Spradlin v. Com.
| Decision Date | 25 January 1954 |
| Citation | 195 Va. 523,79 S.E.2d 443 |
| Parties | ROY SPRADLIN AND FRANK JACKSON v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
T. W. Messick and Morton Honeyman, for the plaintiffs in error.
J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., Attorney General and C. F. Hicks, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
These two cases, by consent of the Commonwealth and the defendants, were heard together by a jury on two joint indictments under the maiming statute, Code, § 18-70; one charging that Roy Spradlin and Frank Jackson feloniously and maliciously assaulted one Charles M. Hamilton, and the other in identical language charging such assault upon one Gordon H. Richards.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty to each indictment and at the trial relied on an alibi as their defense. The jury resolved the conflicts in the evidence adversely to the defendants and by its verdicts found each defendant guilty of assault and battery under each of the two indictments and fixed punishment at nine months in jail and a fine of $250.00 on each indictment. On these verdicts the court entered judgments on February 20, 1953, and sentenced the defendants.
This writ of error brings here for review those judgments of conviction. The only question properly presented by sufficient assignments of error is whether the evidence supports the verdicts.
Under an indictment charging felonious and malicious maiming with intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill, the jury, if warranted by the evidence, may find the accused guilty of (1) malicious wounding with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill; or (2) unlawful wounding with the same intent; or (3) simple assault and battery. Crutchfield v. Commonwealth, 187 Va. 291, 46 S.E. (2d) 340; Honaker v. Commonwealth, 136 Va. 752, 118 S.E. 85. See Williams v. Commonwealth, 153 Va. 987, 151 S.E. 151. Therefore, the jury's verdicts finding the defendants guilty of assault and battery were proper under the two indictments, if supported by evidence establishing defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Charles M. Hamilton testified that around 8:15 p.m., on September 25, 1952, while he and Gordon H. Richards were sitting in a booth at the Steak House, a restaurant in the city of Roanoke, Virginia, one of the defendants, later identified by Hamilton as Roy Spradlin, came to the booth which they occupied and asked Hamilton why he had cursed him. When Hamilton, who did not know Spradlin and had never seen him before, replied that he had not done so, Spradlin struck him. A scuffle then ensued in which four or five men, including the defendants, joined in pushing and shoving Hamilton and Richards out of the restaurant into a parking lot.
Hamilton testified that
The testimony of Richards was substantially the same as that of Hamilton. He stated, however, that:
After the fight the assailants drove away together in an automobile which had been parked nearby. Richards was left lying unconscious on the ground with his face badly beaten and a cut around his eye that required four stitches. Hamilton received a cut on his forehead; his ribs and back were bruised and he missed two days from work as a result of the attack. About two months later Hamilton recognized the defendants as two of those who had participated in the assault on Richards and himself and obtained warrants for their arrest.
It is conceded that the evidence is sufficient to warrant the conviction of Spradlin for the offense of assault and battery on Hamilton, but it is contended that the evidence is wholly insufficient to warrant his conviction of the offense of assault and battery on Richards. It is also contended that the evidence is wholly insufficient to warrant the conviction of Jackson of any offense. These contentions are based on the theory that conviction of the crimes charged in the indictments must be supported by evidence of actual violence inflicted by each defendant on both Hamilton and Richards. The Commonwealth, however, insists that even if the evidence is insufficient to show that Spradlin and Jackson were both guilty of violence against each of the persons assaulted, it is sufficient to show that they were present, aiding and abetting in the commission of the assault and therefore criminally responsible as charged in the indictments.
The applicable law which has been reaffirmed by this court in many cases is stated by Judge Kelly in Brown v. Commonwealth, 130 Va. 733, 736, 107 S.E. 809, 810, 16 A.L.R. 1039, as follows:
''A principal in the second degree is one not the perpetrator, but present, aiding and abetting the act done, or keeping watch or guard at some convenient distance.' Minor's Synopsis Crim. Law, page 11. See also Horton's Case, 99 Va. 848, 38 S.E. 184.
''Every person who is present at the commission of a trespass, encouraging or inciting the same by words, gestures, looks or signs, or who in any way, or by any means, countenances or approves the same, is, in law, assumed to be an aider and abettor, and is liable as principal.' Plaintiff's Instr. No. 1 in Daingerfield v. Thompson, 33 Gratt. (74 Va.) 136, 148, 36 Am.Rep. 783, approved by this court as the law.
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Goodwin v. Commonwealth
...and bound by the acts of every other person connected with the consummation of such resulting crime." (quoting Spradlin v. Commonwealth, 195 Va. 523, 528, 79 S.E.2d 443 (1954) )). However, the evidence supports the trial court’s finding that the jury could have determined that the appellant......
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Shaikh v. Commonwealth, Record No. 2614-03-4 (VA 1/25/2005)
...(3d ed. 2002).8 To be sure, the text of what later became the model concert of action instruction comes from Spradlin v. Commonwealth, 195 Va. 523, 528, 79 S.E.2d 443, 445 (1954). See Rollston v. Commonwealth, 11 Va. App. 535, 543, 399 S.E.2d 823, 827 (1991). In Spradlin, the Virginia Supre......
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