Court Opinion

ID: 9598768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:11:39.975786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:26.830666
License: Public Domain

*425Barrow, J.,
dissenting.
Evidence that the key found near the cocaine in the bedroom was for the defendant’s safe deposit box was admissible; however, the fact that the police found “small traces of cocaine in the box” was not. See Wilson v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 213, 220-21, 429 S.E.2d 229, 233-34, aff'd en banc, 17 Va. App. 248, 436 S.E.2d 193 (1993). The admission of evidence of this fact was not, in my opinion, harmless error.
Erroneously admitted evidence is not harmless unless we can say, without invading the province of the jury, that the error did not affect the verdict. Lavinder v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 1003, 1005, 407 S.E.2d 910, 911 (1991) (en banc).2 If the other evidence of guilt is “so overwhelming and the error so insignificant by comparison that the error could not have affected the verdict,” we can conclude that an error is harmless. Hooker v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 454, 458 n.2, 418 S.E.2d 343, 345 n.2 (1992); see also Jenkins v. Commonwealth, 244 Va. 445, 454, 423 S.E.2d 360, 366 (1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 1862 (1993); Ferguson v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 9, 12, 427 S.E.2d 442, 444 (1993); Hanson v. Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 173, 189-90, 416 S.E.2d 14, 24 (1992). In this case, however, the other evidence of guilt was not overwhelming, and the error was not insignificant.
The jury had to decide if the defendant knowingly possessed the cocaine found in the bedroom. The alleged possession was constructive, and the evidence was circumstantial. To convict the defendant, the jury had to infer from the presence in the bedroom of certain personal items identified as the defendant’s that the defendant occupied the bedroom in such a manner that he would necessarily have been aware of the presence of the cocaine and asserted dominion and control over it. The jury was free to accept or reject this inference.
*426Furthermore, the evidence that the defendant occupied the bedroom was disputed. The defendant’s girlfriend and one of her friends testified that the defendant lived elsewhere. The defendant’s sister, who owned the home where the cocaine was found, testified that the defendant did not live there. Although the prosecution challenged the credibility of these witnesses, their testimony was not inherently incredible, and the jury could have chosen to believe them.
Thus, the jury was free to conclude from the evidence either that the defendant possessed the cocaine or that he did not, depending on what evidence it found more credible and on what inferences it chose to make. If, however, the jury concluded that the defendant had a propensity to use or possess cocaine, as suggested by the residue of cocaine found in the defendant’s safe deposit box, and, for this reason, inferred that the defendant possessed the cocaine found in the bedroom, the inadmissible evidence affected the jury’s verdict. Thus, I am unable to join in the majority’s conclusion that the erroneously admitted evidence was harmless. Instead, I would hold otherwise and would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand the proceeding for a new trial.3

 The majority relies on a different principle requiring the finding of a “manifest probability that [the error] was prejudicial to the defendant.” This principle applies only where the trial court has instructed the jury to disregard erroneously admitted evidence. Boykins v. Commonwealth, 210 Va. 309, 313, 170 S.E.2d 771, 774 (1969); Lavinder, 12 Va. App. at 1008, 407 S.E.2d at 913. No such instruction was given in this case. Our opinion in Rider v. Commonwealth, 8 Va. App. 595, 600, 383 S.E.2d 25, 27 (1989), which the majority cites in support of this rationale, also used it incorrectly.

 I concur with the majority that the utility bills addressed to the defendant were admissible, that the expert testimony did not address an ultimate issue of fact, and that the evidence supported the conviction.