Opinion
Record No. 0444-92-1
August 17, 1993
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF NORFOLK ALFRED W. WHITEHURST, JUDGE.
Christopher P. Shema (Christopher P. Shema, P.C., on brief), for appellant.
Robert B. Condon, Assistant Attorney General (Mary Sue Terry, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges Baker, Willis and Bray.
Argued at Norfolk, Virginia.
Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not designated for publication.
Norman Milton Bowman, Jr. (appellant) appeals from his bench trial conviction by the Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk (trial court) for distribution of cocaine. Appellant contends that the trial court committed reversible error by refusing to order the Commonwealth to produce a report prepared by an undercover police officer, by refusing to review that report in camera, or by failing to make the report a part of the appeal record. He further asserts that the trial court erred by refusing to order the Commonwealth to produce the originals or duplicates of the individual photographs used in a photographic line-up from which appellant was identified as the person who distributed cocaine.
"'On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable inferences fairly deducible therefrom. The judgment of a trial court sitting without a jury is entitled to the same weight as a jury verdict and will not be set aside unless it appears from the evidence that the judgment is plainly wrong or without evidence to support it.'" Josephs v. Commonwealth, 10 Va. App. 87, 99, 390 S.E.2d 491, 497 (1990) (en banc) (quoting Martin v. Commonwealth, 4 Va. App. 438, 443, 358 S.E.2d 415, 418 (1987) (citing Code § 8.01-680)). In our review, the judgment of the trial court is presumed correct and the burden is upon the party who alleges reversible error to show by the record that reversal is the remedy to which he is entitled. Johnson v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 391, 396, 404 S.E.2d 384, 387 (1991) (citations omitted).
Appellant's allegations of error first emanate from the testimony of Derek Young, an undercover police officer who identified appellant as the person from whom he purchased cocaine on March 9, 1990. Appellant contends that because he testified that he is six feet, two inches tall and weighs 194 pounds, the description contained in Young's report of the incident that gave appellant's height as five feet, eight inches was exculpatory. The failure to apprise him of the contents of Young's report in advance of trial, he asserts, was in violation of the Due Process Clause as interpreted by Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963),
Appellant made a motion to strike the Commonwealth's evidence, which the trial court denied. Appellant presented no evidence in his behalf.
Appellant argues that the evidence is insufficient to establish that he acted maliciously or with the intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill. We disagree. An assault with a bare fist may be attended with such circumstances of violence and brutality, as here, that an intent to maliciously wound will be presumed.See Roark v. Commonwealth, 182 Va. 244, 250, 28 S.E.2d 695-96 (1944); Williams v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 393, 395, 412 S.E.2d 202, 203 (1991). Moreover, malice and the specific intent to maim may be evidenced by words or inferred from acts and conduct. A person is presumed to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his voluntary act. Fletcher v. Commonwealth, 209 Va. 636, 640, 166 S.E.2d 269, 272-73 (1969).
We conclude from the record that the injury and attendant circumstances shown by the evidence are sufficient to support appellant's conviction for malicious wounding. Accordingly, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Affirmed.