Title: Commonwealth v. Zamani
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 972645
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: November 6, 1998

Present: All the Justices 
 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 972645 
CHIEF JUSTICE HARRY L. CARRICO
 
 
 
November 6, 1998 
DONESH R. ZAMANI 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
Resolution of the question presented in this case 
requires an interpretation of Code § 16.1-133, relating to 
the withdrawal of appeals to circuit courts from judgments 
of courts not of record,1 and Code § 16.1-133.l, relating to 
the reopening of cases in courts not of record.  Finding 
that the Court of Appeals correctly interpreted and applied 
the Code sections, we will affirm its judgment. 
 
Code § 16.1-133 provides that any person convicted in 
a court not of record of an offense not felonious may, at 
any time before an appeal is heard by the circuit court, 
withdraw the appeal, pay the fine and costs, and serve any 
sentence which has been imposed.  If the appeal is 
withdrawn more than ten days after conviction, the circuit 
court shall forthwith enter an order affirming the judgment 
of the lower court and the clerk shall tax the costs as 
provided by statute.  Where the withdrawal occurs within 
                     
1 Code § 16.1-132 provides that any person convicted in a 
district court of an offense not felonious shall have the 
right within ten days from such conviction to appeal to the 
circuit court. 
ten days after conviction, no additional costs shall be 
charged, and the judgment of the lower court shall be 
affirmed without action by the circuit court. 
 
Code § 16.1-133.1 provides that within sixty days from 
the date of conviction of any person in a district court 
for an offense not felonious, the case may be reopened by 
the district court upon the application of such person for 
good cause shown.  If the case is reopened after the case 
documents are filed with the circuit court, the clerk of 
that court shall return such documents to the district 
court in which the case originated. 
 
 The record shows that on March 21, 1996, the General 
District Court of Rockingham County convicted Donesh R. 
Zamani (Zamani) of two misdemeanor offenses of sexual 
battery and sentenced him to jail terms of ninety days on 
one offense and six months on the other.  The court 
suspended both terms, placed Zamani on probation, and 
referred him for psychological evaluation.  On the same 
date, Zamani noted an appeal to the circuit court from both 
convictions. 
 
The notices of appeal signed by Zamani in district 
court stated that his cases were scheduled to be called for 
trial in the circuit court on April 8, 1996.  On that date, 
Zamani appeared in circuit court and waived trial by jury. 
 
2
On motion of the Commonwealth, the court continued the 
cases for trial on April 19, 1996. 
 
On April 12, 1996, Zamani appeared in the general 
district court, at which time that court reheard the cases, 
took additional evidence, and entered an order finding 
that, although the evidence was sufficient to convict 
Zamani on both charges, there was sufficient cause to 
withhold final adjudication of the matters.  The court took 
the cases under advisement for one year on condition that 
Zamani be on probation during that time, complete 
psychological counseling, and be of good behavior.  The 
order concluded with the statement that “[u]pon the 
successful completion of the above conditions this matter 
will be dismissed on April 19, 1997.” 
 
On April 19, 1996, within the sixty-day period 
prescribed by Code § 16.1-133.1, Zamani moved the circuit 
court to withdraw his appeals.  After oral argument, the 
court ruled that, “[u]pon the transfer of the case to the 
Circuit Court and the appearance of the parties thereon and 
the passage of time for that[,] the Court feels that this 
does divest the General District Court of jurisdiction in 
the matter.”  In a June 17, 1996 order, the circuit court 
affirmed the district court’s sentences as originally 
imposed on March 21, 1996. 
 
3
 
Zamani appealed to the Court of Appeals and was 
awarded an appeal. The Court of Appeals reversed the 
judgment of the circuit court and remanded the case with 
directions for the circuit court to “vacate its order 
affirming the original district court judgments and for 
entry of an order remanding the case to the district court 
for entry of its order pursuant to the rehearing.”  Zamani 
v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 59, 66, 492 S.E.2d 854, 858 
(1997).  We awarded the Commonwealth this appeal. 
 
The Commonwealth recites on brief the principles that 
apply to the construction of statutes.  The primary 
objective of statutory construction is to ascertain and 
give effect to legislative intent.  Turner v. Commonwealth, 
226 Va. 456, 459, 309 S.E.2d 337, 338 (1983).  The plain, 
obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is to be 
preferred over any curious, narrow, or strained 
construction.  Id.  A statute is not to be construed by 
singling out a particular phrase; every part is presumed to 
have some effect and is not to be disregarded unless 
absolutely necessary.  VEPCO v. Citizens for Safe Power, 
222 Va. 866, 869, 284 S.E.2d 613, 615 (1981); Raven Coal 
Corp. v. Absher, 153 Va. 332, 335, 149 S.E. 541, 542 
(1929).  And, when two statutes seemingly conflict, they 
should be harmonized, if at all possible, to give effect to 
 
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both.  Board of Supervisors v. Marshall, 215 Va. 756, 761, 
214 S.E.2d 146, 150 (1975). 
 
The Commonwealth argues that while the Court of 
Appeals “applied these fundamental tenets of statutory 
construction to hold that § 16.1-133.1, not § 16.1-133, 
governed this case,” the effect of the Court of Appeals’ 
decision was to contravene the “fundamental tenets,” ignore 
“the unambiguous language of § 16.1-133,” and nullify the 
provision of that Code section requiring a circuit court to 
affirm the judgment of a district court when an appeal is 
withdrawn more than ten days after conviction.  The 
Commonwealth maintains that, because Zamani did not 
withdraw his appeal until more than ten days had elapsed 
from the date of his conviction, Code § 16.1-133 “required 
the circuit court to affirm the judgment [of the district 
court] that had been the subject of the notice of appeal.”2
                     
2 The Commonwealth claims that its position was misstated by 
the Court of Appeals when it said that “[u]nder the 
Commonwealth’s approach, if an appeal is taken to the 
circuit court, unless the petition to reopen is filed and 
granted within ten days from the district court judgment, 
the circuit court must affirm the district court’s judgment 
if the appeal is withdrawn.”  Zamani, 26 Va. App. at 64, 
492 S.E.2d at 857.  The Commonwealth avows that its 
position in the Court of Appeals was, and is here, that “a 
district court is free to reopen a case under § 16.1-133.1, 
but only so long as the case has not been ‘heard’ in the 
circuit court.”  We will take the Commonwealth at its word. 
 
5
 
The difficulty with the Commonwealth’s position is 
that the position itself contravenes the “fundamental 
tenets” the Commonwealth has endorsed as applicable to 
statutory construction.  The Commonwealth singles out a 
particular provision of the statutes under review, i.e., 
§ 16.1-133’s provision that “the circuit court shall 
forthwith enter an order affirming the judgment of the 
lower court,” to the exclusion of other provisions equally 
unambiguous, notably, the provision of Code § 16.1-133.1 
that authorizes a district court to reopen a case within 
sixty days of conviction. 
 
The Commonwealth dismisses this latter provision with 
the argument that “§ 16.1-133.1 does not apply to cases in 
which the defendant goes forward with his appeal of his 
convictions to the circuit court.”  This argument, however, 
also contravenes the “fundamental tenets” when it is 
considered in context with the construction the 
Commonwealth gives the term “heard,” as used in the 
provision of Code § 16.1-133 which permits withdrawal of an 
appeal “at any time before [it] is heard.” 
 
The Commonwealth argues that Zamani’s appeal was heard 
when he appeared in circuit court on April 8, 1996, waived 
his right to a jury trial, and concurred in the 
Commonwealth’s motion to continue the case to April 19, 
 
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1996.  The Commonwealth says that, upon such hearing, “the 
district court’s jurisdiction terminated, and Zamani could 
no longer withdraw his appeal, at least for purposes of 
invoking § 16.1-133.1.”  
 
To say the least, the Commonwealth’s construction of 
the term “heard” is “curious, narrow, or strained.”  See 
Turner, 226 Va. at 459, 309 S.E.2d at 338.  The incidents 
of April 8, 1996, were merely procedural in nature and 
preliminary to the hearing of Zamani’s appeal.  While the 
Commonwealth may be correct in saying that Code § 16.1-133 
speaks of an appeal being “heard,” not “tried,” Code 
§ 16.1-136, entitled “How appeal tried,” states that “[a]ny 
appeal taken under the provisions of this chapter shall be 
heard de novo . . . and shall be tried without formal 
pleadings in writing.” 
 
Obviously, something more than incidents like those of 
April 8, 1996, is necessary before an appeal can be 
considered as having been “heard.”  We agree with the Court 
of Appeals that “a de novo hearing on the merits” must 
commence before the district court’s jurisdiction to reopen 
a case is terminated.  Zamani, 26 Va. App. at 65, 492 
S.E.2d at 857.  The incidents of April 8, 1996, did not 
rise to the dignity of a de novo hearing on the merits. 
 
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Furthermore, the Commonwealth’s position gives no 
effect to the authority implicitly granted a district court 
by Code § 16.1-133.1, upon reopening a case, to modify or 
reverse its original judgment.  Surely, the General 
Assembly did not intend that, after a case is reopened, a 
district court’s authority to modify or reverse its 
original judgment could be thwarted by a circuit court’s 
summary affirmance of the judgment because an appeal is 
withdrawn more than ten days after conviction. 
 
The Commonwealth argues, however, that the General 
Assembly did intend something different.  The Commonwealth 
says that “the legislature intended a procedure where 
Zamani had two procedural alternatives — i.e., to seek a 
reopening of his case in the district court within the 60 
days after conviction, or to appeal the case to the circuit 
court for a de novo trial.”  Zamani “was not entitled,” the 
Commonwealth maintains, “to a third option, whereby he 
could reopen the case in the district court and then, if 
unhappy with the result, resurrect his appeal to the 
circuit court.” 
 
We disagree with the Commonwealth.  As the Court of 
Appeals stated in its opinion in Zamani: 
[T]he General Assembly intended to make fully 
available to a person convicted of a misdemeanor . . . 
both the right to seek review by a de novo appeal and 
 
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the right, within sixty days, to petition to reopen 
the case in the district court.  Neither [§ 16.1-133 
nor § 16.1-133.1] contains language indicating that 
the exercise of one right limits or precludes the 
exercise of the other.  Thus, the two statutes must be 
construed in a manner that affords a convicted person 
the full opportunity to employ both post-trial 
procedures to the extent that the exercise of one does 
not conflict with the exercise of the other.[3] 
 
Zamani, 26 Va. App. at 63-64, 492 S.E.2d at 856-57 
(footnote omitted). 
 
Furthermore, the language in Code § 16.1-133.1 itself 
demonstrates the clear legislative intent that a defendant 
may pursue both an appeal to circuit court and an 
application for reopening in district court.  The final 
sentence of Code § 16.1-133.1 states:  “If the case is 
reopened after the case documents have been filed with the 
circuit court, the clerk of the circuit court shall return 
the case documents to the district court in which the case 
was originally tried.” 
                     
3 The Commonwealth states that Zamani’s exercise of his  
right to reopen his case in district court did conflict 
with the exercise of his right to appeal to circuit court.  
“[I]ndeed,” the Commonwealth argues, “the Court of Appeals 
permitted Zamani to divest the circuit court of 
jurisdiction after the case had been heard in that court.”  
While this argument seems to miss the point, Zamani’s 
appeal, as we demonstrated supra, had not been “heard” in 
circuit court when the district court reopened the case 
and, in any event, we do not understand from the 
Commonwealth’s argument how Zamani’s exercise of one right 
is supposed to have conflicted with the exercise of the 
other.   
 
9
 
This is legislative recognition of the propriety of 
the coexistence of an appeal in circuit court and a 
reopened case in district court, without any requirement 
that one be considered as exclusive of the other or that 
the filing for one precede the filing for the other.  It is 
also legislative recognition that, although the clerk of 
the circuit court is required to return the case documents 
to the district court upon that court’s reopening of a 
case, an appeal would remain pending in circuit court, 
albeit in a state of suspense, until withdrawn or decided. 
 
Finally, the Commonwealth points out that this Court 
has previously held that an appeal of a district court 
judgment to a circuit court “is in effect a statutory grant 
of a new trial, which annuls the judgment of the inferior 
court as completely as if there had been no previous 
trial.”  Buck v. City of Danville, 213 Va. 387, 388, 192 
S.E.2d 758, 759 (1972).  The Commonwealth also reminds us 
that we have said that the effect of an appeal to circuit 
court is not only to annul the district court judgment but 
also to deprive the district court of further jurisdiction.  
Malouf v. City of Roanoke, 177 Va. 846, 855, 13 S.E.2d 319, 
322 (1941). 
 
It must be noted, however, that Malouf was decided in 
1941 and Buck in 1972, while Code § 16.1-133.1 was not 
 
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enacted until 1973, effective as of July 1 of that year.  
1973 Va. Acts ch. 440.  The Code section was not considered 
in Buck and Malouf, and what was said there does not affect 
the conclusion we reach here. 
 
By like token, Greene v. Greene, 223 Va. 210, 288 
S.E.2d 447 (1982), cited by the Commonwealth, is 
inapposite.  There, we held that a circuit court could not 
modify a child support order while an appeal from the order 
was pending in this Court.  We said that “[t]he orderly 
administration of justice demands that when an appellate 
court acquires jurisdiction over the parties involved in 
litigation and the subject matter of their controversy, the 
jurisdiction of the trial court from which the appeal was 
taken must cease.”  Id. at 212, 288 S.E.2d at 448.  But, as 
the Court of Appeals observed, “[n]o statute similar to 
Code § 16.1-133.1 exists for cases appealed from the 
circuit court to the Supreme Court or the Court of 
Appeals.”  Zamani, 26 Va. App. at 65, 492 S.E.2d at 857. 
 
For the reasons assigned, we will affirm the judgment 
of the Court of Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
 
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