Court Opinion

ID: 9584726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:52:09.645539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:58.351110
License: Public Domain

*253BENTON, J.,
joined by BARROW, J., dissenting.
For the reasons stated in the panel’s decision reversing the trial judge’s denial of Hopkins’s motion for a new trial, see Hopkins v. Commonwealth, 19 Va.App. 1, 448 S.E.2d 316 (1994), and for the reasons as further stated in this opinion, I would hold that the trial judge erred in refusing to grant a new trial.
Hopkins was convicted of murder upon the testimony of Janice Talley. Talley testified that at 4:20 a.m. she drove Curtis Kearney to a city street where illegal narcotics are sold. She testified that when Kearney got out of her automobile, she decided to follow him. She said that she parked her automobile and followed him “to see what ... he was up to.” According to Talley, she did not know where Kearney was going, but she knew Afton Avenue was “a terrible place to go.”
Talley and Kearney had been drinking beers before she drove Kearney to that area. Kearney’s blood alcohol concentration was .24 percent. Talley testified that she had consumed only four or five beers. She testified that the person who shot Kearney was six feet away from her and appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years of age. She testified that Hopkins, who was twenty-three years of age, was the shooter.
At the evidentiary hearing on Hopkins’s motion for a new trial, Adrian Epps confessed to killing Curtis Kearney. Epps’s confession was supported by other witnesses, including Epps’s own relatives and Kearney’s niece, who testified that they witnessed the shooting. None of these witnesses testified at trial.
Although the trial judge said he did not believe Epps and the other witnesses, the record does not establish that their testimony was incredible as a matter of law. Epps’s confession was by its nature highly probative. His self-incriminating confession is of a wholly different quality than would be the testimony of a third person implicating Epps. Moreover, that the corroborative witnesses who implicated Epps include Epps’s relatives is also a factor highly probative of whether the testimony was incredible as a matter of law. Also strong*254ly negating a conclusion that the testimony was incredible as a matter of law is the testimony of the victim’s niece, who also implicated Epps.
Although the witnesses’ failure to report promptly to the authorities what they knew of the murder weighs against their credibility, the record does not establish that their explanations for delay (fear, uncertainty, confusion) or explanations for ultimately coming forward (pangs of conscience) are incredible as a matter of law. See Riley v. Harris, 211 Va. 359, 362, 177 S.E.2d 630, 633 (1970) (a conflicting explanation “is a matter for the jury, unless the explanation is unreasonable as a matter of law, or inherently incredible, or such that reasonable men could not differ as to its effect”). The record does not establish that the witnesses’s explanations were such that a reasonable juror would necessarily disbelieve them. See Hammer v. Commonwealth, 207 Va. 159, 162, 148 S.E.2d 892, 894 (1966) (prosecutrix’s delay in reporting attempted rape did not make her testimony incredible as a matter of law); Corvin v. Commonwealth, 13 Va.App. 296, 299, 411 S.E.2d 235, 237 (1991) (victim’s “youth, fright, and embarrassment” were an acceptable explanation for delay in reporting crime).
Issues concerning the credibility of Epps’s confession and the inconsistencies and conflicts in the testimony of the other witnesses were for a jury to resolve. The Supreme Court in Hines v. Commonwealth, 136 Va. 728, 117 S.E. 843 (1923), pointedly addressed the concern, raised by the trial judge in this case, that witnesses might be lying:
Unfortunately, as all must concede, witnesses sometimes swear falsely, and it cannot be doubted that alleged confessions of crime by third parties may easily be foisted on the courts and juries, but so may alleged admissions in civil cases, as, for example, regarding the location of a comer tree or other real estate controversy. As to both classes of admissions they must be admitted, if at all, because the evidence itself is important to the ends of justice, and because it may be assumed that no man will speak falsely to . his own hurt. The truth of the admission itself, and the credibility of the witness who undertakes to repeat the *255admission, must, like the truthfulness of all other testimony, address itself to and be settled by the jury.
Id. at 745, 117 S.E. at 848.
In Hines, the accused moved for a new trial based on after-discovered evidence that another person had confessed to the murder for which the accused had been convicted. Id. at 735-36, 117 S.E. at 845. Notwithstanding the confessor’s death, the Supreme Court reversed the trial judge’s denial of the motion for a new trial. Id. at 751, 117 S.E. at 849-50. Addressing the precise issue that arises in this case, the Supreme Court stated:
The jury found upon the original evidence that [Hines] was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and as they were the sole judges of the weight and credibility of the testimony, their verdict thereon could not be disturbed. But the vital facts upon which that verdict was based were disputed, and this new evidence, if they had heard and believed it, would necessarily have produced a different result. We do not undertake to say what weight a jury would give to the new evidence, but it certainly ought to change the result if it is worthy of belief, and whether it is worthy of belief is a question which ought to be settled, not by the court, but by a jury.
Id. at 750-51, 117 S.E. at 849-50 (emphasis added). Thus, Hines mandates a reversal in this case because the trial judge, as did the judge in Hines, found the witnesses’s testimony incredible but failed to consider whether a jury might have reached a different result.
The majority instead relies upon Odum v. Commonwealth, 225 Va. 123, 301 S.E.2d 145 (1983), to support its conclusion that the trial judge correctly made a credibility analysis based upon his own subjective determination of the credibility of the witnesses. An analysis of Odum demonstrates that it turns upon significantly different principles. In affinning the trial judge’s refusal to grant Odum a new trial based on evidence that his brother had “confessed,” the Supreme Court held that the evidence was not discovered after trial, that the evidence *256could have been obtained at trial in the exercise of due diligence, and that the evidence was manifest that the same result would occur upon retrial. 225 Va. at 131, 301 S.E.2d at 149. Any of the three deficiencies was sufficient to bar a new trial. Id. at 130, 301 S.E.2d at 149.
In support of its ruling that the trial judge did not err in finding that the same result would occur on Odum’s retrial, the Supreme Court did not rely upon the trial judge’s own assessment of the witnesses’s credibility. Significantly, one of the victims gave extensive testimony at trial explaining why he knew that Odum, not his brother, was the criminal agent. 225 Va. at 127, 301 S.E.2d at 147. The victim testified that he previously had seen Odum’s brother, had a “good look” at Odum’s brother, and knew that Odum, whose physical characteristics he contrasted with his brother’s, was the criminal agent. Id. The other victim testified at trial that he had seen Odum’s brother in court and had “no doubt” Odum was the criminal agent. Id. Thus, the evidence at trial proved that the two victims not only identified Odum as the perpetrator but also testified that Odum’s brother, the subsequent “confessor,” who was present at trial and subject to scrutiny by the witnesses and the jury, was not the perpetrator. Id.
Furthermore, both Odum and his brother testified at the trial. They presented no witnesses to contradict the victims’ identification; the two brothers were the only defense witnesses. Odum denied driving the truck the day the assault occurred. His brother testified that he operated the vehicle on the date of the incident but did not know where it was at the time of the incident. Id.
Following his conviction, Odum sought a new trial and alleged that his brother had confessed. His brother’s “confession” only recited, however, that “he ‘cannot say’ he did not do it.” Id. at 130, 301 S.E.2d at 149. At the hearing on the motion, Odum’s brother was reluctant to testify because his lawyer was absent. The trial judge then refused to allow him to testify. Id. at 129, 301 S.E.2d at 148. Odum’s mother *257testified that the brothers were sufficiently distinct in appearance that they could not be mistaken for each other. Id.
The testimony at the hearing on the motion for a new trial essentially replicated the circumstances proved at Odum’s trial. At trial, Odum denied driving the vehicle. Odum’s brother testified that he, Odum’s brother, had the vehicle the entire day.. Thus, the jury was required to determine whether Odum or his brother was driving the vehicle when the assault occurred. Critical to the jury’s decision was the unimpeached testimony of the victims who saw both brothers and told the jury that Odum’s brother was not the driver of the vehicle.
The Supreme Court concluded that “because of the positive, credible, largely unimpeached identification of [Odum] by the victims,” the trial judge “properly could find that [the evidence] was not such as should produce opposite results ... at another trial.” Id. at 131, 301 S.E.2d at 149. That finding implicitly recognized that the jury in Odum’s trial had assessed the victims’ certainty regarding the identification of Odum in direct juxtaposition to the victims’ certainty that Odum’s brother, who was present at trial, was not the perpetrator. The jury had already considered and rejected precisely the same quality of evidence and the same circumstances of proof that Odum sought to present at a new trial.
In Hopkins’s case, however, the jury had only the opportunity to weigh Talley’s identification of Hopkins against the unsupported testimony of a witness that an unknown person named “Scooby” may have been the perpetrator. The jury did not have the opportunity to weigh Talley’s testimony that she heard “Squeeky” and saw Hopkins shoot against the witnesses who testified that they heard “Scooby” and saw Epps, known as Scooby, shoot.
Moreover, Talley’s testimony was contradicted and impeached. The evidence proved Talley had consumed several beers. Because of her consumption of alcohol, her ability to perceive accurately the features of the gunman was at issue at trial. Furthermore, her ability to see in the lighting at 4:30 a.m. is subject to impeachment. In addition, she told the *258police that a 15 or 16 year old boy shot Kearney. In short, her credibility was at issue. With all these shortcomings in Talley’s testimony, the ruling to deny Hopkins a new trial would deprive the jury of the opportunity to weigh the testimony of Talley regarding her ability to distinguish Hopkins from Epps. Odum does not support such a result. Indeed, it compels a new trial in this case.
If a jury did believe the after-discovered evidence, i.e., that Epps and not Hopkins murdered Kearney, then the outcome necessarily would be different. Hines, 136 Va. at 750-51, 117 S.E. at 849. See also Fisher v. Commonwealth, 11 Va.App. 302, 304-05, 397 S.E.2d 901, 902 (1990) (holding that accused’s son’s post-conviction testimony contradicted the victim’s testimony as to a material fact and merited retrial). Accordingly, I would hold that the trial judge abused his discretion in taking from a jury the resolution of the conflicts in the evidence, and I would reverse the decision and remand for a new trial.