Court Opinion

ID: 9930277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-06 16:19:00.677607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:10:59.799827
License: Public Domain

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
UNPUBLISHED

              Present: Judges Beales, Friedman and Callins

              JEREMY PETERS
                                                                               MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY
              v.       Record No. 1856-22-2                                    JUDGE FRANK K. FRIEDMAN
                                                                                   FEBRUARY 6, 2024
              COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

                              FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF FREDERICKSBURG
                                                Gordon F. Willis, Judge

                                (John M. Spencer; Spencer, Meyer & Koch, PLC, on brief), for
                                appellant. Appellant submitting on brief.

                                (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General; Angelique Rogers, Assistant
                                Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

                       Following a jury trial, the trial court convicted Jeremy Peters of trespassing in violation of

              Code § 18.2-119. On appeal, Peters argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his

              conviction. After examining the briefs and record in this case, the panel unanimously holds that oral

              argument is unnecessary because “the dispositive issue or issues have been authoritatively decided,

              and the appellant has not argued that the case law should be overturned, extended, modified, or

              reversed.” Code § 17.1-403(ii)(b); Rule 5A:27(b). For the following reasons, we affirm the court

              below.

                                                          BACKGROUND

                       “In accordance with familiar principles of appellate review, the facts will be stated in the

              light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party at trial.” Gerald v. Commonwealth,

              295 Va. 469, 472 (2018) (quoting Scott v. Commonwealth, 292 Va. 380, 381 (2016)). In doing so,

                       *
                           This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A).
we discard any of Peters’s conflicting evidence and regard as true all credible evidence favorable to

the Commonwealth and all inferences that may reasonably be drawn from that evidence. Id. at 473.

       Peters became a resident of Micah Respite, a residential recovery program in

Fredericksburg. Upon being admitted, he signed a document in which he acknowledged that he

would be forbidden to return if he missed curfew or left for a couple of days without contacting the

program. In early May 2022, Peters left the program for three days without notifying anyone. On

May 8, 2022, Peters returned to Micah Respite and entered the building through an unlocked back

door after scaling the locked fence.

       Lorraine Valdez, a program employee, saw Peters enter the facility by viewing surveillance

cameras. She followed him upstairs and saw him lying in a bed. She reminded Peters that he was

no longer a resident because he had violated the rules. She ordered him “to get [his] stuff” and

leave. Peters claimed that he had been at the hospital and had documentation, but he did not

provide it. Instead, Peters ignored her request and remained in bed. Valdez called the police.

       Fredericksburg Police Officers Kraft, Rolleston, and Durham responded to the call. When

they arrived, they found Peters asleep in the bed. Peters smelled of alcohol, and the officers

repeatedly told him to gather his belongings and leave the facility, but Peters refused. Peters donned

headphones and avoided eye contact with the officers. The officers handcuffed Peters, who resisted

their attempts to escort him from the property.

       Peters acknowledged that he had left the facility for a couple of days, but he testified that his

personal property remained there, including his clothes, electronics, and medication. He claimed he

tried to contact the facility several times but was unable to reach them. He stated he returned

because he desired to retrieve his belongings and did not intend to stay. He asserted that he was

packing his clothes when he heard the police arrive, he “got upset,” and knew that he would “end up

going to jail,” so he “laid down.”

                                                  -2-
        After the trial court denied the renewal of his motion to strike made at the end of the

Commonwealth’s case, the jury found Peters guilty of trespassing. Peters appeals.1

                                               ANALYSIS

        Peters contends that “he had a good faith belief that he had a right to be on the premises”

because he still had his belongings in the facility. He asserts that “to be convicted under a plain

reading of the statute, he must have had either no authority [to] go to or remain on the property

. . . after having been forbidden to do so.”

                        If any person without authority of law goes upon or
                remains upon the lands, buildings or premises of another, or any
                portion or area thereof, after having been forbidden to do so, either
                orally or in writing, by the owner, lessee, custodian, or the agent of
                any such person, . . . he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Code § 18.2-119.

        Here, Peters signed an agreement which specifically informed him that if he missed curfew

or left for several days without notice, he would be forbidden from returning to the facility. He

acknowledged he knew and understood the rule. Further, after he scaled the locked fence and

entered the building through a door another resident left open while smoking a cigarette, Valdez

confronted Peters and ordered him to leave. Contrary to Peters’s claim that he only lay on the bed

after the police arrived, Valdez testified that when she went up to his room to speak with him, Peters

was already lying down. After she ordered him to gather his things and leave, Peters ignored her.

Even after the police arrived, Peters refused to cooperate and leave the premises. Peters was

informed orally and in writing that he was not allowed on the property. The fact that some of his

belongings remained at the facility did not grant him the right to enter the property without express

        1
         The Commonwealth asserts that Peters failed to make or renew a motion to strike after
putting on his own evidence, thereby waiving his sufficiency of the evidence claim under
Murillo-Rodriguez v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 64, 79-82 (2010). We will assume, without
deciding, that the objection is preserved.
                                             -3-
permission. Rather than surreptitiously sneaking into the building during the night, he could have

contacted the facility and asked for his belongings. Instead, Peters violated the express terms of the

agreement and ignored multiple requests to leave. The evidence fully supports Peters’s conviction

for trespassing under Code § 18.2-119.

                                           CONCLUSION

       For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                                                                             Affirmed.

                                                 -4-