Hughes v. Commonwealth

446 S.E.2d 451, 18 Va. App. 510, 10 Va. Law Rep. 1564, 1994 Va. App. LEXIS 396

• Court: Court of Appeals of Virginia
• Decided: June 21, 1994
• Docket: Record No. 1135-91-4
• Status: Published

Opinions

Coleman, J.,

concurring.

As a member of the panel that first considered Caleb Hughes’s appeal, I voted to reverse his conviction on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he intended to defile the female child when he abducted her. See Hughes v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. App. 587, 602, 431 S.E.2d 906, 922 (1993). I am now persuaded that this view was incorrect. I erroneously concluded that, because the evidence did not exclude an intent by Hughes to commit acts against the child other than to defile her, the evidence was insufficient to prove the charged crime. I am now persuaded that by applying the correct legal principles, the evidence is sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Caleb Hughes intended to defile the child when he abducted her. Because my vote is pivotal to decide this issue en banc, I write separately in order to explain the reasons that compel me to change my vote.

I joined in the panel’s majority decision to reverse the conviction for abduction with the intent to defile because the evidence “did [not] eliminate other possible motives” for the abduction. Id. at 587, 431 S.E.2d at 913. I reasoned that because the evidence and inferences reasonably deducible therefrom equally supported the conclusion that Hughes may have intended other unlawful acts against the child, in addition to the intent to defile her, the Commonwealth had not satisfied its burden of proving the specific intent to defile, to the exclusion of an abduction for other purposes. More specifically, I reasoned that because the evidence was as susceptible to a reasonable inference that Hughes abducted the child intending to kill her, rather than to sexually molest her, the conviction could not stand.

I was wrong. Where specific intent is an element of an offense, particularly where it is the element that differentiates the degree of the crime, the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused at the time harbored that specific intention. Ridley v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 834, 836, 252 S.E.2d 313, 314 (1979). The proof cannot leave indifferent what the accused may have intended. Id. However, a person often acts with two or more criminal intentions. A person may commit a crime with more than one purpose, and the fact that the act is done with two or more specific objectives does not mean that the Commonwealth has failed to prove the specific intent to commit the charged crime. Thus, when the Commonwealth proves beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused has committed a criminal act with both a primary and a secondary purpose in mind, both or either of which purposes are criminal, the Commonwealth has met its burden of proving the element of specific intent. See, e.g., United States v. Snow, 507 F.2d 22, 24 (7th Cir. 1974); O’Neal v. United States, 240 F.2d 700, 702 (10th Cir. 1957). By proving that an accused harbored two or more specific criminal intents, the Commonwealth has excluded every reasonable hypothesis of “innocence.” It is only where the proof leaves indifferent what the purpose or intentions of the accused were that the Commonwealth’s proof fails or is insufficient to establish the element of specific intent. The Commonwealth satisfies its burden of proof when it establishes that the accused had the specific intent to commit the crime charged, even though the proof may equally support an inference that the accused intended to commit, or did commit, the crime with other purposes in mind, some of which may not have been criminal. See id.

Although I was unpersuaded by that part of the panel’s opinion which held the evidence and reasonable inferences that could be drawn therefrom “did [not] eliminate other possible motives,” such as “to extort money,” or “for the purpose of concubinage or prostitution,” or “parental abduction,” Hughes, 16 Va. App. at 587, 431 S.E.2d at 913, I concluded that because the child had never been found, the evidence and reasonable inferences equally supported the conclusion that Hughes abducted the child and killed her. See Epperly v. Commonwealth, 224 Va. 214, 229, 294 S.E.2d 882, 891 (1982). Applying this same line of reasoning, I concluded that, because the evidence equally supported the inference of an intent to kill, the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt an intent to defile. I did not fully agree with the reasoning in the panel’s opinion that the evidence equally supported the other possible motives that Hughes may have had for abducting the child, because neither the circumstances that existed between the accused and the victim nor any other evidence in the record tended to prove that Caleb Hughes may have had extortion, parental kidnapping, selling children, concubinage, or prostitution as reasons for abducting the child. Nevertheless, because I found that the evidence supported the conclusion that Hughes abducted the child intending to kill her, as strongly as that he intended to defile her, I erroneously concluded that the Commonwealth had failed to exclude every reasonable hypothesis except that Hughes was guilty of abduction with the intent to defile.

For the reasons stated in the en banc opinion, I agree that the evidence and inferences that reasonably can be drawn from a man abducting a young girl who was a stranger to him, and who has not been seen since, when considered in light of all the surrounding circumstances, proved that Hughes abducted the child for the purpose of sexually molesting her, even though he may have had other reasons for the abduction.

For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the decision to affirm Caleb Hughes’s conviction for abduction with intent to defile.