Highsmith v. Com.

• Decision Date: 19 August 1997
• Docket Number: No. 1120-96-4,1120-96-4
• Citation: 25 Va.App. 434,489 S.E.2d 239
• Parties: Charles A. HIGHSMITH, Jr. v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia. Record
• Court: Virginia Court of Appeals

Page 239

489 S.E.2d 239

25 Va.App. 434

Charles A. HIGHSMITH, Jr. v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Record No. 1120-96-4.

Court of Appeals of Virginia Alexandria.

Aug. 19, 1997.

Robert R. Sparks, Jr., McLean (Matthew Scott McConnell; Herge, Sparks & Christopher, on briefs), for appellant.

(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General; John K. Byrum, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.

Present: FITZPATRICK and OVERTON, JJ., and DUFF, Senior Judge.

FITZPATRICK, Judge.

On March 21, 1996, Charles A. Highsmith, Jr. (appellant) was convicted by the Circuit Court of Arlington County (trial court) in a jury trial of driving while intoxicated (DWI) in violation of Code § 18.2-266. The sole issue on appeal is whether the general district court's (district court) pretrial dismissal of the DWI warrant precluded the Commonwealth, under the doctrine of res judicata or the related plea of autrefois acquit, from indicting appellant for the same offense. For the following reasons, we reverse the decision of the trial court.

BACKGROUND

In the early morning hours of May 7, 1995, appellant was stopped for a suspected DWI. He was given a blood test that showed his blood alcohol content exceeded the statutory limit. Appellant was then charged by warrant with driving while intoxicated in violation of "Section 14.2-1/18.2-266, Code or Ordinances of this city, county, or town." Additionally, appellant's operator's license was suspended pursuant to the administrative license suspension (ALS) provisions of Code § 46.2-391.2.

On May 11, 1995, the district court ruled on appellant's motion to review the suspension of his license under Code § 46.2-391.2(C). The district court determined that the police did not have probable cause to arrest appellant, restored appellant's driving privileges, and returned his license.

On June 6, 1995, the district court heard argument on appellant's motion to dismiss the DWI warrant, in which appellant contended that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the doctrine of collateral estoppel barred further prosecution for DWI subsequent to the suspension of his driver's license. By letter opinion and order dated June 16, 1995, the district court found as follows:

It simply cannot be said that the DWI and ALS are part of a single, unified proceeding.... Despite the fact that they start at approximately the same time, they result in two separate but independent proceedings.

The district court further concluded that "the sanction of ALS constitutes punishment" and the subsequent prosecution for DWI was not punishment "meted out as a part of a single proceeding." ¹ Accordingly, the district court granted appellant's motion to dismiss, citing the Double Jeopardy Clause's prohibition against multiple punishments for the same offense.

After the district court's dismissal, appellant was indicted on August 21, 1995 by a circuit court grand jury for the same DWI My problem was the word dismissal, as to whether that was a trial, whether it equaled a trial on the merits, whether it was a verdict, whether it did in fact end any attempt by the Commonwealth to do what the defendant said was an end run and indirect appeal, if you will, by indicting in the Circuit Court on the dismissed charges.

offense. Appellant filed a new motion to dismiss. On February 7, 1996, the trial court denied appellant's motion to dismiss for the following reasons:

The defense counsel in each of these cases submitted authorities.... The Court[ ][has] considered it at great length and concludes that [the district court's] decision was not a verdict. It was never a dismissal on the merits. It did not put the defendants in the jeopardy that would justify double jeopardy plea.

Therefore, the motion to dismiss is denied in all pending cases in which they are under advisement.

Appellant was convicted of DWI on March 21, 1996.

RES JUDICATA

First, appellant contends that the doctrine of res judicata bars his later indictment on the identical charge that was dismissed by the general district court. Appellant argues that because the doctrine of collateral estoppel applies in criminal proceedings, so too does res judicata, as both doctrines are based on the conclusiveness of a court's judgment and the estoppel effect of the judgment. ² The application of res judicata in a criminal context is an issue of first impression in Virginia.

Res judicata is a judicially created doctrine founded upon the "considerations of public policy which favor certainty in the establishment of legal relations, demand an end to litigation, and seek to prevent harassment of parties." Res judicata literally means a "matter adjudged," and it precludes relitigation of a claim or issue once a final determination on the merits has been reached by a court of competent jurisdiction. It rests upon the principle that a person should not be required to relitigate the same matter a second time "with the same person or another so identified in interest with such person that he represents the same legal right, precisely the same question, particular controversy, or issue, which has been necessarily tried and fully determined, upon the merits, by a court of competent jurisdiction...."

Commonwealth ex rel. Gray v. Johnson, 7 Va.App. 614, 617-18, 376 S.E.2d 787, 788 (1989) (citations omitted) (emphasis added); accord Bates v. Devers, 214 Va. 667, 670-71, 202 S.E.2d 917, 920-21 (1974); Patterson v. Saunders, 194 Va. 607, 611, 74 S.E.2d 204, 207, cert. denied, 345 U.S. 998, 73 S.Ct. 1132, 97 L.Ed. 1405 (1953).

A person seeking to assert res judicata as a defense must establish identity of: (1) the remedies sought; (2) the cause of action; (3) the parties; and (4) the quality of the persons for or against whom the claim is made. Johnson, 7 Va.App. at 618, 376 S.E.2d at 789. Further, to assert this defense, the party must establish that "the judgment in the former action [was] rendered on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction." Simmons v. Commonwealth, 252 Va. 118, 120, 475 S.E.2d 806, 807 (1996) (emphasis added).

A judgment is not res judicata if it does not go to the merits of the case....

By a judgment "upon the merits" is not meant "on the merits" in the moral sense of those words. It is sufficient that the status of the suit was such that the parties might have had their suit disposed of on its merits if they had presented all their evidence and the court had properly understood the facts and correctly applied the law to the facts. It is therefore sufficient if the merits are actually or constructively determined.

As to what constitutes a decision on the merits, a decision of an issue of law on a demurrer is a decision on the merits and constitutes res judicata as to any other proceedings where the same parties and the same issues are involved....

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A dismissal of a cause of action may constitute a judgment on the merits depending upon the grounds upon which such dismissal is based. A judgment of dismissal which is intended to be and is a disposition on the merits of a claim is a final judgment on the merits.

8B Michie's Jurisprudence, Former Adjudication or Res Judicata § 12 (1996) (emphasis added). Each of the above requirements is met in the case at bar.

Although we have yet to apply this doctrine in the criminal context, it is well recognized by federal jurisdictions and other states that "[t]he doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel apply to criminal, as well as civil, proceedings." United States v. Cejas, 817 F.2d 595, 598 (9th Cir.1987); see generally E.H. Schopler, Annotation, Modern Status of Doctrine of Res Judicata in Criminal Cases, 9 A.L.R.3d 203 (1996). Additionally,

[i]n most jurisdictions it is well settled that the doctrine of collateral estoppel is applicable in criminal cases, that is, that the criminal nature of a proceeding does not, ipso facto, preclude a judgment rendered therein from operating as collateral estoppel in another criminal prosecution. As applied in criminal cases, the primary significance of the doctrine of res judicata lies in its operation as collateral estoppel, since the doctrine of collateral estoppel, differently from the defense of double jeopardy and "former acquittal" or "former conviction," is applicable irrespective of whether the former and the later proceeding are based on the same offense. However, most of the cases discussing the doctrine involve related offenses, that is, offenses arising out of the same occurrence or transaction.

Schopler, supra, at § 5(a).

Moreover, the doctrine of res judicata has been applied to a pretrial dismissal on the merits. See Cejas, 817 F.2d at 599 (holding that a pretrial dismissal of an indictment was a final decision on the merits that barred further prosecution and that "[t]he granting of a motion to dismiss based upon double jeopardy ... would have the effect of putting an end to all further prosecution"). See also United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U.S. 85, 87-88, 37 S.Ct. 68, 69, 61 L.Ed. 161 (1916) (a case in which the Supreme Court determined that "a judgment for the defendant upon the ground that the prosecution is barred goes to his liability as a matter of substantive law, and one judgment that he is free as matter of substantive law is as good as another."). The Oppenheimer Court further held that "[a] plea of the statute of limitations is a plea to the merits" and explained that:

It cannot be that a judgment of acquittal on the ground of the statute of limitations is less a protection against a second trial than a judgment upon the ground of innocence, or that such a judgment is any more effective when entered after a verdict than if entered by the government's consent before a jury is empaneled....

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[T]he Fifth Amendment was not intended to do away with what in the civil law is a fundamental principle of justice in order, when a man once has been acquitted on the merits, to enable the...