Calvin Elton Clark v. Commonwealth of Virginia

CourtCourt of Appeals of Virginia
DecidedAugust 1, 2023
Docket0880222
StatusUnpublished

This text of Calvin Elton Clark v. Commonwealth of Virginia (Calvin Elton Clark v. Commonwealth of Virginia) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Calvin Elton Clark v. Commonwealth of Virginia, (Va. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA UNPUBLISHED

Present: Judges Ortiz, Chaney and Senior Judge Haley Argued by videoconference

CALVIN ELTON CLARK MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY v. Record No. 0880-22-2 JUDGE JAMES W. HALEY, JR. AUGUST 1, 2023 COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF CHESTERFIELD COUNTY Steven C. McCallum, Judge

Gregory R. Sheldon (BainSheldon, PLC, on brief), for appellant.

David A. Stock, Assistant Attorney General (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General; Leah A. Darron, Senior Assistant Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

Calvin E. Clark appeals his conviction, following a jury trial, for second-degree murder, in

violation of Code § 18.2-32.1 Clark asserts that his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses

was violated when a witness testified while wearing a mask and that the evidence is insufficient to

sustain his conviction. For the following reasons, we disagree and affirm Clark’s conviction.

BACKGROUND

On appeal, “we review the evidence in the ‘light most favorable’ to the Commonwealth.”

Clanton v. Commonwealth, 53 Va. App. 561, 564 (2009) (en banc) (quoting Commonwealth v.

Hudson, 265 Va. 505, 514 (2003)). That principle requires us to “discard the evidence of the

accused in conflict with that of the Commonwealth, and regard as true all the credible evidence

favorable to the Commonwealth and all fair inferences that may be drawn therefrom.” Kelly v.

* This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A). 1 Clark was also charged with, but acquitted of, abduction with the intent to defile. Commonwealth, 41 Va. App. 250, 254 (2003) (en banc) (quoting Watkins v. Commonwealth, 26

Va. App. 335, 348 (1998)).

In April 2020, Walter Newcomb visited his sister, Pamela Newcomb, in Richmond. In the

morning of April 19, 2020, Lewis Clack, Pamela’s neighbor, and Clark were at the residence

socializing. Lewis testified that he had only met Clark once before, but Clark approached him and

inquired about splitting the cost of drugs. Lewis agreed, and the pair drove in a gold car with a

black back fender to purchase crack cocaine.

After Lewis and Clark procured cocaine, they encountered a woman they knew as “Truck.”2

They asked Truck if she needed a ride home; she accepted. When the trio arrived at Truck’s

residence, they began smoking cocaine. Clark left and returned to Truck’s residence with Pamela.

The group decided to continue their activities in a hotel room. Before leaving, Lewis

overheard Clark and Pamela arguing about forty dollars. The group traveled in the gold vehicle,

stopping at a Food Lion along the way. In surveillance stills from the Food Lion video, Lewis

identified himself as the man in the white shirt and Clark as the man in the red shirt. Lewis

explained that he bought cigarettes and withdrew $150 in cash. This transaction occurred between

6:08 p.m. and 6:11 p.m.

The group then drove to the Delux Motel, a short distance from the Food Lion. Security

camera footage from a nearby store confirmed that the gold vehicle with a black back fender arrived

at 6:14 p.m. A receipt from Lewis’s transaction with the motel confirms that Lewis paid for a room

at 6:19 p.m. Lewis, Clark, and Truck then entered the rented room. Meanwhile, Pamela went to the

room next door because she knew several of the occupants. Lewis and Clark followed Pamela and

found her explaining to the room’s occupants that Clark owed her money. Lewis stated he did not

know the room’s occupants and that he and Clark left and returned to his rented room.

2 Law enforcement never learned Truck’s legal name. -2- When Pamela rejoined Lewis, Clark, and Truck, she remained upset with Clark and

continued to demand that Clark pay her forty dollars. Lewis attempted to pacify Pamela by offering

to pay her the money Clark owed, but Pamela refused. Eventually, Pamela requested to go home

and left with Clark. On surveillance video, at 6:57 p.m., a gold vehicle with a black back fender can

be seen leaving the Delux Motel.

Around 7:15 p.m. that evening, Rusty Nuckols was walking his dog in the Holiday Bowl

parking lot when he saw a bluish-silver car with mismatched front and back fenders come from

behind the building. The vehicle caught his attention because it sped over a large pothole and up the

road. He described the driver as a “sweating” “black male . . . wearing a ball cap.” Nuckols

acknowledged that he observed the vehicle for only twenty seconds and that he was colorblind. He

explained that he has difficulty distinguishing between colors of a similar hue but that he could

differentiate between light and dark colors.

Nuckols continued to walk his dog in the direction the vehicle had come, and when he

arrived behind the building several minutes later, he discovered a woman lying face down in the

grass. Nuckols called to her, but she did not respond. Nuckols immediately called 911 at 7:36 p.m.

Before Nuckols testified, Clark’s trial counsel asserted, “I think the jurors need to be able

to see Mr. Nuckols’[s] face so that they can judge his credibility, which is part of your facial

expressions.” Trial counsel then “respectfully ask[ed], since [Nuckols was] socially distanced,

that he remove his mask.” The trial court left the decision of whether to remove the mask to

Nuckols, who chose to keep his mask on.3

Also at 7:36 p.m., the gold vehicle with the black back fender returned to the Delux Motel.

When Clark returned, Lewis noticed that Clark was sweating and “had some scratch marks on his

3 The record is unclear how Nuckols’s mask covered his face. At oral argument, Clark’s appellate counsel conceded that the mask was likely covering the bridge of Nuckols’s nose to his mouth as was customary during the COVID-19 pandemic. -3- arm” that were bleeding. When asked about the scratches, Clark stated that Pamela had “tried to

fight him in front of all the people that [were] standing outside” her home.

Meanwhile, Chesterfield County Police Officers Rizzo and Balducci arrived at the Holiday

Bowl at 7:41 p.m. and found Pamela face down in a multicolored dress, the bottom third of which

was wet. Pajama pants were at her ankles, and several of her blue acrylic nails were missing. She

had scrapes and blood on her fingers, hands, and knees, a horizonal ligature mark around her neck,

and blood around her nose and mouth. After talking with Nuckols, Detective Waggoner determined

that they were looking for a “very unique vehicle.”

Medical Examiner Dr. Crystal VanDusen testified that Pamela had traces of

methamphetamine, cocaine, and their metabolites in her system. A petechial hemorrhage was found

in her right lower eyelid. Dr. VanDusen explained that petechial hemorrhages occur when there’s

increased intravascular pressure in the area the hemorrhage forms. Dr. VanDusen noted that there

was blood in Pamela’s nose and that she had “a horizontal red mark across [her] neck” as well as

red abrasions and contusions on different parts of her neck. There were “fractures in the hyoid bone

and thyroid cartilage, and hemorrhage of the neck muscles, including the sternum, the mastoid

muscle.” Dr. VanDusen determined that “[t]his trauma is consistent with strangulation.”

After Clark left the motel, Lewis went to the room next door and asked the occupants if they

had heard from Pamela; they had not. When walking back to his room, Lewis noticed that the gold

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