Title: Herndon v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 091265
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: June 10, 2010

PRESENT: Hassell, C.J., Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, Goodwyn, and 
Millette, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
TYRONE ANTWAN HERNDON 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v. 
Record No. 091265 
 
JUSTICE LEROY F. MILLETTE, JR. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  June 10, 2010 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the circuit court 
abused its discretion in admitting into evidence a forensic 
laboratory’s certificate of analysis when there was a 
discrepancy between an officer’s description of an item 
submitted to the laboratory for analysis and the laboratory’s 
description of the item. 
BACKGROUND 
Tyrone Antwan Herndon was arrested in the City of 
Martinsville for tampering with a motor vehicle.  Upon 
Herndon’s arrest, Officer Rob Coleman of the City of 
Martinsville Police Department recovered from Herndon a “clear 
plastic baggie which contained several off-white rock-like 
substances.” 
Officer Coleman collected the baggie and returned to the 
police station where he sealed the baggie, and then sent it by 
certified mail to the Department of Forensic Science (the 
laboratory) for analysis.  The laboratory conducted an 
analysis and determined that the substance was cocaine. 
At Herndon’s bench trial for possession of cocaine, 
Officer Coleman testified during cross-examination that the 
baggie he sent to the laboratory contained six off-white 
rocks.  The request for examination form that Officer Coleman 
sent to the laboratory also described the baggie as containing 
six off-white rocks.  However, the certificate of analysis 
returned from the laboratory described the item as:  “One (1) 
small ziplock plastic bag which contained off-white substance 
and four (4) knotted plastic bag corners each of which 
contained off-white substance.” 
During re-direct, the following exchange took place: 
[Commonwealth:] 
Did you package each of those 
items the way they appear today? 
 
[Officer Coleman:] No ma’am, I did not. 
 
[Commonwealth:] 
Could you explain how they were 
when you sent them to the lab? 
 
[Officer Coleman:] Yes ma’am.  They were in one 
baggie, appeared to have plastic 
wrapped around them and tied.  
They were not packaged as you 
see them today.  They were in 
larger forms.  There [were] also 
the knotted bags that are still 
available. 
 
[Commonwealth:] 
So[me] of the items are in 
knotted bags and some of it is 
loose in the smaller bags that 
the lab provided, is that 
correct? 
 
[Officer Coleman:] Yes ma’am, that’s correct. 
 
 
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Herndon argued that the certificate of analysis should 
not be admitted into evidence because the evidence described 
in the certificate of analysis is not the same as what Officer 
Coleman testified that he packaged and sent to the laboratory.  
The circuit court found that the Commonwealth had established 
a sufficient chain of custody, and admitted the certificate of 
analysis into evidence over Herndon’s objection. 
The circuit court found Herndon guilty of possession of 
cocaine.  In its ruling from the bench, the circuit court 
stated: 
It is argued that there is a variance between what 
the officer described as having been seized and what 
is now returned from the lab.  However, it’s the 
court’s view that the certificate of analysis here 
may not be as descriptive in terms of numbering or 
providing a gross number of the rocks involved as 
Officer Coleman’s testimony, but it’s not at 
variance because the officer never said that it was 
one rock per baggie corner. 
 
Herndon appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals, 
which affirmed his conviction in an unpublished opinion.  
Herndon v. Commonwealth, Record No. 1393-08-3 (May 26, 2009).  
We awarded Herndon this appeal. 
DISCUSSION 
Herndon argues that the circuit court abused its 
discretion by admitting the certificate of analysis into 
evidence because the Commonwealth failed to establish a chain 
of custody that excluded alteration or substitution when the 
 
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description on the request form prepared by Officer Coleman 
differed from the description on the certificate of analysis 
prepared by the laboratory.  According to Herndon, because 
pieces of cocaine do not contain unique identifiers, the only 
way their identity can be established with reasonable 
certainty is by the number of pieces and the way the pieces 
are packaged, and that Officer Coleman’s testimony does not 
reconcile or explain the discrepancies in description. 
Herndon argues that the fact that the names, dates, and 
numbers on the packaging match, only proves that the evidence 
bag sent by Officer Coleman was the same evidence bag received 
by the laboratory, not that the contents of the bag and the 
individual pieces of alleged cocaine were the same.  Herndon 
contends that since the Commonwealth apparently concedes that 
the laboratory re-packaged at least some of the “rocks” that 
the laboratory sent back, the Commonwealth has failed to 
establish whether the laboratory analyzed and re-packaged the 
“rocks” seized from Herndon, or if it analyzed and re-packaged 
some sample other than what was recovered from Herndon. 
In response, the Commonwealth argues that the circuit 
court did not abuse its discretion in admitting into evidence 
the certificate of analysis because the Commonwealth 
established the chain of custody from the time of the 
discovery of the evidence until its presentation in court.  
 
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The Commonwealth asserts that the evidence Officer Coleman 
collected from Herndon was the same evidence that the 
laboratory received and analyzed, because the evidence bag 
Officer Coleman received back from the laboratory showed no 
indication of tampering, and the seals on the evidence bag 
were intact. 
The Commonwealth asserts that Herndon failed to rebut the 
presumption of regularity that applies in this case once the 
laboratory received the evidence.  The Commonwealth maintains 
that the difference in the descriptions was not significant 
enough to demonstrate that the substance analyzed was 
different from the substance submitted.  The Commonwealth 
contends that despite the discrepancies in description, the 
evidence presented at trial established with reasonable 
certainty that the evidence collected by Officer Coleman was 
the same evidence analyzed by the laboratory. 
We review a circuit court’s decision to admit or exclude 
evidence under an abuse of discretion standard and, on appeal, 
will not disturb a circuit court’s decision to admit evidence 
absent a finding of abuse of that discretion.  Avent v. 
Commonwealth, 279 Va. 175, 197, 688 S.E.2d 244, 256 (2010).  
When the Commonwealth seeks to introduce evidence regarding 
the chemical properties of an item, the burden is upon the 
Commonwealth to show with reasonable certainty that there has 
 
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been no alteration or substitution of the item.  Robinson v. 
Commonwealth, 212 Va. 136, 138, 183 S.E.2d 179, 180 (1971).  
However, this burden is not absolute and the Commonwealth is 
not required “to exclude every conceivable possibility of 
substitution, alteration, or tampering.”  Pope v. 
Commonwealth, 234 Va. 114, 121, 360 S.E.2d 352, 357 (1987).  
When evidence involves chemical analysis, as with narcotics, 
the burden is upon the Commonwealth to establish each vital 
link in the chain of custody by showing the possession and 
handling of the evidence from when it is obtained to its 
presentation at trial.  Robinson, 212 Va. at 138, 183 S.E.2d 
at 180. 
During his testimony, Officer Coleman examined the 
evidence bag that he put the plastic baggie in when he 
arrested Herndon.  As he displayed the evidence to the court, 
Officer Coleman testified that the evidence bag had on it his 
signature, the date the evidence was recovered, and the case 
number.  He also stated that the seals on the evidence bag 
were intact.  Thus, Officer Coleman’s testimony establishes 
that from the time the evidence was obtained from Herndon 
until its receipt by the laboratory, the evidence bag that 
contained the plastic baggie was not tampered with or altered. 
When the Commonwealth introduces a certificate of 
analysis as evidence of the chain of custody of the material 
 
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described in the certificate, the certificate of analysis 
serves as prima facie evidence of the chain of custody of the 
material tested during the time the evidence is in the custody 
of the laboratory.  Code § 19.2-187.01.  Code § 19.2-187.01 
provides, in pertinent part: 
A report of analysis duly attested by the 
person performing such analysis or examination in 
any laboratory operated by . . . the Department of 
Forensic Science . . . shall be prima facie evidence 
in a criminal or civil proceeding as to the custody 
of the material described therein from the time such 
material is received by an authorized agent of such 
laboratory until such material is released 
subsequent to such analysis or examination. 
 
Although Officer Coleman’s description of the item and 
the laboratory’s description of the item do not correspond 
exactly, the circuit court found that they were not 
contradictory.  Officer Coleman’s description of the item 
focused on the number of pieces of cocaine contained in the 
plastic baggie while the laboratory’s description focused on 
the packaging of the cocaine that was inside the plastic 
baggie.  The circuit court determined that these descriptions 
are not contradictory because the laboratory’s description 
does not state the number of pieces of cocaine that were in 
the individual baggie corners or in the plastic baggie that 
contained the baggie corners. 
Although Officer Coleman did not mention the baggie 
corners in his written description of the item in the request 
 
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for examination, he referred to the “knotted bags” as still 
available when he described the packaging as being different.  
Thus, according to Officer Coleman, the baggie he sent to the 
laboratory for analysis contained baggie corners. 
The circuit court had the opportunity to examine the 
witnesses’ demeanor during their testimony, and all the 
evidence, including the packaging, and the baggie that 
contained the cocaine and baggie corners.∗  After observing 
Officer Coleman’s testimony and examining the evidence, the 
circuit court made a finding of fact that there is was no 
variance in the descriptions of the item by Officer Coleman 
and the laboratory “because the officer never said that it was 
one rock per baggy corner.”  “On review, we will not disturb 
the factual findings of the trial court unless plainly wrong 
or unsupported by the evidence.”  Robinson v. Commonwealth, 
273 Va. 26, 39, 639 S.E.2d 217, 224-25 (2007). 
The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in 
admitting the certificate of analysis into evidence when the 
court, which observed the evidence, made a factual finding 
that the discrepancies between the descriptions on the request 
for examination form and certificate of analysis were not 
contradictory, and the Commonwealth presented sufficient 
 
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evidence to establish with reasonable certainty that there had 
been no alteration or substitution of the evidence. 
CONCLUSION 
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of 
the Court of Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
                                                                                                                                                        
 
∗ The Commonwealth did not introduce the baggie containing 
the cocaine into evidence.  Thus, we are unable to examine the 
baggie and its contents because it is not part of the record. 
 
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