Present: All the Justices 

DOUGLAS CHRISTOPHER THOMAS 

v. Record No. 991284 OPINION BY JUSTICE BARBARA MILANO KEENAN 

 November 5, 1999 

DAVID GARRAGHTY, WARDEN, 

GREENSVILLE CORRECTIONAL CENTER 

UPON A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS 

 Douglas Christopher Thomas was convicted in the Circuit 

Court of Middlesex County (circuit court) of capital murder, 

first degree murder, and two counts of using a firearm in the 

commission of a felony. The first degree murder conviction was 

based on the killing of James Baxter Wiseman, II, Code § 18.2-

32, and the capital murder conviction arose from the killing of 

Kathy J. Wiseman as a part of the same act or transaction of 

killing James Baxter Wiseman, II, Code § 18.2-31(7). The other 

two convictions were based on Thomas's use of a firearm in the 

commission of these murders. Code § 18.2-53.1. Thomas, who was 

17 years old at the time of these offenses, was sentenced to 

death on the capital murder conviction based on the aggravating 

factor of "vileness." He also received a sentence of 65 years' 

imprisonment for first degree murder and a total of six years' 

imprisonment for the two firearms convictions. We affirmed the 

trial court's judgment in Thomas v. Commonwealth, 244 Va. 1, 419 

S.E.2d 606, cert. denied, 506 U.S. 958 (1992). 
 Thomas filed the present petition for a writ of habeas 

corpus invoking this Court's original jurisdiction. He alleges 

that his biological father was not provided notice of the 

proceedings in the Middlesex County Juvenile and Domestic 

Relations District Court (juvenile court) that resulted in his 

transfer to the circuit court for trial as an adult, as required 

by former Code § 16.1-263.1 He asserts that under our recent 

holding in Commonwealth v. Baker, 258 Va. 1, 516 S.E.2d 219 

(1999) (per curiam), the Commonwealth's failure to provide such 

notice created a jurisdictional defect that rendered his 

convictions void. 

 In November 1990, the juvenile court issued criminal 

petitions against Thomas in which his mother was identified as 

Margaret M. Thomas and his aunt and uncle, Brenda J. and Herbert 

Marshall, were identified under the heading, "guardian, legal 

custodian or person in loco parentis." Thomas does not dispute 

that these three individuals were given notice of the transfer 

proceedings in the juvenile court. Thomas's father was 

identified in the petitions as "Robert Christopher Thomas[,] 

 1

Thomas raised the same claim in a motion for writ of coram 

vobis filed in the circuit court, which denied the motion by 

order dated June 16, 1999. Thomas's appeal of the circuit court 

order is pending in this Court and has been consolidated with 

this habeas corpus proceeding. See Thomas v. Commonwealth of 

Virginia, Record. No. 991291. We will decide the coram vobis 

appeal separately by order and, for reasons not germane to this 

2
Whereabouts unknown." No notice of the juvenile court 

proceedings was provided to Robert Christopher Thomas, and the 

record does not reflect that any effort was made to locate him. 

 On the date set for the transfer hearing in the juvenile 

court, Thomas and his counsel executed a written document 

waiving his right to the hearing. The document stated in part: 

"IT IS THE CONCLUSION of the Defendant and his counsel that the 

statutory requirements for transfer to Circuit Court are met and 

that the waiver of both a probable cause hearing and transfer 

hearing is in the best interest of the Defendant." After 

informing Thomas of the purpose of a transfer hearing and asking 

him questions to determine whether his waiver was voluntary and 

intelligent, the juvenile court accepted Thomas's waiver 

pursuant to former Code § 16.1-270 and transferred Thomas to the 

circuit court for further criminal proceedings. Following the 

transfer, Thomas was indicted, tried, and convicted in the 

circuit court on the four felony charges. 

 The following facts concerning Thomas's family 

relationships are not in dispute. Thomas's biological parents, 

Margaret M. Thomas and Robert Christopher Thomas, separated in 

1973, several months before Thomas was born. They divorced in 

 

appeal, we will affirm the circuit court's judgment in that 

case. 

3
1974. In 1982, Thomas was adopted by his maternal grandparents, 

Herbert B. Marshall, Sr., and Virginia J. Marshall. 

 Prior to the adoption, both of Thomas's biological parents 

executed documents indicating their consent to the adoption. 

The following handwritten language appeared on the consent form 

signed by Thomas's biological mother: 

Also, I would like to know by signing this paper will 

Douglas C. Thomas at [my parents'] death come back to 

me is why I gave consent for them to have custody of 

my son is because [his grandfather] wanted to put him 

on his social security & his insurance papers. 

 The consent form signed by Thomas's biological father 

contained the following typewritten language: 

3) That respondent . . . would like for the records to 

reflect that due to serious illness or death to the 

[adoptive parents] that the child be returned to the 

custody and care of his natural Mother. 

4) That respondent . . . would also like for the 

records to reflect that due to the death or serious 

illness of the child's natural Mother . . . that the 

child be awarded to the custody of his natural Father. 

 In 1985, after both adoptive parents died, Thomas lived 

with his biological mother for a period of time. In 1988, he 

began living with his aunt and uncle, Brenda and Herbert 

Marshall, in Middlesex County, where he was residing when he 

committed these offenses. During the years after his adoptive 

parents died, Thomas did not have a legal guardian or custodian 

appointed by any court. 

4
 In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Thomas relies 

primarily on our holding in Baker. There, for the reasons 

stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, we affirmed the 

Court's judgment voiding the circuit court convictions of a 

juvenile because the required notice of transfer hearing was not 

provided to the juvenile's father. 258 Va. at 2, 516 S.E.2d at 

220. The Court of Appeals held that "[a] plain reading of Code 

§§ 16.1-263 and 16.1-264 manifests legislative intent that both 

parents be notified and dispenses with this requirement only 

when the trial judge has certified on the record that the 

identity of a parent is not reasonably ascertainable." Baker v. 

Commonwealth, 28 Va. App. 306, 312, 504 S.E.2d 394, 397 (1998) 

(emphasis added). The Court of Appeals concluded that 

"[b]ecause the notice of the initiation of juvenile proceedings 

was not properly served on the required parties, the transfer of 

jurisdiction was ineffectual and the subsequent convictions are 

void." Id. at 315, 504 S.E.2d at 399. 

 Thomas argues that the circuit court did not acquire 

jurisdiction to try him as an adult because the transfer 

proceedings in the juvenile court were invalid. He essentially 

contends that after the death of his adoptive parents, his 

biological mother and father again became his "parents" and, 

thus, were entitled under former Code § 16.1-243 to notice of 

5
the transfer proceedings in the juvenile court. We disagree 

with Thomas's argument. 

 In 1990, when Thomas was charged with the four offenses, 

former Code § 16.1-263(A) provided, in relevant part: 

After a petition has been filed, the court shall 

direct the issuance of summonses, one directed to the 

child, if the child is twelve or more years of age, 

and another to the parents, guardian, legal custodian 

or other person standing in loco parentis, and such 

other persons as appear to the court to be proper or 

necessary parties to the proceedings . . . . The court 

may direct that other proper or necessary parties to 

the proceedings be notified of the pendency of the 

case, the charge and the time and place for the 

hearing. 

 In accordance with these provisions, Thomas's aunt and 

uncle, as persons "standing in loco parentis," were served 

with notice of the transfer hearing. This service of 

process, along with the notice that was provided to Thomas, 

fully complied with the requirements of former Code § 16.1-

263 because, at that time, Thomas had no parents, guardian, 

or legal custodian. Under Code § 63.1-233, the final 

adoption order entered in 1982 divested Thomas's biological 

parents of all legal rights and obligations with respect to 

him. That order, in conformance with the provisions of the 

statute, stated that Thomas was "to all intents and 

purposes . . . the child of said petitioners, Herbert B. 

Marshall and Virginia Marshall, husband and wife." See

Code § 63.1-233. 

6
 We find no merit in Thomas's contention that the consent 

forms executed by his biological parents imposed limiting 

conditions on the adoption, which resulted in their resuming the 

status of "parents," for purposes of former Code § 16.1-263, 

when the adoptive parents died. The final adoption order 

unconditionally divested the biological parents of all legal 

rights with respect to Thomas. See Code § 63.1-233; Doe v. Doe, 

222 Va. 736, 746, 284 S.E.2d 799, 805 (1981); Sozio v. Thorpe, 

22 Va. App. 271, 275, 469 S.E.2d 68, 70 (1996); Cage v. 

Harrisonburg Dept. of Social Services, 13 Va. App. 246, 249-50, 

410 S.E.2d 405, 406-07 (1991). Since the adoption order was not 

appealed within six months after it was entered, its validity is 

"not subject to attack in any proceedings, collateral or 

direct." Code § 63.1-237. Thus, Thomas's biological father was 

not his "parent" within the meaning of former Code § 16.1-263 at 

the time of the transfer proceedings and was not entitled to 

notice under that statute. 

 Thomas next asserts an alternative argument that, if he had 

no parents at the time of the juvenile court proceedings, "there 

was a jurisdictional defect in the transfer proceedings because 

a person required to be summonsed, i.e., the legal guardian or 

guardian ad litem, was not notified." We disagree with this 

argument. 

7
 First, Thomas had no legal guardian. Second, there is no 

requirement that a guardian ad litem be appointed to represent a 

juvenile defendant in a transfer proceeding. We resolved this 

issue in Wright v. Commonwealth, 245 Va. 177, 184, 427 S.E.2d 

379, 384 (1993), vacated on other grounds, 512 U.S. 1217 (1994), 

stating that "[a] defendant under a disability who is 

represented by counsel need not have appointed to him a guardian 

ad litem unless a statute applicable to a particular case 

expressly requires such an appointment." Id. at 183, 427 Va. at 

384. We held that because the juvenile transfer statutes 

(former Code §§ 16.1-269 to –272) did not expressly require the 

appointment of a guardian ad litem for a juvenile defendant at a 

transfer hearing, the juvenile defendant had no such right. Id. 

Thus, in the present case, we conclude that the statutory notice 

requirements for a transfer hearing, recognized by this Court in 

Baker, were fully satisfied.2

 For these reasons, we will deny Thomas's petition for a 

writ of habeas corpus. 

Writ denied. 

 2

We reject Thomas's additional argument that because the 

transfer petitions listed Robert Thomas as the defendant's 

father, the Commonwealth should be barred from asserting that 

Robert Thomas was not the defendant's "parent" at the time of 

the transfer proceedings. The terms "father" and "parent" are 

not synonymous under the facts of this case. 

8