Case Title: Ellison v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 060482

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2007-01-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, and 
Lemons, JJ., and Russell, S.J. 
 
DAX A. ELLISON 
             OPINION BY 
SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
v.  Record No. 060482                 January 12, 2007 
 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF CHESTERFIELD COUNTY 
Michael C. Allen, Judge 
 
 
In a civil proceeding under Code § 37.2-900 et seq., Dax 
A. Ellison was found to be a sexually violent predator and was 
involuntarily committed to the custody of the Department of 
Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services 
(the Department) for secure inpatient treatment.  At his civil 
trial and over his objection, the court permitted the 
Commonwealth to introduce evidence from an earlier criminal 
trial in which Ellison had been tried for rape and acquitted 
by a jury.  This appeal challenges the correctness of the 
trial court’s decision to admit that evidence. 
Facts and Proceedings 
 
On August 19, 1998, pursuant to his guilty pleas, Ellison 
was convicted by the Circuit Court of Chesterfield County of 
abduction and rape of a female victim in that jurisdiction.  
He was sentenced to a 50-year term of imprisonment, with 42 
years and 7 months suspended. 
 
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On May 9, 2005, the Attorney General filed for the 
Commonwealth, in the same court, a petition for the civil 
commitment of Ellison as a sexually violent predator pursuant 
to the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA), Code § 37.1-70.1 
et seq.1 After a hearing, the trial court found probable 
cause to believe that Ellison was a sexually violent predator 
and ordered the Department of Corrections to retain custody of 
him until the final disposition of this case.  At a bench 
trial on September 21 and 22, 2005, the court heard expert 
testimony and received other evidence concerning Ellison’s 
conduct dating back to his childhood, including his behavior 
while incarcerated.  At the conclusion of the trial, the court 
found that Ellison was a sexually violent predator.  The case 
was continued and the Department was directed to file a 
written report suggesting possible alternatives to full 
commitment. 
After consideration of that report and other evidence, 
the court found by clear and convincing evidence that no 
suitable alternatives to full commitment existed, that Ellison 
did not qualify for conditional release, and that he remained 
a sexually violent predator.  He was committed to the 
                     
1 Title 37.1 was repealed by Acts 2005 ch. 716, and was 
reenacted as Title 37.2 effective October 1, 2005.  The SVPA 
now appears as Code § 37.2-900 et seq.  That change took 
effect while this proceeding was pending in the trial court. 
 
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Department for inpatient hospitalization and the case was 
continued for one year for a further hearing to determine 
whether he would then remain a sexually violent predator. 
 
In an unrelated case tried in the Circuit Court of the 
City of Petersburg in 2002, Ellison had been charged with 
statutory burglary, rape, forcible sodomy, and inanimate 
object penetration committed against a different female victim 
in that city on December 18, 1997.  That case went to a jury 
trial in which the jury found Ellison not guilty of all 
charges. 
In the trial of the present case, the Commonwealth sought 
to admit the testimony of the Petersburg victim as to 
Ellison’s conduct in Petersburg on December 18, 1997.  
Ellison, by counsel, filed a motion in limine to exclude any 
evidence concerning the Petersburg case on the ground that he 
had been acquitted of that charge.  The trial court denied the 
motion and, in the trial of the present case, the Petersburg 
victim testified for the Commonwealth, over Ellison’s 
objection, that he had in fact raped her in Petersburg on 
December 18, 1997. 
We awarded Ellison an appeal. 
                                                                
 
 
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Analysis 
Ellison’s appeal is susceptible to an initial impression 
impacting cherished principles concerning collateral estoppel 
and double jeopardy, both of which he relies on.  Closer 
examination, however, dispels those concerns.  Although the 
news media sometimes report that a criminal defendant has been 
tried and “found innocent” of the charges against him, 
acquittal in a criminal trial does no such thing.  Because of 
the stringent standard of proof the law imposes upon the 
prosecution, juries must acquit unless they find each element 
of the crime charged to have been proved beyond a reasonable 
doubt. 
In a line of cases extending back to Draper v. 
Commonwealth, 132 Va. 648, 664-65, 111 S.E. 471, 476 (1922), 
instructions were given in Virginia which told the jury, in 
varying language, that it was not sufficient that they believe 
the guilt of the defendant to be probable, or even more 
probable than his innocence, but that the jury must find the 
evidence sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis of 
his innocence before they might find him guilty.2  Thus, the 
                     
2 See M. Ray Doubles, Emanuel Emroch, & Robert R. Merhige, 
Jr., Virginia Jury Instructions §§ 100.13-.14 at 529-32 
(1964).  An instruction using a variant of this language was 
approved in Smith v Commonwealth, 136 Va. 677, 682, 116 S.E. 
246, 248 (1923), but later criticized in Carson v. 
Commonwealth, 188 Va. 398, 411-12, 49 S.E.2d 704, 710 (1948).  
 
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only conclusion that can be drawn from a jury’s verdict of 
“not guilty” is that the jury did not find the evidence 
sufficient to prove each essential element of the charged 
offense beyond a reasonable doubt.  The jury might well have 
found the defendant’s guilt probable, even more probable than 
his innocence, and still have quite properly acquitted him.  
With that background, we now turn to the specific arguments 
Ellison makes on appeal. 
Collateral Estoppel 
 
Ellison argues that the Commonwealth, having suffered an 
adverse final judgment in the Petersburg case, was 
collaterally estopped from attempting to prove, in the present 
case, that he had raped the Petersburg victim on December 18, 
1997.  The doctrine of collateral estoppel precludes the same 
parties to a prior proceeding from litigating in a later 
proceeding any issue of fact that actually was litigated and 
was essential to the final judgment in the first proceeding.  
Whitley v. Commonwealth, 260 Va. 482, 489, 538 S.E.2d 296, 299 
(2000).  Before the doctrine may be applied, four elements 
                                                                
It was still in use in 2001.  Black v. Commonwealth, 262 Va. 
764, 795, 553 S.E.2d 738, 756 (2001) (Hassell, J., 
dissenting).  Although its precise language no longer appears 
in Virginia Model Jury Instructions, the current language 
expresses the same principle:  “[S]uspicion or probability of 
guilt is not enough for a conviction.”  1 Virginia Model Jury 
Instructions – Criminal, No. 2.100 (repl. ed. 2006). 
 
 
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must be met:  (1) the parties to the two proceedings must be 
the same; (2) the factual issue sought to be litigated in the 
second proceeding must have actually been litigated in the 
first; (3) that factual issue must have been actually decided 
and essential to the judgment in the prior proceeding; and (4) 
the prior proceeding must have resulted in a valid, final 
judgment against the party to whom the doctrine is sought to 
be applied.  Id. 
We do not agree with Ellison’s contention that all four 
of the foregoing elements are present here.  As noted above, 
the acquittal in the Petersburg case was not a finding that 
Ellison did not engage in the attack on that victim; the jury 
in that case may well have found that it was more likely than 
not that the conduct occurred.  The issue specifically 
resolved in the Petersburg case was whether the evidence 
proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Ellison had raped that 
victim.  A finding that he did not rape that victim was not an 
actual and necessary part of the disposition of that criminal 
case.  Thus, the second and third elements prerequisite to the 
application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel are absent 
here.3 
                     
3 The Commonwealth argues on appeal that the first element 
is also lacking, contending that the parties to the two 
proceedings are not the same:  The Commonwealth was the moving 
party in the Petersburg case, represented by the Commonwealth 
 
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Double Jeopardy 
Ellison argues that, because the trial court’s finding in 
the present case operates to deprive him of his liberty, the 
admission of the Petersburg victim's testimony offends the 
Double Jeopardy Clauses of both the Constitution of the United 
States and the Constitution of Virginia.  Both constitutions, 
in very similar language, afford protection against a second 
criminal prosecution for the same offense after an acquittal.  
Compare U.S. Const. amend. V and Va. Const. art. I, § 8.  
“Jeopardy,” as used in these constitutional provisions, means 
“the danger of conviction.”  Greenwalt v. Commonwealth, 224 
Va. 498, 500, 297 S.E.2d 709, 710 (1982). 
The Supreme Court of the United States considered the 
question now before us in Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 
342, 348 (1990).  The Supreme Court there refused to extend 
the collateral estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy 
Clause to exclude relevant and probative evidence “simply 
because it relates to alleged criminal conduct for which a 
defendant has been acquitted.”  Id.  The Court noted that its 
decision was consistent with prior cases in which it had held 
that an acquittal in a criminal case did not preclude the 
                                                                
Attorney; the Attorney General, acting under statutory 
authority granted by Code § 37.2-915 is the moving party in 
this SVPA case.  We consider that to be a distinction without 
 
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Government from relitigating an issue when it was presented in 
a subsequent case governed by a lower standard of proof.  Id. 
at 349 (citing United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 
465 U.S. 354 (1984)). 
In Shivaee v. Commonwealth, 270 Va. 112, 128, 613 S.E.2d 
570, 579 (2005), we held that Virginia’s SVPA survived 
constitutional due process scrutiny and did not offend either 
state or federal double jeopardy protections.  We came to that 
conclusion for reasons similar to those articulated by the 
Supreme Court in Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997), 
wherein that Court upheld the constitutionality of Kansas 
statutes very similar to Virginia’s SVPA.  The determinative 
factor avoiding the impact of the Double Jeopardy Clauses was 
that Kansas' SVPA was a civil enactment and was “non-
punitive.”  It was not adopted to punish an offender or to 
deter crime, but was instead a “ 'civil commitment scheme 
designed to protect the public from harm.' ”  Shivaee, 270 Va. 
at 125-26, 613 S.E.2d at 577-78 (quoting Hendricks, 521 U.S. 
at 361). 
The standard of proof adopted by the SVPA is proof by 
clear and convincing evidence.  Code § 37.2-908(C).  We have 
held that standard to meet the demands of due process.  
                                                                
difference and do not agree with the Commonwealth in that 
regard. 
 
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Shivaee, 270 Va. at 126, 613 S.E.2d at 578.  There, we noted 
that the Supreme Court, in Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 
432-33 (1979), approved that standard with respect to civil 
commitment cases, and left to the states the decision whether 
to adopt it or the more stringent standard of proof beyond a 
reasonable doubt.  Shivaee, 270 Va. at 126, 613 S.E.2d at 578.  
Because the lesser standard is applied in Virginia SVPA cases, 
and because such cases are civil and not punitive in nature, 
the introduction, in such a case, of factual evidence 
presented in a prior criminal case, even one that resulted in 
an acquittal, does not offend the double jeopardy protections 
of either the federal or Virginia constitutions.  See Dowling, 
493 U.S. at 348-49; Shivaee, 270 Va. at 125-26, 613 S.E.2d at 
578. 
Evidentiary Issue 
The trial court also admitted a copy of the transcript of 
the testimony of the victim at the Petersburg trial, which was 
consistent with her testimony in the present case, although 
somewhat more detailed.  Ellison objected to its admission, 
and assigns error to the trial court’s ruling admitting it, on 
the ground that it came as a surprise and that the 
Commonwealth had violated a discovery order directing 
disclosure of all documents “referred to, relied upon, or 
reviewed . . . by any expert for the Commonwealth.”  We find 
 
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no merit in that assignment because Ellison makes no 
contention that the Commonwealth’s expert witness ever saw or 
otherwise relied on the transcript.  The discovery order did 
not require the Commonwealth to produce all documents it 
intended to offer in evidence.  The transcript was equally 
available to the Commonwealth and to Ellison.  Ellison could 
have contacted the court reporter, at any time, to request 
preparation of a copy of the transcript, and could have sought 
an order requiring the Commonwealth to pay the court reporter 
for Ellison's copy of the transcript. 
Conclusion 
For the reasons stated, we hold that the evidence 
objected to was barred neither by the doctrine of collateral 
estoppel nor by the constitutional protections against double 
jeopardy.  Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the 
trial court. 
Affirmed.