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Malicious Wounding Charge in Prince George Virginia Results in Not Guilty Verdict

A Virginia man was found not guilty today by a Prince George County circuit court judge after enduring seven months of fear, stress, regularly reporting to probation officers, and being confined to his home each night at 9:00 p.m.

His ordeal began when he was apparently mistaken for someone else by another young man who had been drinking steadily for several hours. Ultimately, the two came to argue when the complainant blocked the roadway, cursed the defendant, and began kicking the side of the defendant's car and tearing off side-moulding, and refused to stop. The defendant hit the complaint with his fist once, knocking hiim out. The punch also broke the complainant's jaw.

The defendant then drive away from the area and telephoned police to report the incident. After speaking to the defendant, and to three witnesses (including the complainant), the police declined to press charges. However, the complainant later obtained a malicious wounding warrant from a magistrate, by leaving out of his affidavit critical information that he had also failed to tell the police -- that he had done "significant or serious" damage to the defendant's car before te blow was struck. The defendant was arrersted on that charge, a Class 3 felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

At the preliminary hearing, the Commonwealth admitted the Complainant had earlier lied to the police by concealing from them his attacks on the defendant's car. However, the Commonwealth maintained that the defendant was still guilty of malicious wounding. The district court judge disagreed and certified the charge to the grand jury as "unlawful wounding," which reduced the penalty upon conviction from 5 years to life to 1 to 5 years.

At the conclusion of the Commonwealth's evidence, the trial judge granted the defense motion to strike the felony count, but allowed the case to proceed on a misdemeanor assault and battery charge, which is a lesser included offense of unlawful wounding. In essence, the court found that the Commonwealth had not met its burden beyond a reasonable doubt to show that the defendant had intended to "maim, or disfigure" the complainant when he struck him.

The defense rested without putting on any evidence and the outcome hinged on the final arguments.

The court was persuaded that the defendant had not acted unlawfully by striking the complainant with his bare fist to prevent him from further damaging his BMW when other means of persuassion were unsuccesful.