Nelson v. WARDEN OF KEEN MTN. CORRECTIONAL

• Citation: 552 S.E.2d 73,262 Va. 276
• Decision Date: 14 September 2001
• Docket Number: Record No. 002301.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Robert NELSON, Jr. v. WARDEN OF the KEEN MOUNTAIN CORRECTIONAL CENTER.

552 S.E.2d 73

262 Va. 276

Robert NELSON, Jr. v. WARDEN OF the KEEN MOUNTAIN CORRECTIONAL CENTER.

Record No. 002301.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

September 14, 2001.

John A. Gibney, Jr. (Shuford, Rubin & Gibney, on briefs), Richmond, for petitioner.

Michael T. Judge, Assistant Attorney General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on brief), for respondent.

Present All the Justices.

Opinion by Chief Justice HARRY L. CARRICO

This case involves a "Baker claim," i.e., one arising from this Court's decision in Commonwealth v. Baker, 258 Va. 1, 516 S.E.2d 219 (1999) (per curiam), aff'g Baker v. Commonwealth, 28 Va.App. 306, 504 S.E.2d 394 (1998) (failure to notify juvenile's parents of proceedings in juvenile court renders void subsequent criminal convictions in circuit court).¹ The present claim is asserted in an original petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in this Court by Robert Nelson, Jr. (Nelson), against the Warden of the Keen Mountain Correctional Center (the Warden).

According to the allegations of the petition, Nelson was arrested in January 1985 at the age of seventeen for two counts of armed robbery, two counts of abduction, one count of receiving stolen property, and one count of sexual assault. He was "arraigned" in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court of Fairfax County and then brought before that court in March 1985 for a transfer hearing. The juvenile court transferred him to the Circuit Court of Fairfax County for trial as an adult. He pled guilty to the offenses in circuit court and was sentenced to serve forty-eight years in the penitentiary.

Nelson alleges in his habeas petition that his father was not notified of the initiation of the proceedings in juvenile court or of the transfer hearing.² Nelson alleges that the juvenile court's failure to notify his father of the proceedings rendered his convictions in the circuit court unlawful and void.³

Nelson not only invokes our decision in Baker II but also our decision in David Moore v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 431, 527 S.E.2d 406 (2000). In Baker II, we affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals "[f]or the reasons set forth in the opinion of" that court. 258 Va. at 2, 516 S.E.2d at 220. In its judgment, the Court of Appeals reversed the criminal convictions of a seventeen-year-old defendant, stating that "[b]ecause the notice of the initiation of juvenile proceedings was not properly served on the required parties, the transfer of jurisdiction [to the circuit court] was ineffectual and the subsequent convictions are void." 28 Va.App. at 315, 504 S.E.2d at 399.

In David Moore, we applied Baker II and held that, because of the failure to notify the defendant's father of the initiation of juvenile court proceedings, "the juvenile court ... never acquired the authority to exercise its jurisdiction to conduct the transfer hearing that resulted in the transfer of Moore's case to the circuit court. Accordingly, the circuit court never acquired the authority to exercise its jurisdiction to try Moore for the criminal offenses charged in the indictments, and Moore's convictions in the circuit court are void." David Moore, 259 Va. at 440, 527 S.E.2d at 411.

Nelson argues that his case "falls squarely within the rule enunciated by this Court" in Baker II and David Moore, that his convictions, therefore, are void, and that habeas corpus is a proper method of redress. Nelson argues further that, because his convictions are void, they are subject to attack "at any time, in any way, by anybody, whether the attack be direct or collateral," and, accordingly, his petition for a writ of habeas corpus is not barred by the statute of limitations contained in Code § 8.01-654(A)(2).⁴ For his part, the Warden contends that Nelson's petition for a writ of habeas corpus is barred by the statute of limitations contained in Code § 8.01-654(A)(2). However, the Warden makes the overriding argument that this Court should "take the opportunity to clarify the area of the law concerned in this [case], hold that lack of notice to a parent in juvenile court proceedings renders a judgment voidable and not void and overrule the prior decisions in David Moore and Baker to the extent they hold otherwise." We will consider this argument first.

The Warden's argument implicates, of course, the principles of stare decisis. In Selected Risks Ins. Co. v. Dean, 233 Va. 260, 355 S.E.2d 579 (1987), we stated as follows:

In Virginia, the doctrine of stare decisis is more than a mere cliche. That doctrine plays a significant role in the orderly administration of justice by assuring consistent, predictable, and balanced application of legal principles. And when a court of last resort has established a precedent, after full deliberation upon the issue by the court, the precedent will not be treated lightly or ignored, in the absence of flagrant error or mistake.

Id. at 265, 355 S.E.2d at 581. "Our strong adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis does not, however, compel us to perpetuate what we believe to be an incorrect application of the law." Nunnally v. Artis, 254 Va. 247, 253, 492 S.E.2d 126, 129 (1997).

In David Moore, this Court undertook to explain its decision in Baker II. David Moore, 259 Va. at 434,

527 S.E.2d at 407 ("[t]he primary focus of this appeal is a determination of the scope of our recent decision in [Baker II])." While neither the Court of Appeals' opinion in Baker I nor ours in Baker II mentioned the phrase "subject matter jurisdiction," we made a point in David Moore of "emphasizing the necessary distinction to be drawn . . . between the power of a court to adjudicate a specified class of cases, commonly known as `subject matter jurisdiction,' and the authority of a court to exercise that power in a particular case." Id. at 437, 527 S.E.2d at 409.

We said that "[s]ubject matter jurisdiction is granted by constitution or statute," that "[i]t cannot be waived," that "any judgment rendered without it is void ab initio," and that "lack of subject matter jurisdiction `may be raised at any time, in any manner, before any court, or by the court itself.'" Id. (quoting Humphreys v. Commonwealth, 186 Va. 765, 772, 43 S.E.2d 890, 893 (1947)). We made plain, however, that the lack of subject matter jurisdiction was not at issue in David Moore. Rather, we said that the issue was "the unique statutory framework whereby a juvenile court and in turn a circuit court acquire the authority to exercise their subject matter jurisdiction." 259 Va. at 438, 527 S.E.2d at 409. (Emphasis added.)

After noting the Court's emphasis on the distinction between subject matter jurisdiction and the authority to exercise that jurisdiction, the Court's next step should have been to demonstrate the difference resulting from the distinction. Yet, we made a distinction without a difference for, with our very next step, we elevated the failure of a court to comply with the requirements for exercising its authority to the same level of gravity as a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

We stated that "`[a] court's authority to exercise its subject matter jurisdiction over a case may be restricted by a failure to comply with statutory requirements that are mandatory in nature and, thus, are prerequisite to a court's lawful exercise of that jurisdiction.'" Id. at 437, 527 S.E.2d at 409 (quoting Dennis Moore v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 405, 409, 527 S.E.2d 415, 417 (2000)).⁵ In other words, we made the statutory requirements both mandatory and jurisdictional. We also made clear that the requirements were not subject to waiver by the juvenile's failure to object to a defect in the proceedings. David Moore, 259 Va. at 439,527 S.E.2d at 410.

We are of opinion David Moore is flawed by our failure to recognize that, in the legal and factual framework in which the decision was made, a different outcome should have resulted from the distinction we drew between subject matter jurisdiction and the authority to exercise that jurisdiction. Analysis of the framework begins with our decision in Peyton v. French, 207 Va. 73, 147 S.E.2d 739 (1966), cited in both Baker I and David Moore.

In Peyton v. French, the juvenile court "certified" a sixteen-year-old juvenile to the circuit court for trial on larceny and breaking and entering charges. Neither of the juvenile's parents was present, they had not received any notice to appear, and a guardian ad litem was not appointed to represent the juvenile. He was convicted in circuit court and sentenced to the penitentiary. We said "the failure of the juvenile court to comply with the applicable statutes rendered the circuit court proceedings void." Id. at 80, 147 S.E.2d at 743. Similar results were reached under like circumstances in Gregory v. Peyton, 208 Va. 157, 156 S.E.2d 624 (1967), Gogley v. Peyton, 208 Va. 679, 160 S.E.2d 746 (1968), Pruitt v. Peyton, 209 Va. 532, 165 S.E.2d 288 (1969), and Jones v. Commonwealth, 213 Va. 425, 192 S.E.2d 775 (1972), all referring back to Peyton v. French.

As Justice Kinser's dissent in David Moore aptly points out, while we did not specify in Peyton v. French and its progeny that we were considering subject matter jurisdictional defects, the question of the juvenile court's subject matter jurisdiction was implicated because we allowed the defendants in those cases to mount collateral attacks upon their convictions. David Moore, 259 Va. at 444, 527 S.E.2d at 413. And as the dissent further notes, there were two statutory provisions in effect at the time the Peyton v. French line of cases was decided that rendered the defects jurisdictional rather than procedural. Id. at 445, 527 S.E.2d at 413-14.

Former Code § 16.1-172 provided that "[i]n no case shall the hearing proceed until the parent or parents of the child . . . have been notified." (Emphasis added.) And former Code § 16.1-173 provided that when no person required to be notified by former Code § 16.1-172 was present for the hearing, the "court shall, before...