Jоsiah Jacob DEYTON; Andrew Ryan Deyton; Jonathan Neil Koniak, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Alvin William KELLER, Jr., Secretary of NCDOC; Landar Corpening, Superintendent of Foothills Correctional, Respondents-Appellees.
No. 11-7389.
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: May 15, 2012. Decided: June 15, 2012.
682 F.3d 340
VI.
In the end, appellants ask us to revisit issues already resolved by the Congress. It may or may not be that Section 8(i)(1) is the most effective means of promoting the NVRA‘s stated purposes. The public disclosure provision may or may not “increasе the number of eligible citizens who register to vote” in federal elections and “enhance[] the participation of eligible citizens as voters.”
AFFIRMED AND REMANDED
Before WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and HENRY E. HUDSON, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge AGEE and Judge HUDSON joined.
OPINION
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
Petitioners appeal from the district court‘s denial of habeas corpus relief. They contend that, at their sentencing for armed robbery of the Sunday worship services at a North Carolina church, the state trial judge impermissibly made references to religion, thereby violating their rights to due process. But the defendants’ choice to target a church during weekly services imbued their crime with an undeniably religious character. Crimes of this nature carry special hazards for the freedom of all faiths to worship undisturbed. Far frоm being “an unreasonable application of[] clearly established Federal law,”
I.
Petitioners Josiah Deyton, his coworker Jonathan Koniak, and his brother Andrew Deyton formulated a plan to rob Sunday services at a church in Mitchell County, North Carolina. On April 13, 2008, the conspirators met and cased possible churches to target, ultimately choosing to
Wearing ski masks and gloves, the defendants barged into the Sunday morning worship service, carrying firearms to intimidate the congregation and duct tape to secure submission. The men seized the parish‘s weekly collection, and used the offertory plate to amass money, keys, and other valuables from the worshipers, amounting to $2670. Koniak bound one рarishioner with the tape, and Josiah Deyton‘s gun discharged while he was stealing a cell phone. The men threatened the assembled congregation, warning that they would come back to kill the churchgoers if they tried to call the police. The three then absconded in their getaway car.
Undeterred, congregation members called the police, reported the robbery, and provided a description of the car. Shortly thereafter, police apprehended the robbers, finding in their сar the guns, masks, and gloves used in the crime. Police recovered from the car a large quantity of cash and some personal property taken from members of the congregation. The three men were arrested and subsequently confessed to robbing the church and its members.
On July 22, 2008, Josiah and Andrew Deyton pleaded guilty to eleven counts of armed robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery in the Superior Court of Mitchell County. Koniak pleaded guilty to the same charges a month later. After Koniak‘s guilty plea, Judge James L. Baker, Jr., held a consolidated sentencing hearing for all three defendants. During the lengthy proceeding, Judge Baker heard from the State, from defense counsel, from members of the congregation who had been robbed by the defendants, and from witnesses attesting to the defendants’ good character. Judge Baker also reviewed victim impact statements that had been provided by other members of the church not present at the hearing. Before imposing sеntence, Judge Baker spoke at length about the severity of the defendants’ crime and related directly the words and feelings of those who were affected by it:
I was interested in reading what the church members might have thought that should be done to you and the church members after describing what they went through have indicated that the experience was a horrible experience for them. I mean even more so than being robbed in a store or being robbed on a street or a highway or even worse than being brоken in in their home. I mean if there‘s one place in the whole world that you ought to have the right to feel like that for just a few minutes—for just a few minutes you can put the dangers of the world away and that you can step to some degree of peace and solitude and serenity with some degree of safety it would be in a church.
I think it was very appropriate what one person wrote that coming in God‘s house using God as a curse and to make people give up their possessions and taking God‘s money аnd threatening God‘s people, I can‘t imagine how evil these men are to have done this. That is the feeling of one person and I hope you realize that‘s an opinion that is or a feeling that is justified. I mean you didn‘t just steal money from people. You took God‘s money. You took the Lord‘s money and those of us that believe that there is an Almighty and that there is a being that created this world to go in and then steal money that is being tendered by people for the furtherance of an earthly kingdom is just outrageous....
Gentlemen, this is just something that can‘t be tolerated and your attorneys have all asked for leniency and mercy but there are times when you have to kind of draw the line and you have to say that there are some things that just can‘t be tolerated by society. I mean you can‘t just go in a church armed and tie people up or hold them at gunpoint, threaten to kill them and rob the collection plate and rob them while they are in the worship service and expect that the law is not going to come down just about as strongly as it can on you. There is scripture that says “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord” but every now and then I think the judicial system has to contribute what it can.
Judge Baker then sentenced all three defendants to ten consecutive presumptive-range sentences of 64 to 86 months on the armed robbery counts, and a suspended sentence of 25 to 39 months on the conspiracy charge. Petitioners took no direct appeal of that sentence.
On August 21, 2009, following the North Carolina state procеdure for collateral attacks on criminal convictions, petitioners filed Motions for Appropriate Relief in the Superior Court of Mitchell County, alleging, as they do here, that Judge Baker‘s comments reflected an impermissible religious bias that infected the sentencing procedure in violation of due process. On May 11, 2010, the state MAR court denied the petitioners’ motion, concluding that “nothing motivated the sentencing Judge, except for the atrocious conduct of the defendant and his cohorts in accomplishing the crimes they committed.” On June 1, 2010, the petitioners sought certiorari from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which was denied on June 17, 2010. On June 21, 2010, petitioners simultaneously filed a petition for certiorari with the North Carolina Supreme Court and a petition for habeas corpus in the Western District of North Carolina. The federal magistrate judge held the habeas corpus petition in abeyance pending the resolution of the state certiorari petition, which was denied on August 26, 2010. On Novеmber 1, 2010, the magistrate judge recommended that the habeas corpus petition be denied. On September 27, 2011, the district court adopted the magistrate‘s report and recommendation and issued its own memorandum and order denying the petition. This appeal followed.
II.
We review the district court‘s denial of a petition for habeas corpus de novo. Lewis v. Wheeler, 609 F.3d 291, 300 (4th Cir. 2010). Because the petitioners’ challenge stems from comments made by the trial judge at a state sentencing proceeding, however, we must show the traditionаl deference afforded to sentencing courts before concluding that there was constitutional error warranting habeas relief.
Federal courts have long respected the latitude allowed by state law to state judges at sentencing. See Williams v. New York, 337 U.S. 241, 246-47, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 (1949). Perhaps more than in any other proceeding, “the court has considerable leeway and discretion in governing the conduct of a sentencing.” State v. Smith, 352 N.C. 531, 532 S.E.2d 773, 790 (2000).
The North Carolina courts have been unequivocal in their support of this tradition, especially in a context such as that before us here. For example, in State v. Sullivan, 268 N.C. 571, 151 S.E.2d 41 (1966), the North Carolina Supreme Court held that it would not “restrict informal remarks made by a judge at the time of pronouncing judgment,” particularly when, as in this case, “the undisputed facts ..., plus the defendant‘s plea of guilty ... ,
North Carolina‘s view is typical of sentencing practice generally. Comments on the severity of a crime have long been integral to the imposition of punishment. “Courts have always taken into consideration the harm done by the defendant in imposing sentence.” Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 825, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). A sentencing judge need not merely reflect in silence upon the gravity of the offense. The Supreme Court has recognized that “the judge‘s statement to the defendant, made at the time of sentencing, is an especially important part of the criminal process.” Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 367, 127 S.Ct. 2456, 168 L.Ed.2d 203 (2007) (Stevens, J., concurring). Because sentencing unaccompanied by explanation is an arbitrary exercise, see United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 325, 328 (4th Cir.2009), “[a] public statement of th[e] reasons [for the sentence imposed] helps provide the public with the assurance” that creates public trust. Rita, 551 U.S. at 356 (maj. op.).
As a result, we not only show deference to sentencing courts in general, but to the need for judges to vindicate the public interest through statements about the particular harms of particular crimes and the neеd for a particular sentence. Consistent with those goals, the Supreme Court has limited assignments of constitutional error under the Due Process Clause to cases in which the challenged action is “so unduly prejudicial that it renders the [proceeding] fundamentally unfair.” Payne, 501 U.S. at 825. This is a high bar for a habeas petitioner to surmount. We will not allow “gossamer possibilities of prejudice to a defendant ... to nullify a sentence pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction in obedience to local law.” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 122, 54 S.Ct. 330, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934) (Cardozo, J.), overruled on other grounds by Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964).
III.
The petitioners nevertheless assert that the sentencing judge‘s comments in this case so impermissibly referenced religious beliefs that they deprived the defendants of due process, relying principally on this court‘s decision in United States v. Bakker, 925 F.2d 728 (4th Cir.1991). In that case, we reversed a sentence because the district judge at sentencing announced his “personal sense of religiosity and simultaneously punish[ed] defendants for offending it.” Id. at 740. But the petitioners’ argument is flawed in two ways. First, it ignores the limitations on both the scope of review and the sourсes of authority placed on federal habeas analysis by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA“),
A.
Although the restrictions on federal collateral review of state convictions are well knоwn, they are worth reemphasizing here. Habeas corpus review is to be con-
We turn therefore under AEDPA to the relevant Supreme Court case law. While the Supreme Court has held that “the sentencing process ... must satisfy the requirements of the Due Process Clause,” Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977), the Court has not set forth the sort of specific limitations on a judge‘s conduct of sentencing proceedings that would permit the federal courts to grant habeas relief in this case. The most guidance the Court has offered is that sentencing cannot be based on “factors that are constitutionally impermissible or totally irrelevant to the sentencing process, such as for example the race, religion, or political affiliation of the defendant.” Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983). Although the sentencing judge in this case referred to religion in his com-
That inquiry leaves us without the direction from the Supreme Court that AEDPA dеmands. After all, before granting habeas relief, we must conclude not only that the sentencing judge‘s comments violated due process, but also that “fairminded jurists could [not] disagree” with that determination. Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004). Relying on extremely general statements in Gardner and Zant provides us with little basis for second guessing the North Carolina courts. “[E]valuating whether a rule application was unreasonable requires considering the rule‘s specificity. The more general the rule, the more leeway courts have in reaching outcomes in case-by-case determinations.” Id.
Deference under AEDPA is not some hollow iteration. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011) (“If this standard is difficult to mеet, that is because it was meant to be.“). Rather, it is constitutionally and statutorily prescribed. “Federal habeas review of state convictions frustrates both the States’ sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights.” Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 555-56, 118 S.Ct. 1489, 140 L.Ed.2d 728 (1998). Federal law therefore reserves habeas relief for “extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems,” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring), not close calls that depend on contestable extensions of abstract law. The
B.
With these limitations in mind, we cannot conclude that the sentencing judge‘s comments constituted an “unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,”
The same factors that Zant prohibits considering when they are characteristics of the criminal may in fact be important to consider when they are characteristics of the crime. Indeed, the
The disruption of worship services has an especial effect on the community that it was appropriate for a sentencing judge to take into account. Ours is a society with a diverse religious heritage that has long prized the ability of citizens of all faiths to exercise their beliefs free from fear or intimidation. Although the Constitution explicitly protects the right to the free exercise of religion from state interference, the government has long taken a role in protecting сitizens from private depriva-
Indeed the law must protect places that demand special tranquility so that our fellow citizens can exercise their constitutional rights free from fear. Religious services are particularly intimate moments regardless of the faith being observed. The shоcking nature of this crime does not depend on what sect‘s prayer was disturbed—this crime would be equally offensive at a synagogue, mosque, or any other house of worship. Much as we afford the home a particular sanctity as “the last citadel of the tired, the weary, and the sick,” Gregory v. Chicago, 394 U.S. 111, 125, 89 S.Ct. 946, 22 L.Ed.2d 134 (1969) (Black, J., concurring), houses of worship must be refuges for those seeking guidance, peace, comfort, and religious fellowship without fear of criminal intimidation.
Indeed, one need not have any faith at all to appreсiate the profound shock visited by these defendants. Just as all members of society condemn racial violence regardless of their own ethnicity, all people of good will revile the armed robbery of a religious service whether or not they share the particular creed whose practice was disrupted. Merely “because the state wishes to protect those who do worship on Sunday does not mean that the state means to impose religious worship on all.” Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., 366 U.S. 617, 627, 81 S.Ct. 1122, 6 L.Ed.2d 536 (1961).
C.
We conclude that the sentencing judge‘s comments afford no warrant for the award of habeas relief.
First, the record makes clear that many of the judge‘s comments did not reflect “the court‘s own sense of religious propriety,” Bakker, 925 F.2d at 741, but voiced the expressions of the community through victim impact statements and testimony at sentencing. The entirety of the challenged comments was prefaced by reference to “what the church members might have thought,” and continued to define the expressions in terms of “what one person wrote” and “the feeling of one person.” It was not unconstitutional for the judge to have considered these statements in determining the appropriate sentence, see Payne, 501 U.S. 808, and it was legitimate for the judge to state for the record the sentiments of those parishioners that he found most compelling.
Second, to the extent that the judge adopted some of these opinions as his own, we do not think that rises to the level of a due process error mandating habeas relief. Judge Baker was not expressing a personal offense at the crime so much as he was expressing the opprobrium of the community at large. A judge joining a general expression of dismay at a particularly heinous offense does not amount to the kind of “reactions based on his personal experiences that” may not be considered at sentencing. Barclay v. Florida, 463 U.S. 939, 971, 103 S.Ct. 3418, 77 L.Ed.2d 1134 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring). Part of the compact that gives order to society is that “[w]hatever power therefore individuals had of punishing offences ... is now vested in the mаgistrate alone.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 8 (1765). For the judge too is a member of the community, and “[t]he sentencing process assumes that the [judge]
Taken as a whole and in their proper context, the judge‘s comments describe the unique way that robbing a church harmed the members of the community. The robbery of, say, a bank or convenience store is bad enough. But the intentional selection of a church as a target and of worship services аs the time of attack merits special condemnation because it is equally an assault on religious liberty as it is on physical safety. It would be odd indeed if the armed robbery of worshipers and violent threats to parishioners did not elicit strong condemnation at sentencing. But the judge, as noted, nowhere mentioned the religious beliefs or lack thereof of the defendants. He expressed no preference for one sect over another. He mentioned no specific tenets of faith that might havе been offended. To the extent that the judge quoted from the Bible, there is, as the MAR court found, no credible argument that he impermissibly rested the chosen term of imprisonment on scripture and not on the North Carolina General Statutes.
The petitioners allege that “the judge sentenced these young men as harshly as he did because they chose to rob a church, rather than ... some other secular entity.” Appellant‘s Br. at 17-18. Be that as it may, no Supreme Court case comes close to holding that criminal hаrms visited upon religious congregations may not be the subject of stern and special disapproval from the bench. The various state and federal courts that have reviewed this case are unanimous in their conclusion that the sentencing judge‘s comments represented that strong disapprobation, and nothing more. As the state MAR court found, “nothing motivated the sentencing Judge, except for the atrocious conduct of the defendant and his cohorts.” The federal magistrate concluded that the “оffense conduct was especially serious because it involved victimizing people at gunpoint in a place where, ordinarily, they would feel safe.” And the district court ruling appealed here was clear that the sentence was only “vindicating the community‘s interest in justice” for “behavior ... exceeding all acceptable social boundaries.” To this unanimous chorus we add our voice. The sensitivity of the site and the vulnerability of those who worshipped there played a critical part in petitioners’ planning of the crime, and it was no violation of due process for these same considerations to play a critical part in petitioners’ punishment.
The judgment of the district court is therefore
AFFIRMED.
WILKINSON
CIRCUIT JUDGE