Woodard v. Commonwealth, 754 S.E.2d 309

Timothy Woodard was convicted after a bench trial of (1) possession with intent to distribute MDMA, (2) sale of MDMA, and (3) felony murder based on a purchaser's death from ingesting the MDMA Woodard sold.
At sentencing the Commonwealth proposed guidelines treating felony murder as the primary offense; Woodard argued the sale felony should be primary, yielding lower guidelines.
The circuit court accepted the Commonwealth’s guidelines but expressly considered and deviated from both parties’ guideline calculations and sentenced Woodard on each felony (all within statutory ranges).
Woodard appealed only the sufficiency of the felony murder conviction; the Court of Appeals reversed the felony murder conviction but declined to remand for resentencing on the remaining drug convictions as outside the scope of his assignment of error.
The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed, holding the discretionary sentencing guidelines provide no basis for mandated resentencing and that Woodard suffered no reviewable injury from differing guideline calculations.

Issue	Woodard's Argument	Commonwealth's Argument	Held
Whether Court of Appeals erred by not remanding for resentencing after reversing felony murder	Remand required because sentencing guidelines would differ without felony murder as primary offense	No remand required; guidelines are discretionary and circuit court’s original sentencing was within statutory bounds	Affirmed: no remand; discretionary guidelines do not mandate resentencing
Whether sentencing court abused its discretion in imposing sentences on each felony	Sentencing should reflect lower guidelines tied to sale/possession primary offense	Sentences were within statutory limits and court considered each offense separately	No abuse of discretion; each sentence permissible
Whether discretionary guidelines create a reviewable injury when they would differ post-reversal	Different guideline calculation constitutes injury warranting resentencing	Guidelines are advisory only; difference is not reviewable under statute and precedent	Difference is not a basis for post-conviction relief
Whether Woodard’s appellate assignments preserved resentencing claim for Court of Appeals review	Argued relitigation/remand in petition’s relief section warranted consideration	Court of Appeals and concurring justice: issue was not properly assigned below	Majority assumed scope but resolved on merits; concurrence would have dismissed for lack of proper assignment

Starrs v. Commonwealth, 287 Va. 1 (discussing sentencing as legislative province and limits on court authority)
Hinton v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 492 (sentencing assessment is judicial function)
Rawls v. Commonwealth, 272 Va. 334 (sentence within statutory maximum reviewed for abuse of discretion)
West v. Director, Dep’t of Corr., 273 Va. 56 (discretionary sentencing guidelines cannot support post-conviction relief)
Findlay v. Commonwealth, 287 Va. 111 (appellate review of statutory and rule interpretation is de novo)
Amin v. County of Henrico, 286 Va. 231 (procedural rule requiring assignments of error in petition)
Singh v. Mooney, 261 Va. 48 (limited exception for challenges to judgments void ab initio)