Court Opinion

ID: 9592640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:15:56.408652+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:58.450023
License: Public Domain

Barrow, J.,
dissenting.
If the jury concluded that the object thrown out of the car’s window was cocaine and that this fact corroborated the prosecution’s argument that the defendant possessed the two packets of cocaine found by the driver’s door, evidence of the field test results affected the verdict, and its erroneous admission into evidence was not harmless. See Bunting v. Commonwealth, 208 Va. 309, 314-15, 157 S.E.2d 204, 208 (1967); Henderson v. Commonwealth, 5 Va. App. 125, 130, 360 S.E.2d 876, 879 (1987); Johnson v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 444, 450-51, 350 S.E.2d 673, 676 (1986).
*745An error is harmless only when “ ‘it plainly appears from the record and the evidence given at the trial that’ the error did not affect the verdict.” Lavinder v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 1003, 1005, 407 S.E.2d 910, 911 (1991) (quoting Code § 8.01-678). A reviewing court must make this determination “without usurping the jury’s fact finding function.” Lavinder v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. at 1005, 407 S.E.2d at 911.
The defendant disputed the prosecution’s contention that he possessed the two packets of cocaine found next to his door. The evidence that he possessed them, although sufficient, was circumstantial. The prosecution argued that, in determining whether the defendant possessed the two packets of cocaine, the jury should consider the fact that the defendant threw cocaine out of the window of the car. Only the erroneously admitted results of the field test proved that the object thrown out of the window was cocaine. If the jury concluded what the prosecution urged it to conclude, the erroneously admitted evidence affected the verdict.
The defendant was entitled to have the jury resolve this question. I am unable to conclude from the record and the evidence that this error did not affect its verdict. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment of conviction and remand the proceeding for a new trial.