Court Opinion

ID: 9583666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:00.853693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:33.550738
License: Public Domain

THOMPSON, J.,
concurring in dissent.
I concur in the dissent of Justice Stephenson and would like to add this.
The first sentence of the statute under consideration, Code § 29-144.2, defines the crime and prescribes the punishment. The second sentence lists certain physical facts from which the offense can be presumed. The third sentence defines activity from which the criminal agency can be presumed.
The majority opinion labels these presumptions as permissible inferences, but clearly indicates that guilt in the instant case can only result by adding one permissible inference to another.
In many cases this court has frowned upon the practice of basing an inference upon an inference, Kayh v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 424, 247 S.E.2d 696 (1978) and Doyle v. Commonwealth, 212 Va. 677, 187 S.E.2d 201 (1972). See also dissenting opinion in Southern States Coop. v. Doggett, 223 Va. 650, 659-660, 292 S.E.2d 331, 337 (1982), where it is stated:
In the present case, however, the jury verdict approved by the trial court depends entirely upon the pyramiding of inferences.
If the two criminal cases are still viable precedents, they would control in the instant case as both the offense and the criminal agency are bottomed upon permissible inferences.
In Friend, The Law of Evidence in Virginia § 91 at 234-35 (2d ed. 1983), Professor Friend indicates that this precedent was discarded by this court many years ago in C & O R.R. v. Ware, 122 Va. 246, 255, 95 S.E. 183, 186 (1918).
*47If the inference-upon-inference rule has been abandoned by this court, and I think that it has, this is an appropriate occasion to say so.