chosen not to 
include. 
 
Consequently, we hold that the trial court correctly 
decided, in refusing the instruction in question, that this 
statute is one of strict criminal liability, and that the 
Commonwealth was required to prove only that the defendant had 
possessed, on school property, a firearm of the type described 
in the statute.∗
 
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals will be 
affirmed because it reached the correct result, albeit for the 
wrong reason.  See Mitchem v. Counts, 259 Va. 179, 191, 523 
S.E.2d 246, 253 (2000). 
                     
 
∗As an aside, we mention that defendant had been granted a 
concealed handgun permit.  However, Code § 18.2-308(O) provides 
that such a permit "shall not thereby authorize the possession 
of any handgun . . . on property or in places where such 
possession is otherwise prohibited by law." 
 
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Affirmed. 
 
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