Williams v. Com.

Summary

The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the Court of Appeals' judgment upholding Ricky C. Williams' bench-trial conviction for possession of methadone with intent to distribute. Applying the standard that a bench-trial judgment will not be disturbed unless plainly wrong or without evidence to support it, the court concluded that the totality of the circumstantial evidence—possession of three disparate drugs, a heroin quantity inconsistent with personal use, the methadone's packaging in plastic bag corners, and an aggregate street value an unemployed user could not afford—supported the finding of intent to distribute. The court declined to reach Williams' argument that testing only one of ten tablets left a reasonable hypothesis of innocence, holding instead that the trial court was entitled to consider all the evidence and was not limited to the number of tablets tested.