Title: Davis v. Johnson
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 070376
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: November 2, 2007

PRESENT:  Hassell, C.J., Keenan, Koontz, Kinser, Lemons, and 
Agee, JJ., and Lacy, S.J. 
 
RODNEY C. DAVIS 
 
v. Record No. 070376     
 
        OPINION BY  
JUSTICE BARBARA MILANO KEENAN 
 
                          November 2, 2007 
 
GENE M. JOHNSON, DIRECTOR,  
VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS  
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 
Kathleen H. MacKay, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, a petitioner challenges a circuit court’s 
judgment dismissing with prejudice his petition for a writ of 
habeas corpus.  The primary issue we consider is whether the 
circuit court abused its discretion in denying the petitioner’s 
request to dismiss his claims without prejudice, pursuant to 
Bowman v. Washington, 269 Va. 1, 605 S.E.2d 585 (2004), when 
petitioner was awarded a belated appeal of his criminal 
convictions to the Court of Appeals. 
In 2004, Rodney C. Davis pleaded guilty in the Circuit 
Court of Fairfax County to two counts of distribution of 
cocaine.  The circuit court found Davis guilty as charged and 
sentenced him to serve two concurrent terms of five years and 
four months’ imprisonment. 
Davis later filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 
the circuit court under Code § 8.01-654(B), in which he asserted 
 
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18 claims.  Davis’ first four claims involved allegations of 
ineffective assistance of counsel. 
In claim (a), Davis alleged that his trial counsel failed 
to prepare properly for trial, failed to interview witnesses, 
and failed to conduct proper legal research.  In claim (b), 
Davis alleged that his trial counsel failed to prepare 
adequately for trial and failed to provide Davis with competent 
advice about Davis’ decision to plead guilty, and that Davis’ 
guilty pleas were not intelligently made. 
In claim (c), Davis alleged that his trial counsel failed 
to introduce mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase of 
trial.  In claim (d), Davis alleged that his trial counsel, as 
well as counsel retained after trial, failed to advise Davis 
about his right to appeal and failed to file a timely appeal. 
 
In claims (e) through (j), Davis asserted various claims of 
prosecutorial misconduct.  In claims (k) and (l), Davis alleged 
that the probation officer filed an inaccurate pre-sentence 
report.  In claims (m) through (r), Davis alleged that the trial 
judge acted in violation of Davis’ constitutional rights. 
The Commonwealth filed an answer and motion to dismiss 
Davis’ petition, opposing claims (a) through (c) and claims (e) 
through (r).  However, with regard to claim (d), the 
Commonwealth conceded that Davis should be permitted to file a 
belated appeal to the Court of Appeals. 
 
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Davis filed a reply brief in support of his petition, 
asserting additional claims and alleged facts in support of 
those claims.  Davis attached to this reply brief affidavits and 
letters from his mother and friends relating their impressions 
of the conduct of Davis’ counsel and the circumstances of his 
trial. 
 
On October 26, 2006, the circuit court entered an order 
that granted Davis’ original petition with respect to claim (d), 
allowing Davis to pursue a belated appeal to the Court of 
Appeals.  The circuit court dismissed the remaining claims in 
Davis’ petition with prejudice. 
The circuit court dismissed claims (a) through (c), which 
contained allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel, on 
several grounds.  The circuit court determined that these claims 
failed to state a ground for relief under the tests set forth in 
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984), and Hill v. 
Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985).  The circuit court also held 
that claims (a) through (c) were “too conclusory” to demonstrate 
that Davis suffered prejudice as a result of counsel’s alleged 
ineffective assistance.  Finally, the circuit court, citing 
Anderson v. Warden, 222 Va. 511, 516, 281 S.E.2d 885, 888 
(1981), held that claims (a) through (c) were “wholly 
inconsistent” with the representations Davis made at the time of 
his guilty pleas about the adequacy of his trial counsel and the 
 
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intelligent and voluntary nature of his guilty pleas.  The 
circuit court dismissed on several grounds claims (e) through 
(r), which alleged prosecutorial misconduct and errors by the 
probation officer and trial judge.  The court concluded that 1) 
these claims were not supported by sufficient factual 
allegations and, thus, were precluded under the holding in Penn 
v. Smyth, 188 Va. 367, 370-71, 49 S.E.2d 600, 601 (1948); 2) 
Davis was bound by his representations at trial about the 
adequacy of his trial counsel and the voluntary nature of his 
guilty pleas, based on this Court’s holding in Anderson; and 3) 
these non-jurisdictional issues were barred under Slayton v. 
Parrigan, 215 Va. 27, 29, 205 S.E.2d 680, 682 (1974), because 
the claims could have been raised at trial and on direct appeal. 
 
Davis filed a timely motion in the circuit court asking 
that the court “change its [October 26, 2006] order [and] 
dismiss without prejudice” his remaining claims based on this 
Court’s holding in Bowman.  The Commonwealth opposed Davis’ 
motion. 
 
The circuit court denied Davis’ request that the court 
change the terms of its October 26, 2006 order.  The circuit 
court further held that Davis’ claim (d) was now moot because 
Davis had been awarded a belated appeal of his criminal 
convictions, and dismissed Davis’ petition with prejudice.  
Davis appeals from the circuit court’s judgment. 
 
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Initially, we consider Davis’ contention that the circuit 
court erred in failing to adequately consider his supplemental 
pleading, entitled “Opposition to Motion to Dismiss,” in which 
he augmented the facts and arguments stated in his initial 
petition.  Appended to this “Opposition to Motion to Dismiss” 
were several letters and affidavits that Davis submitted for the 
circuit court’s consideration. 
We find no merit in Davis’ argument because the record 
before us explicitly refutes his claim.  In its October 26, 2006 
order dismissing with prejudice Davis’ claims (a) through (c) 
and (e) through (r) (the remaining habeas corpus claims), the 
circuit court held that “the affidavits and letters filed by the 
Petitioner in his Opposition to Motion to Dismiss do not create 
the requisite reasonable probability of a different result.”  
Thus, the specific language of the October 26, 2006 order 
demonstrates that the circuit court considered the contents of 
Davis’ supplemental pleading but ultimately found that the 
remaining habeas corpus claims had no merit. 
Davis argues, nevertheless, that the circuit court abused 
its discretion when it refused to dismiss the remaining habeas 
corpus claims without prejudice.  Davis contends that under the 
holding in Bowman, when a habeas petitioner’s request for a 
belated appeal is granted, his remaining claims should be 
dismissed without prejudice so that he may appeal his criminal 
 
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convictions before being required to litigate the merits of a 
collateral attack on those convictions. 
 
In response, the Commonwealth argues that this Court’s 
holding in Bowman emphasized the discretionary nature of a 
circuit court’s authority to resolve habeas corpus claims.  
According to the Commonwealth, the facts and procedural history 
of Davis’ case demonstrate that the circuit court properly 
exercised its discretion in dismissing with prejudice the 
remaining habeas corpus claims. 
 
In considering this issue, we take the opportunity to 
discuss our holding in Bowman and the scope of a circuit court’s 
discretionary authority to dismiss habeas corpus claims, with or 
without prejudice, when a petitioner has been awarded a belated 
appeal of his criminal convictions.  In Bowman, the petitioner 
requested leave to file a belated appeal, and he also asked that 
his remaining claims be dismissed without prejudice.  Bowman, 
269 Va. at 1, 605 S.E.2d at 585.  The circuit court agreed that 
a belated appeal should be awarded but refused the petitioner’s 
request to dismiss his remaining claims without prejudice.  Id. 
We held that the circuit court abused its discretion in 
refusing the petitioner’s request to dismiss his remaining 
claims without prejudice.  Id. at 1-2, 605 S.E.2d at 585-86.  In 
reaching this conclusion in Bowman, we made certain observations 
concerning the nature of habeas corpus relief in our courts.  
 
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Id.  We noted that in Dorsey v. Angelone, 261 Va. 601, 604, 544 
S.E.2d 350, 352 (2001), we held that Code § 8.01-654 
unambiguously bars a petitioner from raising new claims in a 
second or subsequent petition for habeas corpus relief that were 
known to the petitioner when he filed his first petition.*  
Bowman, 269 Va. at 1-2, 605 S.E.2d at 585-86.  We further 
observed in Bowman that Code § 8.01-654 does not prevent a 
petitioner from reasserting claims that were dismissed without 
prejudice in a prior proceeding.  Id.  
Our decision in Bowman, however, did not suggest that a 
circuit court must in every case dismiss without prejudice all 
additional habeas corpus claims accompanying a successful 
request for a belated appeal.  Such a rule effectively would 
nullify a circuit court’s discretion by mandating the same 
result in every case in which additional claims have been 
asserted. 
Instead, the discretionary nature of the circuit court’s 
authority permits a circuit court to evaluate a petitioner’s 
additional claims.  If the circuit court is able to determine 
from the record that these claims are insufficient as a matter 
of law, or are procedurally barred as a matter of law, the 
                     
* In 2005, after our opinion in Bowman was issued, Code 
§ 8.01-654(B)(2) was amended to allow a petitioner to file a 
second or subsequent petition raising new claims when his first 
 
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circuit court retains the discretionary authority to dismiss 
those deficient claims with prejudice.  If, however, the 
additional claims cannot be resolved as a matter of law on the 
face of the record, the circuit court should dismiss those 
claims without prejudice to enable a petitioner to reassert the 
same claims in a later petition after his belated appeal is 
concluded. 
 
Based on these principles, we hold that there is no merit 
in Davis’ assertion that our decision in Bowman required that 
the circuit court dismiss the remaining habeas corpus claims 
without prejudice, irrespective of their legal merit or 
procedural deficiencies.  This determination, however, does not 
end our consideration of Davis’ appeal. 
Davis advances an alternative argument, in which he asserts 
that the circuit court nevertheless abused its discretion by 
dismissing the remaining habeas corpus claims with prejudice as 
either legally insufficient or procedurally barred.  Arguing 
that the remaining habeas corpus claims had legal merit, Davis 
asserts that he adequately pleaded claims under the Supreme 
Court’s holdings in Strickland and Hill.  Davis also contends 
that the circuit court erred in applying our decisions in Penn 
                                                                  
petition contained only an allegation that he was denied the 
right to pursue a direct appeal.  2005 Acts ch. 836. 
 
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and Slayton when the court dismissed the remaining habeas corpus 
claims with prejudice. 
We are unable to consider the merits of these arguments, 
however, because Davis has failed to assign error to an 
independent basis for the circuit court’s judgment that applied 
our decision in Anderson.  See Adams Outdoor Adver., L.P. v. 
Board of Zoning Appeals, 274 Va. 189, 197, 645 S.E.2d 271, 275 
(2007); Sheets v. Castle, 263 Va. 407, 412, 559 S.E.2d 616, 619 
(2002); Parker-Smith v. STO Corp., 262 Va. 432, 440-41, 551 
S.E.2d 615, 620 (2001).  In Anderson, we held that the truth and 
accuracy of a defendant’s representations concerning the 
adequacy of his counsel and the voluntary nature of his guilty 
plea will be deemed conclusively established by the trial 
proceedings, unless the petitioner presents a valid reason why 
he should be allowed to controvert his prior statements.  
Anderson, 222 Va. at 516, 281 S.E.2d at 888. 
In dismissing Davis’ habeas corpus allegations (a) through 
(c), the circuit court’s order of October 26, 2006 relied on our 
holding in Anderson, stating that “the petitioner’s present 
self-serving complaints about [trial counsel] are blatantly and 
wholly inconsistent with what Davi[s] said when he pled guilty.”  
Because Davis does not challenge this independent ground for the 
circuit court’s holding that he failed to demonstrate prejudice 
resulting from his counsel’s assistance at trial as required by 
 
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Strickland and Hill, we do not address Davis’ other challenges 
in his assignments of error to the dismissal of his claims (a) 
through (c).  See Adams Outdoor Adver., 274 Va. at 197, 645 
S.E.2d at 275; Sheets, 263 Va. at 412, 559 S.E.2d at 619; 
Parker-Smith, 262 Va. at 440-41, 551 S.E.2d at 620.  
 
In the October 26, 2006 order, the circuit court also 
relied on our holding in Anderson as an independent basis for 
the court’s dismissal of Davis’ claims (e) through (r).  Because 
Davis does not assign error to this independent basis for the 
circuit court’s judgment, we likewise do not consider his 
assignments of error relating to those claims.  See Adams 
Outdoor Adver., 274 Va. at 197, 645 S.E.2d at 275; Sheets, 263 
Va. at 412, 559 S.E.2d at 619; Parker-Smith, 262 Va. at 440-41, 
551 S.E.2d at 620. 
 
For these reasons, we will affirm the circuit court’s 
judgment. 
Affirmed.