Court Opinion

ID: 9608633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:15:14.773714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:46.831010
License: Public Domain

Barrow, J.,
concurring.
In my opinion, the appellant preserved his right to appeal his challenge of the sufficiency of the evidence of venue. However, since I am bound by the doctrine of stare decisis, I join in affirming the appellant’s conviction.
Rule 5A.T8 bars an appeal of the sufficiency of the evidence if the issue is not raised at trial. Campbell v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 476, 480, 405 S.E.2d 1, 2 (1991) (en banc). An issue is sufficiently preserved, however, if “at the time the ruling or order of the court is made or sought, [a party] makes known to the court the action which he desires the court to take or his objection to the actions of the court and his ground therefor.” Code § 8.01-384; see also Campbell, 12 Va. App. at 480, 405 S.E.2d at 2. The appellant’s motion to strike made “known to the court the action which he desire [d] the court to take . . . and his ground therefor.” Thus, he complied with the statutory mandate of the action necessary to preserve an issue for appeal.
The majority relies on an opinion of another panel of this court, White v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 231, 348 S.E.2d 866 (1986), to require that a motion to strike also be made at the conclusion of the presentation of a defendant’s own evidence. White, in turn, relies on the opinion of the Supreme Court in Spangler v. Commonwealth, 188 Va. 436, 50 S.E.2d 265 (1948).
*1081Spangler, however, does not require that a motion to strike be made at the conclusion of a criminal defendant’s own evidence in order to preserve an issue of sufficiency of the evidence for appeal. Admittedly, the Court said that a defendant who presents evidence on his or her own behalf after the trial court has overruled the defendant’s motion to strike, “waives his right to stand upon such motion.” Spangler, 188 Va. at 438, 50 S.E.2d at 266. However, it made this statement in the context of holding that a court, in ruling on a motion to strike the evidence or to set aside a verdict after evidence is presented by the defendant, must consider the entire record, including the evidence presented by the defendant, in deciding whether the evidence is sufficient. Id. Thus, the only waiver recognized by the Court in Spangler was a waiver to rely only on the evidence presented by the Commonwealth, a realistic acknowledgment that neither the trial court nor the appellate court should shut its eyes to the truth. However, the Court expressed no intention to extend this ruling to a waiver of the contemporaneous objection rule.
Furthermore, even if Spangler can be construed as broadly as was done in White, such is no longer the law. Code § 8.01-384, eliminating the need for formal exceptions and declaring that stating one’s objection and the ground for it at the time a court rules is sufficient to preserve an issue for appeal, was adopted in 1970, twenty-two years after the Court’s ruling in Spangler. 1970 Va. Acts ch. 558. Thus, to the extent that Spangler is the law as described in White, it has been overruled by statute.
Finally, the “one objection” limit contained in Code § 8.01-384 accomplishes the purpose of the contemporaneous objection rule without needless technicality. The contemporaneous objection rule avoids “unnecessary appeals, reversals and mistrials by allowing the trial judge to intelligently consider an issue and, if necessary, to take corrective action.” Campbell, 12 Va. App. at 480, 405 S.E.2d at 7. Even though, under Spangler, the defendant’s own evidence would be considered in an appellate review of a motion to strike made at the conclusion of the Commonwealth’s evidence, “it would be a useless technicality to hold that the failure of the defendant’s attorney to renew his motion to strike at the conclusion of his own evidence barred this appeal.” Id.
This panel, however, is bound by the decision in White by virtue of the rule of stare decisis. Commonwealth v. Burns, 240 Va. 171, *1082173-74, 395 S.E.2d 456, 457 (1990). Only if a panel decision contains a “flagrant error or mistake,” may it be corrected, and, then, only “through the en banc hearing process.” Id. at 174, 395 S.E.2d at 457.1
Therefore, even though I am of the opinion that the appellant adequately preserved the issue of sufficiency of the evidence for appeal, I am constrained by stare decisis to join in affirming the judgment of conviction.

 Application of the rule of stare decisis in this manner effectively negates that part of Code § 17-116.02(D)(ii) relating to panels in conflict. Instead of three judges of the court, one member of the panel and two others, initiating an en banc hearing because of a conflict between panel decisions, stare decisis eliminates the possibly of a conflict and requires, as a result, that a majority of the court decide to hear a case en banc in order to correct an erroneous decision of a panel. See Code § 17-116.02(D)(ii).