JUDGE JERE M. H. WILLIS, JR.
On appeal, Jason Alan Mason contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction of obstruction of justice and that the trial court erred in denying his motion to strike the evidence. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Code § 18.2-460(A) provides:
If any person without just cause knowingly obstructs . . . any law-enforcement officer in the performance of his duties as such . . . , he shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
On appeal of a criminal conviction, we view the evidence "in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, granting to it all reasonable inferences fairly deducible therefrom."Brown v. Commonwealth, 27 Va. App. 111, 113, 497 S.E.2d 527, 528 (1998).
On the evening of October 27, 1997, Officers Moore and Gentry of the Fredericksburg Police Department responded to a domestic complaint at 1612 Charles Street. At that location, a citizen complained that two men in the front yard of the house at 1700 Charles Street had threatened him and that a man wearing a leather jacket had made a gesture suggesting that he had a gun. The officers approached 1700 Charles Street to investigate the complaint and entered the unfenced front yard. In the yard were several men, including Mason and another man, who was wearing a leather jacket. The officers asked the man wearing the leather jacket to approach so that they could talk to him. Mason became belligerent, demanding that the officers leave "his" yard. His demands were put forth in such a loud and obstreperous manner that the officers were unable to communicate with the man wearing the leather jacket. After warning Mason several times to cease interfering with their effort to question the man wearing the leather jacket, the officers arrested him for obstructing justice.
On appeal, Mason contends that 1700 Charles Street was his home, that the officers had no right to come onto his yard, and that he had the right to demand that they leave. At trial, Mason testified that he had asserted no ownership interest in the property and that he had not demanded that the officers leave. He testified that he had simply advised the other men, who were his friends, not to leave the yard, lest they be arrested for drunk in public.
The Commonwealth argues that Mason's contention on appeal cannot rise above his trial testimony and that he cannot successfully argue on appeal that his interchange with the officers was simply a defense of his privacy right in his yard. In ruling on Mason's motion to strike the evidence, the trial court rejected this argument, accepted the testimony of the Commonwealth's witnesses, and ruled that regardless of Mason's status in the yard, he had no right to interfere with the officers' lawful investigation of a citizen complaint. We take the same approach to the case. If Mason's account be accepted, he did nothing more than advise his friends to remain in his yard, conduct which would not support the charge. The testimony of the police officers cannot be sectioned so as to eliminate their description of Mason's strident and vituperative demands that they leave. Thus, we base our decision on the police officers' testimony, as plainly did the trial court and the jury.
The officers received a citizen complaint of angry confrontation and the apparent threat of a handgun. This potentially lethal situation presented an exigency that demanded immediate investigation and justified their entry for purposes of inquiry into the front yard of 1700 Charles Street. Mason did more than ask that they leave. He injected himself between the officers and the man with whom they sought to speak, plainly intending and accomplishing interference with the proper performance of the officers' duties. Credible evidence of this conduct supports Mason's conviction.See Code § 18.2-460(A); Woodson v. Commonwealth, 245 Va. 401, 406, 429 S.E.2d 27, 30 (1993).
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
Affirmed.