Court Opinion

ID: 9560444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:49:11.020927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:55.609296
License: Public Domain

ELDER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion. Because the Commonwealth did not prove that the defendant actually possessed a firearm, the evidence failed to support the defendant’s conviction for use of a firearm during the commission of a robbery.
As the majority acknowledges, the defendant was originally indicted and tried on three charges: (1) bank robbery, (2) use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery, and (3) entering a bank while armed with a deadly weapon. After the Commonwealth presented its case, the defendant moved to strike the evidence on all three charges. The trial court struck the evidence as to the charge of entering a bank with a deadly weapon because the Commonwealth failed to prove the actual existence of a weapon. However, the trial court overruled the motion with respect to the indictments for bank robbery and use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery.
The trial court’s finding that the Commonwealth failed to prove “the actual existence of a weapon” is inconsistent with its ruling that the evidence is sufficient to prove that the defendant used a firearm in the commission of a robbery.3 *431The trial court made an explicit factual finding that the defendant did not possess a weapon, which in this case, was argued to be a firearm. Therefore, no evidence supported the trial court’s judgment that the defendant used a firearm in the commission of a robbery. Where a trial court’s judgment lacks evidence to support it, or where it is plainly wrong, this Court may disturb the judgment. Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va.App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987); Code § 8.01-680.
In footnote one, the majority attempts to resolve the trial court’s inconsistent ruling. The majority cites case law standing for the proposition that a firearm may not necessarily qualify as a “deadly weapon.” The majority therefore concludes that the fact of whether the defendant possessed a firearm was not necessarily resolved or found by the trial court’s dismissal of the charge for entering a bank armed with a deadly weapon. The majority ignores the trial court’s explicit finding that the defendant was not in possession of a weapon, as opposed to a deadly weapon. This distinction is critical. As discussed above, once the trial court found that the defendant did not possess a weapon for one purpose (the charge of entering the bank with a deadly weapon), logically and consistently the trial court could not conclude that the defendant somehow possessed a firearm for another purpose (the charge of use of a firearm, in the commission of a robbery).
For these reasons, I would reverse and dismiss the defendant’s conviction for use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery.

. The majority correctly cites Yarborough for the proposition that to obtain a conviction for use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery, *431"the Commonwealth must prove that the accused actually had a firearm in his possession and that he used or attempted to use the firearm or displayed the firearm in a threatening manner.” Yarborough, 247 Va. at 218, 441 S.E.2d at 344.