Opinion ID: 1058243
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instruction Regarding Flight

Text: The Commonwealth offered Instruction Number 19, which read: If a person leaves a place where a crime was committed, or flees to avoid detection, apprehension or arrest; this creates no presumption that the person is guilty of having committed the crime. However, it is a circumstance which you may consider along with the other evidence. (Emphasis added.) Thomas' proffered jury instruction on flight, Instruction No. R-3, read: If a person leaves a place where a crime was committed, this creates no presumption that the person is guilty of having committed the crime. However, it is a circumstance which you may consider along with the other evidence. In your consideration of the evidence of flight, you should consider that there may be reasons for that which are fully consistent with innocence. Those may include fear of being apprehended, unwillingness to confront police, reluctance to appear as a witness, or being under duress or threat. (Emphasis added.) The trial court ultimately accepted the Commonwealth's instruction. During trial, Thomas' attorney objected to the Commonwealth's flight instruction on the basis that the model jury instruction on flight, which you intend to give, my position would be it's an improper comment on the evidence. It's drawing attention to something specifically in evidence, and it's the functional equivalent of a directed verdict. It shifts the burden of proof regarding a defendant's criminal intent. On appeal, Thomas additionally argues that this Court held in Turman v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 558, 667 S.E.2d 767 (2008) that the Model Jury Instruction on flight that is utilized in this case as wellwas defective and therefore the trial court committed reversible error in granting the instruction. We held in Turman that the phrase if a person leaves the place where a crime was committed is overly broad and results in an incorrect statement of the law. 276 Va. at 563, 566, 667 S.E.2d at 771. However, in the present case Thomas' proffered flight instruction contained the same phrase as both the Commonwealth's proffered flight instruction and the flight instruction in Turman that was held to be error. The defendant cannot be heard to complain about an error in an instruction given that is also contained in the instruction she proffered as an alternative. [7] Furthermore, in Turman we observed that the record is simply devoid of more than a scintilla of evidence that Turman left the victim's apartment after the sexual acts had occurred because he sought to avoid detection, apprehension, arrest, or criminal prosecution. Id. at 565, 667 S.E.2d at 771. By contrast, this record is replete with evidence from which such an inference of guilt may be drawn from flight. As we stated in Anderson v. Commonwealth, 100 Va. 860, 863, 42 S.E. 865, 865 (1902): When a suspected person attempts to escape or evade a threatened prosecution, it may be argued that he does so from consciousness of guilt; and though the inference is by no means strong enough by itself to warrant a conviction, yet it may become one of a series of circumstances from which guilt may be inferred. An attempt to escape or evade prosecution is not to be regarded as a part of the res gestae, but only as a circumstance to be considered by the jury along with the other facts and circumstances tending to establish the guilt of the accused. The nearer, however, to the commission of the crime committed, the more cogent would be the circumstance that the suspected person attempted to escape, or to evade prosecution, but it should be cautiously considered, because it may be attributable to a number of other reasons, than consciousness of guilt. See also Turman, 276 Va. at 564-65, 667 S.E.2d at 770.