Title: Smith v. Commonwealth
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 121579
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: June 6, 2013

PRESENT:  All the Justices 
 
JEREMY WADE SMITH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 121579 
 
 
    JUSTICE WILLIAM C. MIMS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    June 6, 2013 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RICHMOND 
Clarence N. Jenkins, Jr., Judge 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the retroactive 
application of a 2008 amendment to Code § 9.1-902 resulted in 
contractual and constitutional violations by allegedly 
interfering with a 1999 plea agreement. 
I. 
BACKGROUND AND MATERIAL PROCEEDINGS BELOW 
In February 1999, a grand jury in the City of Richmond 
indicted Jeremy Wade Smith for rape in violation of Code § 
18.2-61.  The indictment alleged that Smith, age twenty-two at 
the time, engaged in sexual activity with a fourteen-year-old 
girl, resulting in the birth of a child. 
Smith entered into a plea agreement.  He agreed to plead 
guilty to the reduced charge of carnal knowledge of a minor in 
violation of Code § 18.2-63, and the Commonwealth agreed to 
recommend a suspended sentence.  The plea agreement contained 
an integration clause stating that it “contain[ed] the entire 
agreement between the parties, both oral and written.”  The 
agreement did not reference the registration requirements 
applicable to convicted sex offenders.  The circuit court 
 
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reluctantly accepted the plea agreement and sentenced Smith to 
ten years’ incarceration with the entire term suspended.  The 
Commonwealth reminded the court that Smith would be required to 
register with the Virginia Department of State Police (“State 
Police”) as a sex offender.  Smith’s counsel indicated that he 
understood this requirement. 
At the time of Smith’s conviction, carnal knowledge of a 
minor was classified as a non-violent sex offense.  Former Code 
§ 19.2-298.1 (1995 & Supp. 1999).  As a non-violent sex 
offender, Smith was required to register with the State Police 
annually for 10 years, after which he could petition for 
expungement.1  Former Code §§ 19.2-298.2, -298.3(A) (1995 & 
Supp. 1999). 
In 2006, the federal government enacted the Adam Walsh 
Child Protection and Safety Act.  See 42 U.S.C. § 16911 et seq. 
(2006).  Title I of the Act, known as the Sex Offender 
Registration & Notification Act (“SORNA”), required Virginia to 
implement comprehensive sex offender registration standards.2  
In 2008, the General Assembly amended Code § 9.1-902 (former 
                                                 
1 At the time Smith was convicted, the statutory provisions 
governing sex offender registration were located in former Code 
§§ 19.2-298.1 through 19.2-298.4 (2000 & Supp. 2002).  In 2003, 
the General Assembly repealed these Code sections and enacted 
the Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry Act, Code § 
9.1-900 et seq., 2003 Acts ch. 584. 
2 Failure to implement such standards would have resulted 
in a partial loss of federal funding for state and local law 
enforcement programs.  See 42 U.S.C. § 16925 (2006). 
 
3 
Code § 19.2-298.1) to comply with SORNA.  As a result, Smith’s 
conviction for carnal knowledge of a minor was retroactively 
reclassified as a “sexually violent offense,” and he became 
subject to more stringent registration requirements.  2008 Acts 
ch. 877.  Particularly, Smith now must register every 90 days 
for the rest of his life, with no right to petition for 
expungement.  Code §§ 9.1-903, -904. 
In February 2010, Smith filed a complaint in the Circuit 
Court of the City of Richmond asserting that he should not be 
classified as a violent sex offender for purposes of the 
registration requirements.  Smith argued that the 
reclassification of his offense violated his contractual and 
constitutional rights.  He asserted that the reclassification 
(1) unilaterally altered the terms of his plea agreement, 
constituting a breach of contract; (2) deprived him of vested 
contractual rights without just compensation, constituting an 
unconstitutional taking; and (3) violated his procedural due 
process rights. 
Smith and the Commonwealth filed cross-motions for summary 
judgment.  Smith claimed that the sex offender registration 
requirements in effect when he entered the plea agreement were 
part of the agreement as if they had been explicitly 
incorporated therein.  Thus, he contended that reclassifying 
his offense breached the plea agreement and deprived him of 
 
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vested contractual rights without just compensation or due 
process of law.  The Commonwealth responded that Smith had no 
contractual rights, vested or otherwise, regarding the sex 
offender registration requirements because the plea agreement 
contained an integration clause and did not reference the 
registration requirements. 
The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of the 
Commonwealth.  It held that reclassifying Smith’s conviction 
did not constitute a material breach of contract.  In addition, 
it concluded that the registration requirements were not an 
integral part of Smith’s inducement to enter into the plea 
agreement, which held no promise or vested right that the 
registration laws would not subsequently change.  Because Smith 
had no vested contractual rights with respect to the 
registration requirements, the circuit court reasoned that 
there was no unconstitutional taking or procedural due process 
violation.3  Accordingly, the court dismissed Smith’s claims 
with prejudice.  This appeal followed. 
II. 
ANALYSIS 
The crux of Smith’s argument is that the 1999 plea 
agreement was a contract that incorporated the sex offender 
                                                 
3 Regarding the procedural due process claim, the circuit 
court also held that a hearing would not have established facts 
relevant to the legislature’s statutory scheme; therefore, no 
additional process was necessary. 
 
5 
registration laws in existence at the time of the agreement.  
Thus, he contends that the Commonwealth materially breached the 
plea agreement and deprived him of vested contractual rights by 
subsequently amending the registration laws and retroactively 
enforcing them against him. 
For Smith to prevail, he first must establish that the 
1999 sex offender registration laws became terms of the plea 
agreement.  The plea agreement is silent as to the registration 
requirements.  Thus, Smith’s sole argument is that the plea 
agreement implicitly incorporated the 1999 registration laws as 
contractual terms by operation of law. 
Smith relies on this Court’s decision in Wright v. 
Commonwealth, 275 Va. 77, 655 S.E.2d 7 (2008).  In Wright, the 
defendant entered into a plea agreement that reduced his charge 
from capital to first degree murder and provided for a sentence 
of life imprisonment.  Id. at 79, 655 S.E.2d at 8.  The trial 
court accepted the plea agreement, but also imposed a 
statutorily mandated period of post-release supervision and 
suspended incarceration that was not referenced in the plea 
agreement.  Id.  The defendant challenged the trial court’s 
imposition of the additional term, and this Court upheld the 
sentence.  The Court acknowledged that general principles of 
contract law apply to plea agreements and stated that “[t]he 
law effective when the contract is made is as much a part of 
 
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the contract as if incorporated therein.”  Id. at 81-82, 655 
S.E.2d at 10 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).  
In other words, the Court concluded that the statute mandating 
post-release supervision and suspended incarceration was an 
implicit term of the plea agreement. 
Consistent with our decision in Wright, we agree that the 
1999 sex offender registration laws were implicit terms of 
Smith’s plea agreement.  Thus, as in Wright, Smith could not 
refuse to abide by the registration requirements simply because 
they were not expressly listed in the agreement.  The question 
before us is whether the General Assembly could subsequently 
change the law in effect at the time of the plea agreement. 
Smith argues that it could not.  He asserts that, for 
purposes of his plea agreement, the law effective in 1999 also 
implicitly incorporated Article I, Section 11 of the 
Constitution of Virginia and Code § 1-239, which together 
prohibited the Commonwealth from altering contracts via 
retroactive amendments to the law.4  Therefore, Smith argues 
                                                 
4 Article I, Section 11 provides that “the General Assembly 
shall not pass any law impairing the obligations of contracts.”  
Code § 1-239 states: 
 
No new act of the General Assembly shall be construed 
to repeal a former law . . . or any right accrued, or 
claim arising under the former law, or in any way 
whatever to affect any such . . . right accrued, or 
claim arising before the new act of the General 
Assembly takes effect. 
 
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that the plea agreement not only incorporated the 1999 sex 
offender registration laws, but gave him a vested right that 
amended registration laws would not apply to him. 
This argument has no merit.  It is well established that 
Article I, Section 11 and Code § 1-239 must be interpreted to 
accommodate the inherent police power of the state to safeguard 
the interests of its people.  This Court has stated that 
contracts must be read “as containing an implied condition that 
[they are] subject to the exercise of the [s]tate’s regulatory 
police power.”  Haughton v. Lankford, 189 Va. 183, 190, 52 
S.E.2d 111, 114 (1949); see also United States Trust Co. v. New 
Jersey, 431 U.S. 1, 22 (1977).  Thus, contracts are deemed to 
implicitly incorporate the existing law and the reserved power 
of the state to amend the law or enact additional laws for the 
public welfare.  Haughton, 189 Va. at 190, 52 S.E.2d at 114. 
The General Assembly’s reclassification of carnal 
knowledge of a minor as a “sexually violent offense” was an 
exercise of the state’s regulatory police power.  Code § 9.1-
902 was amended to bring Virginia into compliance with the 
federal sex offender registration guidelines set forth in 
SORNA.  The rationale behind these federal guidelines was “[t]o 
protect children from sexual exploitation and violent crime 
. . . .”  Pub. L. No. 109-248, Title I, § 102, 120 Stat. 587, 
587, 590 (2006). 
 
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Smith argues that amending Code § 9.1-902 was an improper 
use of the state’s police power because the true reason behind 
the amendment was to avoid the loss of federal funding.  We 
disagree.  Regardless of federal funding, Code § 9.1-902 was 
amended to better protect Virginians against sexually motivated 
crimes.  This purpose is squarely within the Commonwealth’s 
police power to protect the public safety. 
Accordingly, the reclassification of Smith’s conviction 
was not a breach of contract.  When Smith entered into the plea 
agreement he had no contractual right that his sex offense 
would never be subject to future sex offender legislation.  
While the agreement implicitly incorporated the 1999 
registration laws, it said nothing to indicate that Smith would 
only be bound by the law in effect at the time of the 
agreement, i.e., the 10-year registration requirement then 
applicable to non-violent sex offenders.5  Furthermore, the plea 
agreement contained an implied condition that Smith would 
remain subject to the state’s future exercise of its police 
power.  That power included the inherent authority to pass non-
punitive legislation regulating convicted sex offenders. 
Because we find that Smith had no vested contractual 
rights with respect to the 1999 registration requirements, his 
                                                 
5 We do not at this time address whether the 
reclassification of a conviction would constitute a breach of 
any such express contractual clause. 
 
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constitutional claims also must fail.  Smith first argues that 
the Commonwealth violated Article I, Section 11 of the 
Constitution of Virginia by depriving him of his contractual 
rights under the plea agreement without just compensation.  
Article I, Section 11 states: 
[T]he General Assembly shall pass no law whereby 
private property, the right to which is fundamental, 
shall be damaged or taken except for public use.  No 
private property shall be damaged or taken for public 
use without just compensation to the owner thereof. 
 
Smith is correct that vested contractual rights qualify as 
private property that may not be taken without just 
compensation.  See Lynch v. United States, 292 U.S. 571, 579 
(1934).  However, as discussed, Smith did not have any vested 
contractual rights with respect to the 1999 registration 
requirements.  The Commonwealth was permitted to enact 
retroactive legislation regulating convicted sex offenders as 
part of its police power.  Thus, the reclassification of 
Smith’s conviction was not an unconstitutional taking. 
Smith also argues that his procedural due process rights 
were violated because he was deprived of contractual rights 
without an opportunity to be heard.  Article I, Section 11 of 
the Constitution of Virginia provides that, “no person shall be 
deprived of his life, liberty, or property without due process 
of law.”  “[D]ue process of law requires that a person shall 
have reasonable notice and a reasonable opportunity to be heard 
 
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before an impartial tribunal, before any binding decree can be 
passed affecting his right to liberty or property.”  Ward 
Lumber Co. v. Henderson-White Mfg. Co., 107 Va. 626, 630, 59 
S.E. 476, 479 (1907) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
For the same reason that the reclassification of Smith’s 
conviction was not an unconstitutional taking, it also was not 
a violation of procedural due process.  Due process analysis 
presupposes the existence of an enforceable right.  We 
previously have held that convicted sex offenders have no 
liberty interest to be free from quarterly registration 
requirements.  McCabe v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 558, 565, 650 
S.E.2d 508, 512 (2007).  Likewise, they have no fundamental 
right to rely on the civil legislative scheme in existence at 
the time of pleading guilty.  Id. at 565-66, 650 S.E.2d at 512-
13.  Because in this particular case Smith had no vested 
contractual rights with respect to the 1999 registration 
requirements, there was no procedural due process violation.6 
 
                                                 
6 Even if Smith did have contractual rights with respect to 
the 1999 registration requirements, no additional process was 
necessary.  Classification of a crime as a “sexually violent 
offense” under Code § 9.1-902 is based solely on the nature of 
the crime.  Thus, conviction of carnal knowledge of a minor who 
was more than five years younger than the perpetrator is the 
only fact relevant to the classification determination, and 
nothing Smith could have presented at a hearing would have 
changed that fact.  See McCabe, 274 Va. at 567-68, 650 S.E.2d 
at 513-14. 
 
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III. CONCLUSION 
Since there were no contractual or constitutional 
violations resulting from the reclassification of Smith’s 
conviction, the circuit court properly dismissed his petition 
for expungement and for a permanent injunction.  Accordingly, 
we will affirm the judgment of the circuit court. 
    Affirmed.