Robert John Dodd v. Chadwick Dotson, Director, Virginia Department of Corrections

Dodd was indicted on nine counts for the sexual abuse of a child fifteen years prior. Each count of the indictment was an identical carbon copy, including that each alleged that the crime happened over an identical time span. The evidence did not prove nine specific instances of abuse but gave general allegations. Dodd had a strong defense that the crime could not have happened during the first four years of the allegations. The question presented is whether trial counsel is ineffective where he failed to object on Double Jeopardy grounds to these nine identical carbon copy indictments? In Valentine v. Konteh, 395 F.3d 626 (6th Cir. 2005), the court granted habeas relief for an identical double jeopardy violation. The Supreme Court of Virginia in this case denied Dodd’s state habeas petition because “there is no clearly established Supreme Court precedent addressing the constitutionality of multiple identical indictments” and a petition for habeas corpus cannot be granted without “clearly established federal law.” Dodd v. Clarke, 2021 Va. Unpub. LEXIS 2, 2021 WL 397987 at *3.