COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judge Benton and 

 Senior Judge Overton 

Argued at Alexandria, Virginia 

EVAN JOHN CASEY COYNE 

 OPINION BY 

v. Record No. 2534-01-4 JUDGE JAMES W. BENTON, JR. 

 OCTOBER 29, 2002 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY 

James H. Chamblin, Judge 

 William B. Moffitt (Asbill Moffitt & Boss, 

Chtd., on brief), for appellant. 

 Margaret W. Reed, Assistant Attorney General 

(Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 Evan John Casey Coyne conditionally pled guilty to the 

charge of possessing a controlled substance with the intent to 

distribute it as an accommodation. See Code § 18.2-248. He 

contends on appeal that the Commonwealth is barred by the 

doctrine of collateral estoppel from prosecuting him for that 

offense because the Commonwealth previously had successfully 

convicted another individual of the same offense based on the 

same facts. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the 

conviction. 

 I. 

 Prior to accepting Coyne's conditional guilty plea, the 

trial judge held a hearing on Coyne's motion to dismiss the 
indictment. The evidence established that the Commonwealth 

indicted Donald Keith Bryden for distributing controlled 

substances to an informant for the Loudoun County Sheriff's 

Department on August 23, 2000. Bryden tendered a plea of guilty 

to the indictment. At the hearing on Bryden's plea, the 

prosecutor proffered that the evidence would prove the informant 

arranged the transaction in a telephone conversation with 

Bryden, that Bryden met the informant at the prearranged 

location on August 23, 2000, and that Bryden personally sold ten 

tablets of a controlled substance to the informant. The 

prosecutor proffered that the transaction was captured on both 

video and audio recordings. At the hearing, Bryden acknowledged 

those facts to be true. The trial judge accepted Bryden's 

guilty plea and convicted Bryden of distributing the controlled 

substances on August 23, 2000 in violation of Code § 18.2-248. 

Two months after Bryden was convicted, a grand jury indicted 

Coyne for the same offense. 

 At the hearing on Coyne's motion to dismiss the indictment, 

the prosecutor acknowledged that the facts recited above were an 

accurate representation of the incidents occurring at the prior 

proceedings when the judge convicted Bryden on his guilty plea. 

The prosecutor asserted, however, that the prosecutor who made 

the proffer at Bryden's hearing "misspoke" when he said Bryden 

personally delivered the controlled substances to the informant. 

He told the trial judge that "[w]hen [the other prosecutor] said 

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the drugs were delivered by Bryden, he should have said through 

an agent, Evan Coyne." 

 The trial judge ruled that the doctrine of collateral 

estoppel did not bar the prosecution "because . . . Coyne was 

not a party to the proceeding between the Commonwealth and . . . 

Bryden," and he denied Coyne's motion to dismiss. Coyne then 

tendered a conditional guilty plea to the charge of distributing 

the same controlled substances to the informant on August 23, 

2000. The proffer at Coyne's hearing established that after 

Bryden spoke to the informant and agreed to sell the controlled 

substances, Bryden left town. The proffer further established 

that Coyne met the informant and delivered the controlled 

substances to the informant. On these facts, the trial judge 

accepted Coyne's conditional guilty plea to the charge of 

distributing the controlled substances as an accommodation in 

violation of Code § 18.2-248. As permitted by Code § 19.2-254, 

Coyne appeals the denial of his motion to dismiss. 

 II. 

 Relying upon federal law, Coyne contends that this case is 

governed by the principle that, "[u]nder collateral estoppel, 

once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to 

its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the 

issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party 

to the first case." Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94 (1980). 

He further contends that "[a]lthough [collateral estoppel was] 

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first developed in civil litigation, [it] has been an 

established rule of federal criminal law." Ashe v. Swenson, 397 

U.S. 436, 443 (1970). 

 Relying on Virginia law, the Commonwealth contends that to 

invoke the doctrine of collateral estoppel in Virginia, the 

parties must be the same in each of the lawsuits. Whitley v. 

Commonwealth, 260 Va. 482, 489, 538 S.E.2d 296, 299 (2000); Lee 

v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 1108, 1110, 254 S.E.2d 126, 127 (1979). 

In addition, the Commonwealth contends the doctrine of 

collateral estoppel does not bar the prosecution because the 

trial judge "in Bryden's case could have grounded [the] 

conviction on a factual issue other than who physically handed 

the informant the drugs on August 23." See id. at 1111, 254 

S.E.2d at 127. 

 Neither Coyne nor the Commonwealth addresses head-on the 

choice of law issue. Although Coyne relies on federal cases 

that apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel, he makes no 

persuasive argument that federal law, rather than state law, 

governs the issue as it arises in this context. Coyne makes no 

claim that his collateral estoppel argument as it is raised in 

the context of this case is grounded in constitutional 

principles such as double jeopardy, due process, or other 

guarantees. Put simply, he contends that the preclusive effect 

of the prior judgment convicting Bryden necessarily bars his 

prosecution in a state criminal proceeding. 

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 At its core, collateral estoppel is a common law doctrine. 

United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154, 158 (1984). Although 

the Supreme Court "[i]n Ashe v. Swensen, . . . recognized that 

the Double Jeopardy Clause incorporates the doctrine of 

collateral estoppel," Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 

347 (1990), the Supreme Court has also recognized that "the 

collateral-estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy Clause is 

inapposite" in some cases. Id. at 349. Thus, in the absence of 

a claim of constitutional dimensions, the preclusive effect of a 

state court judgment is a matter governed by state law. See

Haring v. Prosise, 462 U.S. 306, 316-17 n.10 (1983). See also 

Allen, 449 U.S. at 96 (holding that "Congress has specifically 

required all federal courts to give preclusive effect to 

state-court judgments whenever the courts of the State from 

which the judgments emerged would do so"); Kane v. Hargis, 987 

F.2d 1005, 1008 (4th Cir. 1993) (holding that in an action under 

42 U.S.C. § 1983 "[t]he collateral estoppel effect of the 

Virginia court's decision is determined by Virginia law"). 

 Applying state law, the Supreme Court of Virginia has 

consistently held that "before the doctrine of collateral 

estoppel may be applied, . . . the parties to the two 

proceedings must be the same." Whitley, 260 Va. at 489, 538 

S.E.2d at 299. See also Selected Risks Insurance Co. v. Dean, 

233 Va. 260, 355 S.E.2d 579 (1987); Jones v. Commonwealth, 217 

Va. 231, 232, 228 S.E.2d 127, 128 (1976). We have held likewise 

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in Jones v. City of Lynchburg, 23 Va. App. 167, 171, 474 S.E.2d 

863, 865 (1996). As the United States Supreme Court noted in 

Haring, "[a]lthough the doctrine of mutuality of parties has 

been abandoned in recent years by the courts of many 

jurisdictions, . . . it has not been rejected by the courts of 

Virginia." 462 U.S. at 606 n.10 (citations omitted). 

 Accordingly, we hold that the trial judge did not err in 

applying Virginia law and denying Coyne's motion to dismiss. 

We, therefore, affirm the conviction. 

 Affirmed. 

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