Lockhart v. Commonwealth

The disposition of this appeal is controlled, in my opinion, by application of the rules governing the admissibility of character evidence. See Gravely v. Commonwealth, 13 Va. App. 560, 562-64, 414 S.E.2d 190, 191-92 (1992). The prosecution’s evidence of the defendant’s prior drug sale was, at best, an attempt to impeach the defendant’s evidence of his good character, i.e., that he had not possessed illegal drugs when searched on occasions before his arrest for this offense. Rebuttal evidence of a defendant’s *274“good character for the trait involved in the particular prosecution” is admissible…