Case Title: Toghill v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 140414

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2015-02-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Millette, Mims, and 
McClanahan, JJ., and Lacy and Koontz, S.JJ. 
 
ADAM DARRICK TOGHILL 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     OPINION BY 
v.    Record No. 140414  
 
  JUSTICE S. BERNARD GOODWYN 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  February 26, 2015 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether Code § 18.2-361(A)1 is 
facially unconstitutional in light of the decision of the 
United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 
(2003). 
Background 
 
Adam Darrick Toghill (Toghill), an adult, engaged in an 
email exchange with a law enforcement officer posing as a minor 
wherein Toghill proposed that the two engage in oral sex.  
Subsequently, Toghill was indicted on charges of Internet 
solicitation of a minor in violation of Code § 18.2-374.3.  The 
Circuit Court of Louisa County and both parties agreed that 
Toghill was accused of soliciting oral sex from a minor, and 
that oral sex between an adult and a minor is an act forbidden 
by Code § 18.2-361(A).  Toghill was found guilty after a jury 
                     
1 The General Assembly amended Code § 18.2-361(A) in 2014 
to remove the general provisions forbidding sodomy.  2014 Acts 
ch. 794.  However, when this opinion refers to Code § 18.2-
361(A), it is referring to the statute as it existed on March 
10, 2011, when the alleged crime was committed, unless denoted 
otherwise. 
 
2 
trial, and the court sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.  
Notably, at trial, Toghill did not argue that Code § 18.2-
361(A) was unconstitutional. 
 
Toghill appealed to the Court of Appeals of Virginia 
(Court of Appeals), arguing that his conviction was invalid 
because Code § 18.2-361(A) was unconstitutional.  To support 
his position, he cited a recently decided case from the United 
States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, MacDonald v. 
Moose, 710 F.3d 154 (4th Cir. 2013) (Moose), in which the 
Fourth Circuit ruled that Code § 18.2-361(A) was facially 
unconstitutional.  The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit 
court’s decision, citing McDonald v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 249, 
645 S.E.2d 918 (2007), in which this Court ruled that Code § 
18.2-361(A) was not unconstitutional as applied to sodomy cases 
involving an adult with a minor.  Toghill v. Commonwealth, 
Record No. 2230-12-2, 2014 Va. App. LEXIS 42, at *6-7 (February 
11, 2014).  It held that Code § 18.2-361(A) was constitutional 
as applied to Toghill because the Lawrence decision did not 
prevent a state from criminalizing sodomy2 between an adult and 
                     
2 For simplicity, the term “sodomy,” as utilized in this 
opinion, encapsulates all forms of homosexual and heterosexual 
non-coital sexual activity between humans, including anal and 
oral sex.  See MacDonald v. Moose, 710 F.3d 154, 156, 163 (4th 
Cir. 2013) (citing Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 563) (“We herein use 
the term ‘anti-sodomy provision’ to refer to the [non-
bestiality] portion[s] of section 18.2-361(A) . . . .  The 
conduct for which the Lawrence defendants were prosecuted 
 
3 
a minor.  Id.  Toghill appeals.  Toghill assigns error as 
follows: 
The Court of Appeals erred in holding that 
Virginia's anti-sodomy law was constitutional, with 
the result that Toghill was convicted of soliciting a 
minor to commit an act that was not, in actuality, a 
violation of Virginia law. 
 
Analysis 
 
Toghill argues that Code § 18.2-361(A) is facially 
unconstitutional and invalid, and thus his conviction, for 
soliciting an activity deemed illegal because it violated Code 
§ 18.2-361(A), was void ab initio.  The Commonwealth argues 
that the Lawrence decision did not facially invalidate Code 
§ 18.2-361(A), because the Supreme Court of the United States 
implied in its holding that a state could criminalize sodomy in 
some circumstances, including sodomy involving adults with 
minors. 
 
As a preliminary matter, the Commonwealth asserts that 
Toghill’s claim is procedurally barred because Toghill failed 
to raise the issue of the constitutionality of Code § 18.2-
361(A) at trial.  Toghill has conceded that he presented this 
argument for the first time on appeal. 
                                                                 
qualified as ‘deviate sexual intercourse’ in that it amounted 
to ‘contact’ between any part of the genitals of one person and 
the mouth or anus of another person, that is, sodomy.”); 
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2165 (1993) 
(providing that the term “sodomy” can be used to mean 
homosexual and heterosexual non-coital sexual activity 
broadly). 
 
4 
Rule 5:25 states:  “No ruling of the trial court . . . 
will be considered as a basis for reversal unless an objection 
was stated with reasonable certainty at the time of the 
ruling.”  Our Court has stated that “an appellate court may not 
reverse a judgment of the trial court based . . . upon an issue 
that was not presented.”  McDonald, 274 Va. at 255, 645 S.E.2d 
at 921 (holding that the Court could not evaluate a facial 
challenge to Code § 18.2-361(A) because the appellant never 
raised a facial challenge in the trial court).  However, Rule 
5:25 also states that this Court can review a ruling that was 
not objected to at trial “for good cause shown or to enable 
this Court to attain the ends of justice.” 
Following the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence, this 
Court had the opportunity in McDonald to consider the 
continuing constitutionality of Code § 18.2-361(A) in light of 
Lawrence.  This Court held the statute to be constitutional as 
applied to oral sex between an adult and a minor.  McDonald, 
274 Va. at 260, 645 S.E.2d at 924. 
Toghill’s trial in the instant case occurred on November 
26, 2012.  On March 12, 2013, the Fourth Circuit issued its 
published opinion in Moose, holding that Code § 18.2-361(A) is 
facially unconstitutional because it does not pass muster under 
the standards set by the Supreme Court in Lawrence.  710 F.3d 
at 166. 
 
5 
Despite Toghill’s failure to raise the issue at trial, we 
hold that the conflict created by the Fourth Circuit’s 
subsequent opinion is good cause under Rule 5:25 to consider 
the error alleged by Toghill regarding the constitutionality of 
Code § 18.2-361(A).  Our prior cases have not applied the “good 
cause shown” exception contained in Rule 5:25, but we believe 
that exception to be applicable in this narrow instance and 
will apply it sua sponte as has been done with the ends of 
justice exception.  See Ball v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 754, 758-
59, 273 S.E.2d 790, 793 (1981) (applying the ends of justice 
exception despite the fact that appellant did not request the 
Court to consider that issue in his brief); Cooper v. 
Commonwealth, 205 Va. 883, 889-90, 140 S.E.2d 688, 692-93 
(1965) (same).  Thus, we will examine whether, under our 
jurisprudence, Toghill’s conviction is invalid premised on the 
theory that Code § 18.2-361(A) is facially unconstitutional as 
a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence. 
The statute under which Toghill was convicted, former Code 
§ 18.2-374.3(C), stated at the time of the offense that it was 
a Class 5 felony for an adult to knowingly and intentionally 
propose to a child under 15 years of age “an act of sexual 
intercourse or any act constituting an offense under § 18.2-
361” using a computer.  Also at that time, former Code § 18.2-
361(A) stated “If any person . . . carnally knows any male or 
 
6 
female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or 
voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall 
be guilty of a Class 6 felony.”3 
It is undisputed that Toghill’s conviction is based upon 
the fact that he, using a computer, proposed oral sex to a 
person he believed to be a child under 15 years old, and that 
the circuit court ruled that oral sex between an adult and a 
child under 15 was a criminal offense under Code § 18.2-361(A).  
In Moose, the Fourth Circuit ruled that Code § 18.2-361(A) does 
not outlaw oral sex between an adult and a child under 15 
because the statute is facially unconstitutional, and thus 
invalid.  710 F.3d at 166. 
 
While this Court considers Fourth Circuit decisions as 
persuasive authority, such decisions are not binding precedent 
for decisions of this Court.  See, e.g., Lockhart v. Fretwell, 
506 U.S. 364, 376 (1993) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[N]either 
federal supremacy nor any other principle of federal law 
requires that a state court’s interpretation of federal law 
give way to a (lower) federal court’s interpretation.”); Owsley 
v. Peyton, 352 F.2d 804, 805 (4th Cir. 1965) (denying that a 
Fourth Circuit decision alters existing Virginia law and 
acknowledging that “[t]hough state courts may for policy 
                     
3 Both former Code § 18.2-374(C) and former Code § 18.2-
361(A), in effect at the time of the offense at issue, appear 
in the 2009 Replacement Volume containing Title 18.2. 
 
7 
reasons follow the decisions of the Court of Appeals whose 
circuit includes their state . . . they are not obligated to do 
so”); United States ex rel. Lawrence v. Woods, 432 F.2d 1072, 
1076 (7th Cir. 1970) (“[B]ecause lower federal courts exercise 
no appellate jurisdiction over state tribunals, decisions of 
lower federal courts are not conclusive on state courts.”); Ace 
Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Commissioner of Revenue, 770 N.E.2d 
980, 986 n.8 (Mass. 2002) (citing Commonwealth v. Hill, 385 
N.E.2d 253, 255 (Mass. 1979)) (“Although we are not bound by 
decisions of Federal courts (other than the United States 
Supreme Court) on matters of Federal law . . . , ‘we give 
respectful consideration to such lower Federal court decisions 
as seem persuasive.’”); State v. Coleman, 214 A.2d 393, 402, 
403 (N.J. 1965) (“In passing on federal constitutional 
questions, the state courts and the lower federal courts have 
the same responsibility and occupy the same position; there is 
a parallelism but not paramountcy for both sets of courts are 
governed by the same reviewing authority of the Supreme 
Court.”). 
Toghill presents a facial constitutional challenge to Code 
§ 18.2-361(A).  We review questions of statutory 
constitutionality de novo.  Montgomery Cnty. v. Virginia Dep’t 
of Rail & Pub. Transp., 282 Va. 422, 435, 719 S.E.2d 294, 300 
(2011); Covel v. Town of Vienna, 280 Va. 151, 163, 694 S.E.2d 
 
8 
609, 617 (2010).  Facial challenges are disfavored because they 
create a risk of “‘premature interpretation of statutes on the 
basis of factually barebones records’”; they “run contrary to 
the fundamental principle of judicial restraint that courts 
should neither ‘anticipate a question of constitutional law in 
advance of the necessity of deciding it’ nor ‘formulate a rule 
of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise 
facts to which it is to be applied,’” and they invalidate an 
entire law that was passed through the democratic process.  
Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, 
552 U.S. 442, 450 (2008) (citing Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, 
546 U.S. 320, 329 (2006); Sabri v. United States, 541 U.S. 600, 
609 (2004); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288, 346-47 (1936) 
(Brandeis, J., concurring)). 
An appellant can only mount a successful facial challenge 
to a statute by showing first that the statute in question is 
unconstitutional as applied to him and that the statute in 
question would not be constitutional in any context.  County 
Ct. of Ulster Cnty. v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 154-55 (1979) (“As 
a general rule, if there is no constitutional defect in the 
application of the statute to a litigant, he does not have 
standing to argue that it would be unconstitutional if applied 
to third parties in hypothetical situations.”); Broadrick v. 
Oklahoma, 413 U.S. 601, 610 (1973) (“Embedded in the 
 
9 
traditional rules governing constitutional adjudication is the 
principle that a person to whom a statute may constitutionally 
be applied will not be heard to challenge that statute on the 
ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to 
others, in other situations not before the court.”); Woollard 
v. Gallagher, 712 F.3d 865, 882 (4th Cir. 2013) (applying the 
rule from Broadrick that a law must be unconstitutional as 
applied to a party in order for that party to facially 
challenge the law); Washington State Grange, 552 U.S. at 449.  
Thus, if a statute is constitutional as applied to a litigant, 
he or she lacks standing to assert a facial constitutional 
challenge to it, and the statute is not facially 
unconstitutional because it has at least one constitutional 
application. 
We begin by determining whether Toghill meets the first 
element that must be shown to raise a claim of facial 
unconstitutionality, that is, that the statute is 
unconstitutional as applied to him.  Toghill alleges that 
enforcement of Code § 18.2-361(A) is unconstitutional as 
applied to him because enforcement of that criminal statute 
infringes upon his substantive due process rights articulated 
by the Supreme Court in Lawrence. 
In Lawrence, the Supreme Court of the United States 
invalidated the convictions of two men observed engaging in 
 
10 
anal sex in a private residence.  539 U.S. at 562-63, 579.  A 
Texas statute made it illegal for two people of the same sex to 
engage in such “deviate sexual intercourse.”  Id. at 563. 
In deciding Lawrence, the Supreme Court overturned its 
precedent in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), which had 
stated that a Georgia law that prohibited sodomy was not 
unconstitutional as applied to a male engaged in sodomy with 
another male in private because there was no fundamental right 
for homosexuals to engage in sodomy.  Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 
566-67, 577-78.  The Court in Lawrence discussed how, in 
Bowers, it had not “appreciate[d] the extent of the liberty at 
stake” because penalizing such homosexual sodomy would impact 
“the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the 
most private of places, the home.”  Id. at 567.  The Court 
cautioned that a State cannot “define the meaning” of a 
homosexual relationship or “set its boundaries absent injury to 
a person or abuse of an institution the law protects.”  Id.  It 
stated:  “[A]dults may choose to enter upon this relationship 
in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and 
still retain their dignity as free persons.”  Id. 
The Supreme Court held that the Texas statute violated the 
Due Process Clause because it regulated the private, non-
commercial and consensual sexual conduct of adults and 
 
11 
furthered no legitimate state interest.  Id. at 578.  However, 
the Court in Lawrence was clear that 
[t]he present case does not involve minors.  It does 
not involve persons who might be injured or coerced 
or who are situated in relationships where consent 
might not easily be refused.  It does not involve 
public conduct or prostitution.  It does not involve 
whether the government must give formal recognition 
to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to 
enter.  The case does involve two adults who, with 
full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in 
sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle.  
The petitioners are entitled to respect for their 
private lives.  The State cannot demean their 
existence or control their destiny by making their 
private sexual conduct a crime. 
 
Id. (emphasis added). 
 
Considering this limiting language, Lawrence simply does 
not afford adults with the constitutional right to engage in 
sodomy with minors.  We held in McDonald, 274 Va. at 260, 645 
S.E.2d at 924, and we reaffirm this day that the Supreme 
Court’s decision in Lawrence did not prevent Code § 18.2-361(A) 
from being constitutional and enforceable as applied to sodomy 
between adults and minors.  This Court recognized then and 
recognizes in this case that “[t]he Court in Lawrence was 
explicit in its declaration of the scope of its opinion: ‘The 
present case does not involve minors.’”  Id. (citing Lawrence, 
539 U.S. at 578).  “Nothing in Lawrence . . . prohibits the 
application of the sodomy statute to conduct between adults and 
 
12 
minors.”  Id.  Thus, we hold that Code § 18.2-361(A) was 
constitutional as applied to Toghill.  Toghill therefore does 
not have standing to successfully assert a facial 
constitutional challenge to Code § 18.2-361(A). 
There is no Supreme Court precedent to support a ruling 
that Code § 18.2-361(A) is unconstitutional on its face.  It is 
claimed that the Supreme Court in Lawrence signaled that sodomy 
statutes were facially unconstitutional because it overturned 
Bowers, which involved a facial challenge to a Georgia statute 
criminalizing all sodomy.  This is factually incorrect.  Bowers 
did not involve a facial challenge to a Georgia statute, but 
rather the issue of whether the federal Constitution confers 
fundamental rights upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.  478 
U.S. at 188 n.2, 190.  In fact, the majority stated in footnote 
2 that “[t]he only claim properly before the Court is 
Hardwick’s challenge to the Georgia statute as applied to 
consensual homosexual sodomy.  We express no opinion on the 
constitutionality of the Georgia statute as applied to other 
acts of sodomy.”  Id. at 188 n.2.  Thus, the fact that the 
Supreme Court’s decision in Bowers was overruled in Lawrence is 
not helpful in discerning whether a particular state statute is 
unconstitutional on its face.4 
                     
4 We concur with the sentiment expressed in Judge Diaz’s 
dissent to the Moose decision that although the Court in 
 
13 
In Lawrence itself, the Supreme Court did not explicitly 
indicate whether it was concerned with a facial, as opposed to 
an as-applied challenge to the statute at issue in the case.  
However, the Lawrence opinion clearly states that individuals 
are entitled to respect for their private lives such that 
adults are entitled to engage in private, consensual, 
noncommercial sexual conduct without intervention of the 
government.  539 U.S. at 578. 
We noted in Martin v. Ziherl, 269 Va. 35, 42, 607 S.E.2d 
367, 370-71 (2005), that the Virginia statute criminalizing 
intercourse between unmarried persons improperly abridged a 
personal relationship that was within the liberty interest of 
persons to choose.  However, unlike Martin, which involved sex 
between consenting adults, the instant case involves oral sex 
with a minor which is not “within the liberty interests of 
persons to choose,” as specifically stated by the Supreme Court 
in Lawrence.  539 U.S. at 567, 578; see also Martin, 269 Va. at  
43, 607 S.E.2d at 371 (emphasizing that the case did “not 
involve minors, non-consensual activity, prostitution or public 
activity[,]” which are activities that Lawrence indicated could 
be regulated by the state). 
                                                                 
Lawrence overturned Bowers, to infer that Lawrence intended 
sodomy statutes to be facially invalid from this factor would 
be a logical “bridge too far.”  710 F.3d at 169 (Diaz, J., 
dissenting). 
 
14 
Toghill, an adult, was charged with soliciting oral sex 
from a person he believed was a minor in violation of Code § 
18.2-374.3(C) because oral sex is prohibited by Code § 18.2-
361(A), a generally-worded anti-sodomy statute.  Because he 
solicited sodomy with a person whom he thought was a minor, 
Toghill does not have standing to assert a facial challenge to 
the anti-sodomy provisions of Code § 18.2-361(A) because 
enforcement of the sodomy prohibition law is constitutional as 
applied to him in this instance. There are constitutional 
applications of Code § 18.2-361(A), and Toghill’s facial 
challenge to the statute therefore fails. 
A facially unconstitutional statute is invalid.  However, 
courts can also order statutes that are unconstitutional only 
in certain applications to be totally invalidated in rare 
circumstances.  Thus, even though Code § 18.2-361(A) is not 
unconstitutional on its face, that is not dispositive of the 
issue of whether it was error to rule that the statute was 
enforceable. 
The Supreme Court’s decision in Ayotte, 546 U.S. at 328-
32, recognized that in rare circumstances, it may be proper to 
totally invalidate a statute even if it is merely 
unconstitutional as applied in some circumstances and 
constitutional in others.  Ayotte does not condemn the failure 
to totally invalidate a statute that is unconstitutional as 
 
15 
applied in certain instances.  Id. at 328-29.  Instead, it 
provides an analytical framework for discerning the proper 
remedy to be applied when a statute is unconstitutional as 
applied. 
Ayotte involved a New Hampshire abortion law that 
prohibited physicians from performing an abortion on a pregnant 
minor without notifying her parents in advance, a restriction 
allowed by the Constitution.  Id. at 323-24, 326-27.  However, 
the Supreme Court held that the law failed to provide 
constitutionally sufficient access to abortions necessary to 
protect the mother’s life or health.  Id. at 326-28.  The 
Supreme Court remanded the case to the lower courts for them to 
determine whether the proper remedy was for them to forbid the 
unconstitutional applications of the statute only or to 
invalidate the statute facially.  546 U.S. at 331-32. 
The Supreme Court instructed the lower courts that 
[g]enerally speaking, when confronting a 
constitutional flaw in a statute, we try to limit the 
solution to the problem.  We prefer, for example, to 
enjoin only the unconstitutional applications of the 
statute while leaving other applications in force 
. . . or to sever its problematic portions while 
leaving the remainder intact[.] 
 
Id. at 328. 
The Supreme Court in Ayotte provided that three 
interrelated principles should inform a court’s approach to 
remedies when confronting a statute that may be applied in a 
 
16 
manner that violates constitutional rights.  Id. at 329-30.  
First, it affirmed again that the “‘normal rule’ is that 
‘partial, rather than facial, invalidation is the required 
course,’ such that a ‘statute may . . . be declared invalid to 
the extent that it reaches too far, but otherwise left 
intact.’”  Id. at 329 (citing Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, 
Inc., 472 U.S. 491, 504 (1985); Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 
(1985); United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171, 180-83 (1983)).  
The Court noted that “we try not to nullify more of a 
legislature’s work than is necessary, for we know that ‘[a] 
ruling of unconstitutionality frustrates the intent of the 
elected representatives of the people.’”  Id. (quoting Regan v. 
Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 652 (1984) (plurality opinion)). 
Second, the Supreme Court instructed that a court should 
not supplant the legislature by “rewriting state law to conform 
it to constitutional requirements even as we strive to salvage 
it.”  Id. at 329 (alteration and internal quotation marks 
omitted).  The Court noted that “[o]ur ability to devise a 
judicial remedy that does not entail quintessentially 
legislative work often depends on how clearly we have already 
articulated the background constitutional rules at issue and 
how easily we can articulate the remedy.”  Id.  The Court 
cautioned that “making distinctions in a murky constitutional 
context, or where line-drawing is inherently complex, may call 
 
17 
for a ‘far more serious invasion of the legislative domain’ 
than we ought to undertake.”  Id. at 330 (quoting United States 
v. Treasury Employees, 513 U.S. 454, 479 n.26 (1995)). 
Third, the Supreme Court emphasized that “the touchstone 
for any decision is legislative intent, for a court cannot ‘use 
its remedial powers to circumvent the intent of the 
legislature.’”  Id. (quoting Califano v. Westcott, 443 U.S. 76, 
94 (1979)(Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in 
part); Dorchy v. Kansas, 264 U.S. 286, 289-90 (1924)).  The 
Court stated that “after finding an application or portion of a 
statute unconstitutional,” courts must “ask: Would the 
legislature have preferred what is left of its statute to no 
statute at all?”  Id.  Moreover, the Court cautioned against 
allowing legislatures to rely on a court’s intervention by 
crafting a statute that applies broadly and having the courts 
carve out provisions from it that are unconstitutional.  Id. 
In fashioning a remedy in this instance, we will attempt 
to nullify no more of the legislature’s work than is necessary.  
This is consistent with Virginia jurisprudence, which requires 
that we “‘construe the plain language of a statute to have 
limited application if such a construction will tailor the 
statute to a constitutional fit.’”  McDonald, 274 Va. at 260 
(quoting Virginia Soc. for Human Life v. Caldwell, 256 Va. 151, 
157 n.3, 500 S.E.2d 814, 817 n.3 (1998)).  The “as-applied” 
 
18 
remedy is simple to fashion in this case, given the Lawrence 
decision’s articulation of the contexts in which a state can 
criminalize sodomy.  See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578.  In 
accordance with the Lawrence decision, Code § 18.2-361(A) 
cannot criminalize private, noncommercial sodomy between 
consenting adults, but it can continue to regulate other forms 
of sodomy, such as sodomy involving children, forcible sodomy, 
prostitution involving sodomy and sodomy in public.  The easy 
to articulate remedy is that Code § 18.2-361(A) is invalid to 
the extent its provisions apply to private, noncommercial and 
consensual sodomy involving only adults. 
It should be noted that this is not the instance about 
which the Supreme Court cautioned in Ayotte, in which a 
legislature drafts a broad statute and relies upon the courts 
for intervention.  Rather, this is an instance when a statute 
was considered constitutional when it was passed, but certain 
applications of the statute were declared unconstitutional by a 
subsequent Supreme Court opinion.  The intent of the 
legislature was to prohibit all sodomy, which it could do 
constitutionally at the time Code § 18.2-361(A) was originally 
passed by the legislature. 
Although the General Assembly removed certain anti-sodomy 
language from Code § 18.2-361(A) in 2014, in the same act it 
amended other statutes to ensure that sodomy with a minor or 
 
19 
solicitation of sodomy with a minor would be a crime.  2014 
Acts ch. 794.  Currently, the Code of Virginia criminalizes 
sodomy involving adults and minors in numerous ways and thus 
shows clearly that our upholding convictions under the instant 
version of Code § 18.2-361(A) for offenses involving children 
is consistent with legislative intent.  See, e.g., Code § 18.2-
63 (stating that an adult who engages in “sexual intercourse, 
cunnilingus, fellatio, anilingus, anal intercourse, and animate 
and inanimate object sexual penetration” with a minor between 
13 years of age and 15 years of age is guilty of a Class 4 
felony); Code § 18.2-370 (stating that an adult “who, with 
lascivious intent, knowingly and intentionally” “propose[s]” to 
a child under the age of 15 “the performance of an act of 
sexual intercourse, anal intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, or 
anilingus” is guilty of a Class 5 felony); Code § 18.2-371 
(stating that any adult who “engages in consensual sexual 
intercourse or anal intercourse with or performs cunnilingus, 
fellatio, or anilingus upon or by a child 15 or older not his 
spouse, child, or grandchild is guilty of a Class 1 
misdemeanor”); Code § 18.2-374.3 (stating that it is a Class 5 
felony for an adult to use a communications system to 
“[p]ropose to [a minor under 15 years of age] the performance 
of an act of sexual intercourse, anal intercourse, cunnilingus, 
fellatio, or anilingus”).  Moreover, the Code criminalizes 
 
20 
prostitution involving sodomy, Code § 18.2-346, sodomy in 
public, Code § 18.2-387, and forcible sodomy, Code § 18.2-
67.1(A).  Given the General Assembly’s decision to criminalize 
sodomy in these contexts, upholding the portions of Code § 
18.2-361(A) that are constitutional clearly follows legislative 
intent. 
After consideration of the factors articulated by the 
Supreme Court in Ayotte, we hold that it is proper to apply the 
“normal rule” by prohibiting those applications of Code § 18.2-
361(A) that are unconstitutional and leaving the constitutional 
applications of Code § 18.2-361(A) to be enforced.  This remedy 
is an exercise in judicial restraint because it allows the 
constitutional portions of a statute passed by the General 
Assembly to remain in effect and reflects the legislative 
preferences exhibited by the Code and the subsequent acts of 
the General Assembly. 
Conclusion 
 
Accordingly, for the reasons stated, we will affirm the 
judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
Affirmed. 
 
JUSTICE MIMS, concurring. 
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that former Code § 
18.2-361(A) was not facially unconstitutional and was 
 
21 
enforceable under the facts of this case.  I write separately 
because I do not agree that the Court should reach this issue 
(raised for the first time on appeal) under the good cause 
exception provided by Rule 5:25.  I also write to explain why I 
find the Fourth Circuit panel majority’s opinion in MacDonald 
v. Moose, 710 F.3d 154 (4th Cir. 2013), unpersuasive. 
Toghill raised the issue presented here for the first time 
to the Court of Appeals.  He invited that court to reach it 
under the ends of justice exception provided by Rule 5A:18.  
The court declined his invitation.  Rather, it addressed the 
issue on the ground that it raised a question of subject matter 
jurisdiction.1  Toghill v. Commonwealth, Record No. 2230-12-2, 
slip op. at 3-4 (February 11, 2014) (unpublished).  The Court 
of Appeals then determined that former Code § 18.2-361(A) was 
not facially unconstitutional and declined to “disturb the 
ruling of the trial court.”  Id. at 4. 
Unlike the Court of Appeals, the majority opinion finds 
good cause to reach the issue under Rule 5:25 because the 
Fourth Circuit decided Moose between the time of Toghill’s 
trial and his appeal.  It creates the precedent that an 
appellant may raise an issue for the first time on appeal 
                     
1 See Saunders v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. App. 793, 803, 753 
S.E.2d 602, 607 (2014) (opining that courts lack jurisdiction 
to enter a criminal judgment upon a statute that is facially 
unconstitutional). 
 
22 
simply because a federal court addressed it in a non-binding 
opinion after the state court has concluded its proceedings, 
even though the appellant could have raised the issue there. 
I believe that such a precedent weakens Rule 5:25. 
Rule 5:25 provides that “No ruling of the trial court . . 
.  will be considered as a basis for reversal unless an 
objection was stated with reasonable certainty at the time of 
the ruling, except for good cause shown or to enable this Court 
to attain the ends of justice.” 
The purpose of the rule is to “afford the 
trial court an opportunity to rule 
intelligently on the issues presented, thus 
avoiding unnecessary appeals and 
reversals.”  Weidman v. Babcock, 241 Va. 
40, 44, 400 S.E.2d 164, 167 (1991). . . .  
Thus, the provisions of Rule 5:25 “protect 
the trial court from appeals based upon 
undisclosed grounds.”  Fisher v. 
Commonwealth, 236 Va. 403, 414, 374 S.E.2d 
46, 52 (1988). . . .  The rule is not 
intended . . . “to obstruct petitioners in 
their efforts to secure writs of error, or 
appeals, but to put the record in such 
shape that the case may be heard in this 
Court upon the same record upon which it 
was heard in the trial court.”  Kercher v. 
Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac R.R. 
Co., 150 Va. 108, 115, 142 S.E. 393, 395 
(1928). 
 
 
In analyzing whether a litigant has 
satisfied the requirements of Rule 5:25, 
this Court has consistently focused on 
whether the trial court had the opportunity 
to rule intelligently on the issue.  “If 
[the] opportunity [to address an issue] is 
not presented to the trial court, there is 
no ruling by the trial court on the issue, 
 
23 
and thus no basis for review or action by 
this Court on appeal.”  Riverside Hosp., 
Inc. v. Johnson, 272 Va. 518, 526, 636 
S.E.2d 416, 420 (2006).  An appellate court 
can only “determine whether or not the 
rulings and judgment of the court below . . 
. were correct.”  Jackson [v. Chesapeake & 
Ohio Ry. Co.], 179 Va. [642,] 651, 20 
S.E.2d [489,] 493 [(1942)]. 
 
Scialdone v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 422, 437, 689 S.E.2d 716, 
724 (2010) (internal alterations omitted). 
Toghill could have presented the question at issue in this 
appeal to the circuit court for its consideration.  By 
declining to do so, he prevented the circuit court from 
reaching its own conclusion on the matter.  We and the Court of 
Appeals were able to consider the question because of its 
jurisdictional implications.  It is not necessary to open the 
door for parties in future cases to take advantage of the good 
cause exception to Rule 5:25 simply because a federal court has 
decided an issue that was not submitted for the state court’s 
consideration.  We have previously held that the exception does 
not apply when an appellant fails to raise an argument to a 
circuit court for its consideration simply because the law, as 
it stood when the case was pending there, was unfavorable to 
the argument.  Gheorghiu v. Commonwealth, 280 Va. 678, 688-89, 
701 S.E.2d 407, 413 (2010).  The majority opinion does not 
distinguish that case. 
 
24 
With regard to the persuasive value of the Fourth Circuit 
panel majority’s opinion in Moose, I agree with the majority’s 
conclusion that it is wrongly decided insofar as it declares 
former Code § 18.2-361(A) to be facially unconstitutional.  
However, I also observe that the Fourth Circuit was in no 
position to rule on that question at all.  It arose there upon 
a petition for review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, following the 
petitioner’s unsuccessful efforts on appellate and state habeas 
review.  710 F.3d at 156. 
As capably explained by Judge Diaz in his dissenting 
opinion, 
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death 
Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), [Pub. L. 
104-132, §104, 110 Stat. 1214, 1218-19 
(1996)], “limits the federal courts’ power 
to issue a writ to exceptional 
circumstances” where the state court 
decision on the merits “‘resulted in a 
decision that was contrary to, or involved 
an unreasonable application of, clearly 
established [f]ederal law, as determined by 
the Supreme Court of the United States.’”  
Richardson v. Branker, 668 F.3d 128, 138 
(4th Cir. 2012) (quoting 28 U.S.C § 
2254(d)). 
 
Id. at 167 (Diaz, J., dissenting) (alteration omitted). 
Although the panel majority recited the relevant statutory 
provision, it undertook no AEDPA analysis of either our opinion 
deciding the petitioner’s direct appeal, McDonald v. 
Commonwealth, 274 Va. 249, 645 S.E.2d 918 (2007), or Martin v. 
 
25 
Ziherl, 269 Va. 35, 607 S.E.2d 367 (2005), on which it was 
principally grounded.  It did not conclude, as AEDPA required, 
that our decision in either case “was contrary to, or an 
unreasonable application of” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 
(2003), or any other decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 
Consequently, the Fourth Circuit panel majority decided an 
issue without authority.2  Fundamental principles of comity and 
federalism are offended when a federal court’s reach exceeds 
its statutory grasp. 
Accordingly, I find the Fourth Circuit panel majority’s 
opinion wholly unpersuasive and reject its application in 
Virginia courts. 
 
JUSTICE McCLANAHAN, concurring. 
On appeal to this Court, Toghill challenges Code § 18.2-
361(A) as unconstitutional.  Toghill did not, however, 
challenge the constitutionality of Code § 18.2-361(A) at any 
point during the circuit court proceedings.  Faced with exactly
                     
2 While the United States Supreme Court declined to review 
the Fourth Circuit’s decision, Moose v. MacDonald, U.S., 134 
S.Ct. 200 (2013), “the denial of a writ of certiorari imports 
no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.  The 
variety of considerations that underlie denials of the writ 
counsels against according denials of certiorari any 
precedential value.”  Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 296 (1989) 
(internal citations, quotation marks, and alteration omitted). 
 
 
this circumstance in McDonald v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 249, 645 
S.E.2d 918 (2007), this Court held that Rule 5:25 barred 
consideration of the petitioner's constitutional challenge on 
appeal.  Id. at 255, 645 S.E.2d at 921; Riner v. Commonwealth, 
268 Va. 296, 325 n.11, 601 S.E.2d 555, 571 n.11 (2004) ("Under 
this Court's contemporaneous objection rule, see Rule 5:25, we 
do not consider a constitutional argument raised for the first 
time on appeal.")  That the Fourth Circuit issued a non-binding 
opinion that Code § 18.2-361(A) is unconstitutional after the 
circuit court proceedings concluded does not excuse Toghill's 
failure to himself challenge the constitutionality of the 
statute during the proceedings.  Commonwealth v. Jerman, 263 
Va. 88, 94, 556 S.E.2d 754, 757 (2002); McGhee v. Commonwealth, 
280 Va. 620, 625, 701 S.E.2d 58, 60-61 (2010).  Even if Toghill 
believed a constitutional challenge would fail given the 
authority available at that time, "[t]he perceived futility of 
an [argument] does not excuse a defendant's procedural default 
at trial."  Id., 701 S.E.2d at 61.  Consistent with our 
precedent, I would hold that Rule 5:25 bars the Court's 
consideration of Toghill's appeal.  McDonald, 274 Va. at 255, 
645 S.E.2d at 921; id.; see also Brandon v. Cox, 284 Va. 251, 
254–56, 736 S.E.2d 695, 696–97 (2012); Edmonds v. Coldwell 
Banker Residential Real Estate Servs., Inc., 237 Va. 428, 433, 
377 S.E.2d 443, 446 (1989). 
 
27 
Rule 5:25 does provide an exception for good cause, but 
Toghill has not at any point attempted to even allege good 
cause.  The majority asserts it may raise sua sponte the good 
cause exception, citing as support the Court's invocation sua 
sponte of the ends of justice exception.  While "this Court [is 
able] to attain the ends of justice," the Court may apply the 
good cause exception only "for good cause shown" by a party, 
not for good cause discovered by this Court.  Rule 5:25 
(emphasis added); see Rule 5:9(d) (distinguishing between a 
"motion for good cause shown" and a "sua sponte order of this 
Court").*  Indeed, this Court has declined to sua sponte invoke 
the good cause exception where the law changed under binding 
decisions by this Court and by the Supreme Court of the United 
States, in stark contrast to the merely persuasive Fourth 
Circuit opinion.  Jerman, 263 Va. at 94, 556 S.E.2d at 757; 
McGhee, 280 Va. at 625, 701 S.E.2d at 60-61.  And to be sure, 
the Fourth Circuit's issuance of a non-binding opinion cannot, 
and did not, carry Toghill's burden to show good cause to this 
Court. 
Finding the appeal barred under 5:25, I would affirm the 
judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
                     
* This is analogous to, for example, a show cause order, 
which creates a burden on the party to whom the order is 
directed to present the Court with evidence establishing good 
cause.  See, e.g., Rule 5:1(A) (show cause order issued "to 
counsel or a party not represented by an attorney").