Virginia Appeals Court to Prosecutors: Lending Your Wife’s Car Doesn’t Make You an Accomplice to Murder

Written by: Sam Orlando

ROANOKE, VIRGINIA — In a sharply worded opinion that stops just short of asking "Are you serious?", the Virginia Court of Appeals has reversed the murder conviction of Alsharrief Malik Mahoney, who prosecutors said helped kill his cousin—mostly by possibly letting someone borrow his wife’s car.

Mahoney was convicted last year of being a “principal in the second degree” to the murder of Jaleel Tate—meaning he didn’t pull the trigger, wasn’t at the scene during the shooting, and may not have even known it was going to happen. But hey, he did drive away in the same car as the shooter afterward, and that was apparently enough.

Or at least it was until the appellate court got involved and asked the age-old legal question:

“Is that it?”

Let’s walk through the Commonwealth’s airtight theory.

First, someone—identity unknown—shot Tate while he sat in his Mazda outside the Panorama Apartments. The shooter then fled in a white Chevrolet Lumina. A witness said the man wore a white shirt. Enter Mahoney, whose wife owns a white Lumina and who, in the grand tradition of suspicious timing, showed up after the shooting and left in the passenger seat of the same vehicle.

Add in a cryptic dying statement from the victim—he said “my brother did it,” but that could’ve referred to either Mahoney or a guy literally nicknamed “Sha” who lived with him—and you have all the makings of a classic courtroom whodunit, minus the actual evidence.

The prosecution argued that Mahoney’s only crime was letting someone use the Lumina and not immediately calling 911. The appeals court, presumably after blinking twice and checking that was indeed the Commonwealth’s full argument, reminded everyone that suspicion is not a substitute for proof.

“There is no evidence that Mahoney lent the Lumina to the shooter for the specific purpose of shooting Tate,” the court wrote. Translation: you need more than "he was nearby, and we don't like the vibes."

The court also referenced a 1997 case where a woman let a killer hop in her car post-murder—and still wasn’t guilty, because helping someone after a crime doesn’t mean you knew about it before. Imagine that: intent matters in criminal law.

Mahoney’s conviction is now vacated, and the case is closed. As for the Commonwealth, they’ll have to look elsewhere for carpool-related conspiracies.

Maybe next time they’ll bring a map, a motive, and—just maybe—a murder plan that wasn’t based on the cousin’s wife’s cousin’s car.