Court Opinion

ID: 9608814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:17:56.950497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:47.126809
License: Public Domain

Barrow, J.,
with whom Cole, J.,* Coleman, J. and Willis, J. join, concurring and dissenting.
I am unable to say the jury’s verdicts were plainly wrong and without evidence to support them. If the jury chose not to believe the defendant and his accomplices who said there was only a single conspiracy, sufficient evidence was introduced to support the jury’s verdicts of seven separate conspiracies.
The evidence was undisputed that on at least seven separate occasions between May 1, 1987 and July 11, 1987, packages of marijuana were picked up at the home of the defendant’s mother and transported to an inmate in the correctional unit, who then gave the marijuana to the defendant in exchange for one-fourth of the marijuana. On June 20, July 4, and July 11, Tammy Barton brought the marijuana into the correctional unit and gave it to her boyfriend, an inmate. Previously, on May 2, 9, 16, and 30, Deborah Locher had picked up the marijuana and taken it to her husband who was an inmate. By telephone, she had obtained the address of the defendant’s mother from the defendant. At trial, *922when asked what the arrangements were that she had with her husband, Deborah Locher said:
We did not make plans, say we’re going to do this for the next six weeks. We did it this time and it worked out o.k. and he said will you go back and do it again. And each weekend he’d say when are you going to pick it up, are you coming Saturday or are you coming Sunday.
Direct evidence of separate agreements was not necessary to permit the jury to find the existence of separate conspiracies. “A conspiracy may be proved by circumstantial evidence.” Wright v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 502, 505, 297 S.E.2d 711, 713 (1982). If two or more people act to pursue the same object, “one performing one part and the others performing another part so as to complete it or with a view to its attainment, a jury [may] be justified in concluding that they were engaged in a conspiracy to effect that object.” Amato v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 544, 552, 352 S.E.2d 4, 9 (1987).
If the jury did not believe the defendant and his accomplices, who asserted that these seven transactions were a single conspiracy, the jury was left with evidence that, on seven separate occasions, marijuana was delivered to the defendant in a correctional unit through the coordinated efforts of at least three other people. These circumstances were sufficient to permit the jury to conclude that each participant was “performing one part -and the others [were] performing another part” of seven separate agreements among them to deliver marijuana to the defendant, a prisoner confined in a state correctional unit. Deborah Locher’s testimony confirmed such a conclusion.
Although this evidence was not conclusive, it did not have to be. It was sufficient to support the separate convictions, if the jury believed it and did not believe the testimony of the other conspirators who contradicted it.
As the majority recognizes, “[w]hether the evidence . . . establishes the existence of one conspiracy or multiple conspiracies is an issue for the jury.” United States v. Lozano, 839 F.2d 1020, 1023 (4th Cir. 1988). A jury’s verdict should not be disturbed on appeal “unless it is plainly wrong or without evidence to support it.” Traverso v. Commonwealth, 6 Va. App. 172, 176, 366 S.E.2d *923719, 721 (1988).
In my opinion, the evidence sufficiently supported the jury’s determination that seven separate conspiracies had occurred, and I would not disturb its verdicts. Therefore, although I concur with the majority that two of the verdicts should be affirmed, I dissent from its decision to reverse the remaining verdicts.1

 Judge Cole participated in the hearing and decision of this case prior to the effective date of his retirement on April 30, 1991 and thereafter by designation pursuant to Code § 17-116.01.

 Having concluded that the evidence is sufficient to support the convictions, I need not address the Attorney General’s contention that, under the principle expressed in Wooten v. Commonwealth, 235 Va. 89, 368 S.E.2d 693 (1988), even if each of the deliveries of marijuana was accomplished pursuant to a single agreement, multiple punishments are permitted for multiple violations of the narcotics conspiracy statute.