Shaw v. Commonwealth
| Docket Number | 1349-22-4 |
| Decision Date | 23 January 2024 |
| Parties | JAMES D. SHAW, A/K/A ROSCOE JAMES SHAW v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
1
JAMES D. SHAW, A/K/A ROSCOE JAMES SHAW
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
No. 1349-22-4
Court of Appeals of Virginia
January 23, 2024
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF ARLINGTON COUNTY DANIEL S. FIORE, II, JUDGE [1]
sw Bradley R. Haywood, Chief Public Defender (Allison H. Carpenter, Deputy Public Defender, on briefs), for appellant.
Virginia B. Theisen, Senior Assistant Attorney General (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General; Tanner M. Russo, Assistant Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges Causey, Raphael and Senior Judge Clements Argued at Loudoun, Virginia
OPINION
STUART A. RAPHAEL, JUDGE
Virginia law makes it a Class 6 felony to conceal "a dead body . . . with malicious intent and to prevent detection of an unlawful act or to prevent the detection of the death or the manner or cause of death." Code § 18.2-323.02. A jury convicted Roscoe James Shaw of that offense after the battered, bloody, and bruised corpse of Shaw's romantic partner was found in the apartment they shared, wrapped up in a shower curtain and secured with duct tape that contained Shaw's DNA. After working with an accomplice for three days to clean up the apartment and get rid of the body, Shaw lied to police when questioned about his partner's whereabouts, telling a police officer that his partner was at the hospital recovering from a seizure.
Shaw raises multiple assignments of error, but we conclude that none warrants setting aside the conviction. We reject Shaw's claim that the Commonwealth failed to prove that he acted with "malicious intent." And we find no abuse of discretion by the trial court in excluding the mental-condition testimony of Shaw's expert psychologist. Construing the reach of Code § 19.2-271.6, enacted in 2021, we find that the trial court permissibly determined that the psychologist's testimony showed only that Shaw suffered impaired judgment, not that Shaw lacked the state of mind necessary to have "malicious intent" or to have purposefully concealed his partner's body from the police. So we affirm Shaw's conviction.
Background
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)). Doing so requires that we "discard" the defendant's evidence when it conflicts with the Commonwealth's evidence, "regard as true all the credible evidence favorable to the Commonwealth," and read "all fair inferences" in the Commonwealth's favor. Cady, 300 Va. at 329 (quoting Commonwealth v. Perkins, 295 Va. 323, 324 (2018)).
A. Fisher dies in Shaw's apartment.
In May 2020, Shaw (age 51) and James Fisher (age 31) were romantic partners who lived together in their one-bedroom apartment in Arlington. Shaw called Fisher his "husband," although they had not yet married.[2]
On Tuesday, May 5, Shaw and Fisher entertained several people in their apartment, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. The guests included Moika Christopher Nduku,
Jessica Walls, and one or two other friends. Shaw affectionately called Nduku his "nephew" and Jessica his "niece," although neither is a relative.
Fisher died sometime that evening, but the medical examiner classified the cause of death as "undetermined." The autopsy report showed that Fisher "sustained multiple blunt impact injuries of the head which resulted in multiple facial fractures, several of which were re-fractures and of similar nature to previously documented injuries from [an] assault sustained months prior." Fisher also suffered "blunt force trauma of the . . . torso, upper extremities and lower extremities." The medical examiner described the blunt-force trauma as "damage to the tissue caused by . . . essentially a solid, non-edged object."
The injuries were inflicted "hours" before Fisher died, not afterward. Still, the blunt-force trauma to Fisher's upper and lower extremities did not cause his death, though the medical examiner could not say if those injuries contributed to his death.
Fisher also suffered frequent epileptic seizures, and he had a history of not taking his seizure medication. The medical examiner found an injury to Fisher's tongue that might have been caused by seizing. Post-mortem testing found inadequate levels of seizure medication in Fisher's bloodstream, and the medical examiner could not rule out seizure as the cause of death.
At various times after Fisher's death, Shaw blamed Nduku for killing him. Nduku did not testify, and the record does not disclose his whereabouts. It is undisputed, however, that Fisher's body remained in Shaw and Fisher's apartment until the police discovered it late in the evening on Friday, May 8.
B. Shaw incriminates himself while hiding Fisher's body in his apartment.
A log of cellphone records showed that Shaw tried five times to reach Nduku between 5:00 a.m. and 6:10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 6-the day after Fisher was last seen alive. Nduku called Shaw at 6:43 a.m.; the call lasted a little more than three minutes. The log reflects more
than a dozen other calls and text messages between them that morning. Twelve hours later, at 11:37 p.m., Nduku texted Shaw, "Hey unk did u get merry maids yet? Or at least start the floors?" Shaw answered, "No."
Shaw called Nduku several times that evening. At 1:27 a.m. the next morning (Thursday, May 7), Nduku texted that he was "Otw." Ten hours later, at 11:31 a.m., Shaw texted Nduku, "Are you ok nephew," to which Nduku replied, "Yea[h] [I'm] okay are u ok?" Shaw responded that he felt "[a] little better," and "will be even better when this situation gets resolved." Two minutes later, Shaw texted, "You don't know of anyone with a truck that can help me move my furniture"? Nduku responded, "Nope."
Shortly after 2:00 p.m., Shaw texted Nduku, "What am I going to do I have to have this furniture moved by today," to which Nduku responded, "Throw them out if you [can't] move with them." Shaw answered that he needed "help moving this heavy ass shit." After 7:00 p.m., Shaw texted Nduku to call him, as "we still have to figure out the move." At 11:58 p.m., Shaw texted Nduku, "you know I need to see you asap." Nduku replied at 12:05 a.m. (Friday, March 8), saying he would "be over there soon." At 12:39 a.m., Nduku texted, "Open the door."
About 20 minutes later, at 12:58 a.m. Nduku texted, "Remem[b]er unk keep the ac on," to which Shaw replied, "I had it on all day." Nduku advised "50 or less." At 10:57 a.m. Friday morning, Shaw texted to Nduku, "Walking to you now." At 12:25 p.m., Shaw texted Nduku, "were you able to complete your mission"? Nduku answered, "F--- no"; he needed a "license." Shaw asked if he knew anyone who had one, to which Nduku replied that he was looking into it.
At about the same time, Shaw phoned and texted Denise Barnes, a four-year acquaintance who lived across the street, asking if she "knew anybody with a moving truck, a U-Haul truck." Barnes did not. She encountered Shaw at the bus stop later that day. Barnes said that Shaw "was crying, hysterical, talking about [wanting to] kill himself." When Shaw
walked out into the middle of the busy road, Barnes retrieved him, walked with him back to his apartment, and went inside with him. Barnes noticed a chair propped up against the bedroom door. Shaw told her to "stand back, wait a minute." He moved the chair and opened the door.
Looking into the bedroom, Barnes saw a "pile of clothing and blanket" on the floor. Shaw then started "kicking the blanket" and "spitting on it. He kept saying I hate you, I hate you." When Barnes asked, "what's going on," Shaw moved the blanket, revealing Fisher's dead body underneath.
Barnes was "shocked" and started to leave. But Shaw invited her to "look around" the apartment and asked, "didn't I clean the blood up well?" He said that "the only spot he couldn't clean . . . was . . . near the front door." That area was covered with a white sheet, which Shaw raised to reveal the stain underneath. Shaw also "said something about [having] to clean his husband's fingernails with bleach."
Shaw followed Barnes outside, and the two sat together on a bench in the apartment complex. Pulling out a Speed Stick deodorant, Shaw sniffed it, explaining: "so I don't have to smell the body." Shaw then asked Barnes "not to call the cops," urging her to give him "till Saturday to bury the body. Next to the apartment complex was a [trash] dumpster . . . . He says all he needed to do was find something to get the body into the dumpster." When Barnes got up to leave, Shaw asked her again not to call the police: "Give me till Saturday to call myself." She responded, "all right, all right," "okay, okay." But after she left, she phoned the police anyway.
Linda Allred, a friend of 20 years, testified that she had been trying for several days to get in touch with Shaw. He briefly visited her apartment sometime on the afternoon of Friday, May 8.[3] Shaw told her he had lied about his whereabouts for the past three days. He said that
"his nephew had beat[en] his boyfriend to death and that [Fisher] had been in the house dead for three days." Shaw asked if he could stay with Allred for a couple of days. She refused, told him to leave, and said she was calling the police. She did.
At 3:28 p.m. on Friday, Nduku texted Shaw, "Grab bleach soap and glove[s]." Shaw responded, "[I'm] trying to now."
Around 4:00 p.m., Arlington County Police Officer Taylor Williams went to Shaw's apartment for a welfare check. She was joined by Officers Jason Pardee and Kevin Roman. Officer Williams testified that the police had received a tip from a probation officer whose probationer reported "FaceTiming" with Shaw and that Shaw claimed to have "a dead body in his apartment." Officer Williams knew from a previous encounter that Shaw and Fisher were romantic partners....
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