Daniel Gordon Anderson v. Commonwealth of Virginia

Citations: 819 S.E.2d 857; 69 Va. App. 396Docket: 1228171

Court: Court of Appeals of Virginia; November 5, 2018; Virginia; State Appellate Court

Original Court Document: View Document

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Daniel Gordon Anderson was convicted of voluntary manslaughter following a jury trial in the Circuit Court of Virginia Beach. Anderson appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by excluding part of the victim's prior criminal record, which he claimed was relevant to his self-defense argument. The pertinent facts indicate that Anderson, who was having an affair with the victim's wife, stabbed the victim during a physical altercation on September 3, 2016, resulting in the victim's death. 

Anderson sought to introduce evidence of ten prior criminal charges and convictions against the victim to demonstrate a propensity for violence, arguing that these supported his self-defense claim. The charges included various assault, firearm, and intoxication-related offenses. The Commonwealth acknowledged the relevance of two specific convictions but objected to the others, asserting they did not sufficiently indicate violent behavior. The circuit court ruled that dismissed charges were inadmissible without further evidence and similarly found the victim's larceny conviction inadmissible without additional context. Ultimately, the court allowed the victim's 2012 DUI and public intoxication convictions to be admitted as evidence. The appellate court affirmed Anderson's conviction.

The circuit court determined that the evidence did not adequately support the admission of the victim’s concealed weapon convictions from 1998 and 1999. The jury was presented with the victim's more recent convictions, including a 2013 assault and 1996 brandishing a firearm, along with testimony about the victim's violent behavior and heavy alcohol use. Witnesses described the victim as a “miserable, nasty drunk” with a history of aggression, corroborated by his autopsy report indicating a blood alcohol content of 0.157% at his death. Anderson recounted a prior altercation where the victim threatened him with a knife.

Anderson was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and subsequently appealed, arguing that the excluded convictions were pertinent to demonstrating the victim's violent character, which he believed supported his self-defense claim. The appellate court referenced Virginia Rule of Evidence 2:404(a)(2), which allows admission of evidence regarding a victim's character for violence in self-defense cases, provided the evidence is relevant and temporally connected to the events in question. However, the court upheld the trial court's decision, emphasizing that the evidence of the victim's prior acts must be sufficiently related in time and circumstance to be relevant to the defendant's experience of reasonable apprehension. The court applied an abuse of discretion standard in reviewing the trial court's evidentiary decisions, affirming that the exclusion of the earlier convictions did not constitute an abuse of discretion.

When a defendant claims self-defense, the trial court has discretion regarding the admissibility of the victim's prior acts of violence. The reviewing court assesses whether the trial court's decision is supported by the record without substituting its judgment. In this case, the circuit court allowed four of the victim's prior convictions but excluded six others that were significantly old (17 to 20 years prior to the current incident) and did not demonstrate the victim's violent behavior. Specifically, dismissed assault charges from 1996 to 1999 did not establish the victim's propensity for violence, as they could have been dismissed for various reasons, including potential self-defense. The circuit court noted that although a witness could testify about these dismissed charges, the defendant, Anderson, failed to present any witness or evidence to substantiate the allegations, relying only on a document listing the dismissed charges without context. This left the court with insufficient evidence to suggest the victim had a history of violent behavior. Additionally, the victim's 1999 larceny conviction did not indicate violent conduct, as it could have resulted from a lack of violence during the commission of the act. Similarly, the victim's concealed weapon convictions did not imply violent behavior as simply carrying a concealed weapon is not inherently violent. Consequently, without evidence linking these convictions to violent conduct, the trial court appropriately excluded them.

Excluded charges and convictions were largely cumulative to evidence already presented at Anderson's trial, which included the victim's prior convictions for assault, brandishing a firearm, driving while intoxicated, and public intoxication. Additional evidence portrayed the victim as an aggressive alcoholic who had previously threatened Anderson with a knife and was angered by Anderson's affair with his wife on the night of the stabbing. Given this context, the excluded evidence would not have significantly bolstered Anderson's defense. The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to admit these charges, as they did not demonstrate the victim's propensity for violence relevant to Anderson's self-defense claim. The court had already allowed several of the victim's prior convictions and other evidence supporting his violent tendencies. Consequently, Anderson's conviction is affirmed.