Court Opinion

ID: 9954465
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-26 14:15:52.957456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:57.681132
License: Public Domain

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA

              Present: Judges Beales, O’Brien and Raphael
UNPUBLISHED

              TODD EMANUEL MANNS
                                                                               MEMORANDUM OPINION*
              v.     Record No. 0135-23-3                                          PER CURIAM
                                                                                  MARCH 26, 2024
              COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

                                 FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF ROANOKE
                                             J. Christopher Clemens, Judge

                               (J. Thomas Love, Jr.; Office of the Public Defender, on briefs), for
                               appellant.

                               (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General; Mason D. Williams, Assistant
                               Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

                     Todd Emanuel Manns appeals his convictions for first-degree murder and use of a

              firearm in the commission of murder. He argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion

              to set aside the verdict. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment and unanimously hold that oral

              argument is unnecessary because “the appeal is wholly without merit.” Code § 17.1-403(ii)(a);

              Rule 5A:27(a).

                                                          BACKGROUND1

                     In March 2021, Taniko Belt was living at the Cove apartment complex in Roanoke and

              had recently ended a romantic relationship with Manns. Belt’s upstairs neighbor was David

              Jones. Jones and Manns had “r[u]n into each other several times at the apartment complexes.”

                     *
                         This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A).
                     1
                       On appeal, we recite the facts “in the ‘light most favorable’ to the Commonwealth, the
              prevailing party in the trial court.” Hammer v. Commonwealth, 74 Va. App. 225, 231 (2022)
              (quoting Commonwealth v. Cady, 300 Va. 325, 329 (2021)).
       On May 2, 2021, Jones saw Manns in the Cove parking lot around 7:00 p.m., and the two

had a “friendly” conversation. Several hours later, Jones was inside his apartment when he heard

gunshots. After a pause, he heard several more gunshots. As Jones ran outside to the apartment

balcony, he heard a car speeding away but didn’t see it. Jones raced downstairs, reaching the

ground level about 10 to 13 seconds after the gunshots. There, he saw Manns at the edge of the

sidewalk, tucking a “dark, metallic, shiny object” into his rear waistband. Manns was in blue

jeans and a white shirt, and he had “a black hat on backwards.” When Jones asked Manns what

happened, Manns replied: “That bitch done fucked up this time.” Manns then walked to his car

and “[d]rove off rapidly.” Jones got in his car and started to look for Manns. Instead, he came

across Belt’s car, which had crashed in the median of Peters Creek Road.

       Aiden Brown and a friend had driven to the Cove apartment complex that night to buy

marijuana. After waiting in the parking lot for 45 minutes, Brown walked through the complex

and saw a man sitting on a stairway smoking a cigarette. Brown returned to his car. About 30

minutes later, Brown heard yelling and a man’s voice exclaim, “get out of your car and get on

the ground.” Three or four seconds later, Brown heard a gunshot and, after a pause, several more

shots. As Brown’s friend drove their vehicle out of the complex, Brown saw a man pointing his

gun and shooting at another car leaving the complex. Brown identified the shooter as the man

who had been smoking on the stairway. Brown said the shooter wore blue jeans and a hat,

although Brown was unsure about his shirt.

       Around 11:21 p.m., Roanoke City police officers responded to a report that a car had

struck a power pole and a tree in the median of Peters Creek Road. The car, which had sustained

heavy damage from the collision, had also been struck by multiple bullets. Belt—the driver and

sole occupant—was dead, “slumped over” the steering wheel. A subsequent autopsy determined

that she died from blood loss and injuries caused by multiple gunshot wounds.

                                              -2-
        Law enforcement officers arrested Manns during a scheduled visit with his probation

officer five days later. The officers secured and searched Manns’s car, seizing two black Taurus

handguns: one from the glove compartment and the other from the back pocket of the passenger-

side seat.

        Manns was indicted for first-degree murder (Code § 18.2-32) and use of a firearm in the

commission of murder (Code § 18.2-53.1). At trial, a ballistics expert testified that the handgun

seized from the back pocket of the passenger-side seat in Manns’s car had fired the bullet

removed from Belt’s body during the autopsy, as well as a bullet removed from the interior of

Belt’s car. The same gun also discharged the cartridge casings found at the Cove apartment

complex. Other forensic evidence established that Manns could not be eliminated as a

contributor of the DNA found under Belt’s fingernails.

        The Commonwealth also introduced logs of text messages and calls between Manns and

Belt during the two weeks before the murder. On the day of the murder, Manns called Belt at

11:08 p.m. When she did not answer, he sent her a text message asking if she was “up” and saying

that he “need[ed] to talk” to her. Manns then called Belt three more times between 11:10 and

11:13 p.m. Belt, again, did not answer. Between the calls, Manns sent two more texts asking her to

“pick up.” Cellular-site data obtained from Manns’s service provider showed that Manns’s calls

to Belt that night used a cell tower near the Cove apartment complex.

        The trial court denied Manns’s motion to strike, and the jury found him guilty of

first-degree murder and use of a firearm in the commission of murder. Manns moved to set aside

the verdicts, arguing that the evidence did not exclude the possibility that an unknown assailant

killed Belt. The trial court denied that motion. The trial court sentenced Manns to three years’

imprisonment for use of a firearm in the commission of murder and imposed a life sentence for

first-degree murder. Manns noted a timely appeal.

                                               -3-
                                            ANALYSIS

       Manns argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to set aside the verdict. He

contends that Jones and Brown were not “credible eyewitnesses” and that the DNA evidence

“does not exclude those who are paternally related to [Manns].” He adds that the firearm and

cellphone-tower evidence are “of little value” and that the text messages and calls admitted into

evidence do not “establish that [Manns] murdered [Belt].”

       “A trial court’s judgment approving a jury’s verdict is entitled to great weight on appeal

and will not be disturbed unless it is contrary to law or plainly wrong.” Wagoner v.

Commonwealth, 63 Va. App. 229, 244 (2014) (quoting Gray v. Commonwealth, 233 Va. 313,

344 (1987)), aff’d, 289 Va. 476, 484 (2015). See Code § 8.01-680. Manns’s motion to set aside

the verdict challenged only the sufficiency of the evidence to prove that he committed the

murder. Whether the trial court properly denied that motion is the sole question raised here.

       “When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, ‘[t]he judgment of the trial court is

presumed correct and will not be disturbed unless it is plainly wrong or without evidence to

support it.’” McGowan v. Commonwealth, 72 Va. App. 513, 521 (2020) (alteration in original)

(quoting Smith v. Commonwealth, 296 Va. 450, 460 (2018)). The relevant question is “whether

‘any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a

reasonable doubt.’” Vasquez v. Commonwealth, 291 Va. 232, 248 (2016) (quoting Williams v.

Commonwealth, 278 Va. 190, 193 (2009)).

       “Circumstantial evidence is as competent and is entitled to as much weight as direct

evidence, provided it is sufficiently convincing to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except

that of guilt.” Sarka v. Commonwealth, 73 Va. App. 56, 67 (2021) (quoting Coleman v.

Commonwealth, 226 Va. 31, 53 (1983)). “While no single piece of evidence may be sufficient,

the combined force of many concurrent and related circumstances . . . may lead a reasonable

                                               -4-
mind irresistibly to a conclusion.” Pijor v. Commonwealth, 294 Va. 502, 512-13 (2017) (quoting

Muhammad v. Commonwealth, 269 Va. 451, 479 (2005)).

        There was ample circumstantial evidence from which the jury could find Manns guilty

beyond a reasonable doubt of murdering Belt. When Jones encountered Manns at the scene of

the shooting seconds after hearing gunshots, Manns was tucking into his waistband a “dark,

metallic, shiny object” consistent with the black Taurus handgun used to kill Belt and that was

later found in Manns’s car. Manns also told Jones, before fleeing the scene, “that bitch done

fucked up this time.” Manns’s flight from the scene of the crime also incriminated him. Indeed,

“it is today universally conceded that the fact of an accused’s flight . . . and related conduct . . .

are admissible as evidence of consciousness of guilt, and thus of guilt itself.” Langhorne v.

Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 97, 102 (1991) (quoting United States v. Ballard, 423 F.2d 127,

133 (5th Cir. 1970)).

        Brown also witnessed the shooting of Belt’s vehicle and identified the shooter as the

individual he saw at the apartment complex wearing jeans and a hat. Brown’s description of the

shooter aligned with Jones’s testimony that Manns was wearing jeans and a hat right after the

shooting.

        We reject Manns’s claim that Jones and Brown’s testimony should be disregarded as

inherently incredible. Manns describes Jones as a felon and drug user who did not see Manns

shoot anyone. But prior “felony convictions” will not render a witness’s testimony inherently

incredible as a matter of law. Yates v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 140, 144 (1987). Manns

discounts Brown’s testimony because Brown was “emotionally shaken” and did not completely

identify the shooter. But “the credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given to their

testimony are questions exclusively for the jury.” Green v. Commonwealth, 78 Va. App. 670,

686 (2023) (quoting Johnson v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 525, 528 (1982)). The testimony

                                                  -5-
challenged here was “neither ‘inherently incredible’ nor ‘so contrary to human experience as to

render it unworthy of belief.’” Kelley v. Commonwealth, 69 Va. App. 617, 627 (2019) (quoting

Robertson v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 854, 858 (1991)).

       What is more, the eyewitness testimony of Jones and Brown was corroborated by the

forensic evidence. The handgun seized from Manns’s car was the one that fired the bullets that

peppered Belt’s car and killed her. The cellphone data showed that Manns had been texting and

calling Belt shortly before the shooting. And the cellphone-tower data placed Manns’s cellphone

near the Cove apartment complex at the time of the shooting. Belt also had DNA under her

fingernails for which Manns could not be eliminated as the contributor.

                                          CONCLUSION

       Taken together, there was ample evidence from which the jury could find beyond a

reasonable doubt that Manns intentionally killed Belt with a firearm and committed first-degree

murder in doing so.

                                                                                        Affirmed.

                                              -6-