Mark ALLEN, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Tony PARKER, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 11-5843.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Sept. 3, 2013.
435
Before: BOGGS, MOORE, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.
In 2003, a jury convicted Mark Allen of child rape, especially aggravated exploitation of a minor, and exhibition of materials harmful to a minor. During his sentencing hearing, the state trial judge found a number of statutory enhancements applicable to Allen‘s case, and sentenced him to 24 years in prison four years above his presumptive sentence according to the state sentencing guidelines. Allen seeks a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that this sentencing scheme violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
Under the law as it stands today, Allen is clearly right: the Supreme Court held in Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270, 127 S.Ct. 856, 166 L.Ed.2d 856 (2007), that hybrid sentencing schemes, such as the former Tennessee regime, violate a defendant‘s right to present every element that may increase his maximum sentence to a jury for a factual finding. Unfortunately for Allen, the Court issued Cunningham several months after his sentence became final. For the purposes of his federal habeas corpus petition, he could only rely upon Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004).
In our review of this case, we noticed that neither party briefed the issue of whether Allen could establish entitlement to habeas relief without Cunningham. Accordingly, we directed the clerk to ask the parties to prepare for oral arguments on this issue. Notwithstanding this, the state maintained the position it took in the district court and conceded constitutional error during oral arguments.
Under normal circumstances, such a concession is not of moment we rule against the party on the conceded point and move on. However, when the point conceded is the merits of a federal habeas claim under
We conclude that we may. The merits of a § 2254(d) claim are neither jurisdictional nor unwaivable, and the state may therefore abandon them as it sees fit. However, the putative Blakely violation created by its concession is harmless. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court and deny Allen‘s petition for habeas relief.
I
The following facts are taken from the 2006 opinion of the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals in Allen v. State, No. M2005-00601-CCA-R3-PC, 2006 WL 618297, at *1-2 (Tenn.Crim.App. March 13, 2006). Beginning in late 2001, the victim, D.M., began spending time with Allen and his wife. The victim‘s mother, a co-worker of the petitioner, hoped that Allen would be a good male influence for her son. The victim visited the Allens at their home periodically through the spring of 2002. That July, D.M. told his mother that the Allens had engaged in sexual activity with him. After contacting police, the victim‘s mother recorded a conversation between D.M. and the petitioner, during which Allen made a number of incriminating statements. Police subsequently went to the Allens’ home and obtained consent to search the premises. They found a pornographic video that the victim claimed Allen showed him, as well as sexual paraphernalia that D.M. had described to the police.
Allen was tried jointly with his wife in October 2003 and found guilty on all counts. In November, the trial judge sentenced the petitioner to a total of 24 years in prison. Allen‘s sentences for the exhibition and sexual-exploitation counts were ordered to run concurrent to a 24-year sentence for the child-rape conviction. Under the Tennessee sentencing regime in place at the time, Allen‘s presumptive sentence for the child-rape conviction was 20 years. However, the trial judge found three statutory enhancements applicable to Allen‘s case: leadership of the criminal activity, commission of an offense to gratify a desire for pleasure or excitement, and abuse of a position of private trust. Under Tennessee‘s hybrid sentencing regime, the finding of these statutory enhancements vested the judge with discretion to impose a term above the presumptive sentence.
Initially, Allen did not take direct appeal of his conviction or sentence. He filed a pro se application for a delayed appeal in November 2004. The trial court granted his application in January 2005. On appeal, Allen argued, inter alia, that the trial court violated his Sixth Amendment jury-trial right by enhancing his sentence beyond the presumptive 20-year term for child rape based upon factual findings not made by the jury. See Blakely, 542 U.S. at 303-04, 124 S.Ct. 2531. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction in March 2006. Allen, 2006 WL 618297, at *11. Citing the Tennessee Supreme Court‘s then-recent decision in State v. Gomez [Gomez I ], 163 S.W.3d 632, 661 (Tenn.2005), the Court of Criminal Appeals observed that Tennessee‘s sentencing scheme survived Blakely because, notwithstanding the necessity of an initial finding of the applicability of a statutory enhancement, the decision to increase a defendant‘s sentence beyond the presumptive term was left solely within the discretion of the trial judge. Id. at *10. The Tennessee Supreme Court denied Allen‘s application for permission to appeal in August 2006. He did not petition for a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court, and thus his sentence became final in November 2006.
In that same month, Allen filed a petition for post-conviction relief in state court, raising claims of ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel. These ineffective-assistance claims addressed issues unrelated to the enhancement of his sentence. Both the trial and intermediate appellate courts denied his petition. The Tennessee Supreme Court again denied permission to appeal.
In February 2010, Allen filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. He alleged insufficiency of the evidence, ineffective assistance of counsel, and impermissible enhancement of his sentence under Blakely. The district court dismissed all issues except the alleged Blakely violation and referred the mat
II
During the pendency of Allen‘s delayed direct appeal, the United States Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in Cunningham v. California, 546 U.S. 1169, 126 S.Ct. 1329, 164 L.Ed.2d 47 (2006). The petitioner in Cunningham challenged California‘s determinate-sentencing law, a hybrid scheme that, similar to Tennessee‘s, prescribed a presumptive sentence within the statutory range of punishment, but gave judges discretion to vary based upon findings of enhancing or mitigating factors. In his petition for certiorari, Cunningham highlighted a split among ten states as to whether such schemes were prohibited by Blakely. Seven states answered this question in the affirmative, holding that Blakely established a bright-line rule that prohibited judges from increasing a defendant‘s sentence, based upon their own fact-finding, beyond the maximum authorized by the jury‘s verdict or the defendant‘s admissions. A minority of states, including Tennessee, read Blakely to establish a standard by which judicial fact-finding would be permissible in sentencing so long as it was conducted within a scheme with broad discretion.
In January 2007, the Court held that sentencing schemes such as Tennessee‘s violated the Sixth Amendment jury-trial right. The Court explained that “[i]f the jury‘s verdict alone does not authorize the sentence, if, instead, the judge must find an additional fact to impose the longer term, the Sixth Amendment requirement is not satisfied.” Cunningham, 549 U.S. at 290, 127 S.Ct. 856. The following month, the Court summarily vacated Gomez I in light of its decision in Cunningham.1 Gomez v. Tennessee, 549 U.S. 1190, 127 S.Ct. 1209, 167 L.Ed.2d 36 (2007). On remand, the Tennessee Supreme Court found the state‘s sentencing scheme unconstitutional as applied to a defendant who, like Allen, had his sentence enhanced after findings of fact by the trial judge. State v. Gomez [Gomez II ], 239 S.W.3d 733, 740-41 (Tenn.2007).
As the law stands today, it is beyond dispute that Allen‘s 2003 sentence violated the Sixth Amendment. However, the current state of the law is not the standard by which we assess a habeas petition. The “backward-looking language” of
III
In its brief before the magistrate judge, the state conceded that Allen‘s sentence violated Blakely and was contrary to clearly established federal law. It is unclear from this alone whether the state conceded a Blakely violation as understood pre- or post-Cunningham. Indeed, the state‘s brief did not even cite the 2007 case. Were the state‘s admission rooted in a post-Cunningham understanding of Blakely, we might be able to disregard it as an attempt to waive the strictures of Greene. Cf. Moore v. Mitchell, 708 F.3d 760, 784 (6th Cir.2013) (holding that the state may not waive the evidentiary restrictions of Pinholster). However, the state clarified during oral argument that it conceded error solely under Blakely.
As elucidated in the previous section, this concession is wrong as a matter of law. However, the state, as master of its own case, may waive nonjurisdictional issues. Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198, 205, 126 S.Ct. 1675, 164 L.Ed.2d 376 (2006). The courts of appeal are bound to respect such a waiver if, as here, it is done deliberately. Wood v. Milyard, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 1826, 1830, 182 L.Ed.2d 733 (2012).
In a recent published opinion, a panel of this circuit suggested that
A
In Gonzalez v. Thaler, — U.S. —, 132 S.Ct. 641, 181 L.Ed.2d 619 (2012), the Court addressed the jurisdictional nature of AEDPA with regards to
The Court‘s treatment of
It is important to note that this does not mean that either
B
While mandatory nonjurisdictional provisions are not categorically unwaivable, this does not mean that they are categorically waivable. Some mandatory provisions, such as AEDPA‘s one-year statute of limitation, are subject to deliberate abandonment by the state. Wood, 132 S.Ct. at 1834-35. Others, such as the deferential standard of review under
There is a substantial difference between the first of these examples and the last two. Statutes of limitation are an affirmative defense to a cause of action. Standards of substantive and evidentiary review define the action itself. We have forbidden litigants from agreeing to case-specific substantive and evidentiary standards in habeas cases, because allowing them to do so would frustrate Congress‘s intent to limit the scope of federal review of state criminal proceedings. Cf. Richter, 131 S.Ct. at 786 (“[AEDPA] preserves authority to issue the writ in cases where there is no possibility fairminded jurists could disagree that the state court‘s decision conflicts with this Court‘s precedents. It goes no farther.“). Conceding a defense to a claim under
The type of concession made here is the type of concession that the state may make as master of its own case. Waiver of an argument against the merits of a claim for relief under
If the State of Tennessee wishes to confess to a violation of clearly established federal law, it is free to do so. We may not ignore the state‘s explicit and unequivocal waiver. We therefore hold that Allen has made an initial showing of entitlement to relief under AEDPA.
IV
The state urges us to deny the habeas writ because the record contains overwhelming and uncontroverted evidence that would support a jury finding on all three of the applicable enhancements, thus rendering the Blakely error harmless. We agree. We therefore affirm the district court‘s denial of habeas relief.
A
A Blakely error is not “structural” and is thus amenable to a harmless-error analysis. Villagarcia v. Warden, 599 F.3d 529, 536 (6th Cir.2010) (citing Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U.S. 212, 218, 221, 126 S.Ct. 2546, 165 L.Ed.2d 466 (2006)). When reviewing sentencing errors on direct appeal, e.g., federal sentences imposed prior to (but finalized after) United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 125 S.Ct. 738, 160 L.Ed.2d 621 (2005), we apply a defendant-friendly standard of review remand is necessary unless we are certain that any error did not affect the district court‘s selection of the sentence imposed. United States v.
However, we apply the more state-friendly standard from Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993), in the context of AEDPA.3 Under the Brecht standard, “an error is harmless unless it had substantial and injurious effect or influence” on the outcome of the case. Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 116, 127 S.Ct. 2321, 168 L.Ed.2d 16 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Under Fry, an error is considered not harmless when ‘the matter is so evenly balanced that the habeas court has grave doubt as to the harmlessness of the error.‘” Villagarcia, 599 F.3d at 537 (quoting Hereford v. Warren, 536 F.3d 523, 533 (6th Cir.2008)).
The Recuenco court observed that
Our decision in Apprendi [v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000),] makes clear that “[a]ny possible distinction between an ‘element’ of a felony offense and a ‘sentencing factor’ was unknown to the practice of criminal indictment, trial by jury, and judgment by court as it existed during the years surrounding our Nation‘s founding.” [Id.] at 478 [120 S.Ct. 2348] (footnote omitted). Accordingly, we have treated sentencing factors, like elements, as facts that have to be tried to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. [Id. at 483-84, 120 S.Ct. 2348.]
548 U.S. at 220, 126 S.Ct. 2546 (second alteration in original). We accordingly treat a Blakely error the same way we would an error in instructing the jury on the essential elements of a crime. Ibid. (citing Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999)); see also United States v. Williams, 493 F.3d 763, 766 (7th Cir.2007) (“The implication of equating sentencing factors and elements of a crime for purposes of the requirements of the jury and the burden of proof is to equate them also for harmless error purposes.“). We will find a jury-instruction error to be harmless if it is “is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error.” United States v. King, 272 F.3d 366, 378 (6th Cir.2001) (citing Neder, 527 U.S. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827). In the context of AEDPA review, we need not be “certain” of this, but only free of “grave doubt.” Villagarcia, 599 F.3d at 537 & n. 7.
B
No such doubt can exist in this case. The record is replete with uncontroverted evidence supporting each of the enhancements applied by the state trial court. We address them in turn.
1
First, the trial court found that Allen was “a leader in the commission of an offense involving two (2) or more criminal actors....”
2
The second applicable enhancement, that Allen committed the crimes to gratify a desire for pleasure or excitement,
The record before us contains a prodigious amount of evidence that Allen sought to gratify his desire for pleasure and excitement through his crimes: He engaged in sexually explicit discussions with the boy, displayed pornography, watched as his wife engaged in oral and vaginal sex with the victim, and himself engaged in mutual fellatio with the boy. Allen videotaped some of these sexual encounters and later viewed them with his wife. As the magistrate judge concluded, this evidence leaves little doubt, let alone grave doubt, that the jury would have found this element to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt were this question put to it.
3
Lastly, the state trial court found that Allen abused a position of private trust. See
The record is, once again, teeming with uncontroverted evidence that Allen occupied and abused a position of private trust with D.M. According to the victim‘s moth
Also telling is a taped phone conversation between Allen and the victim. D.M. expressed shame and embarrassment about what happened with him, Allen, and Allen‘s wife. Allen assured the boy that “there [was] nothing to be ashamed of and nobody knows.” Allen repeatedly sought assurance that D.M. would not tell anyone, at one point stating: “You promise me? ... I mean honor, word of honor to me [D.M.], which is the you know biggest word do you know what I‘m saying [sic].” He went on to ask (assumably rhetorically) whether D.M. would feel better if he just turned himself in and went to jail, to which D.M. responded in the negative. Once again, Allen did not contest the substance of this conversation.
It is clear from the record before us that Allen occupied a role of trust with D.M., whether it be that of a father figure, as the victim‘s mother had hoped, or that of a care taker, as he certainly was for the duration of D.M.‘s visits to his home. The taped phone call between the victim and Allen demonstrates Allen‘s abuse of this position through his repeated attempts to manipulate and shame D.M. into silence. This, of course, is in addition to the highly reasonable inference that Allen and his wife coaxed D.M., at least to some degree, into the abusive sexual activity at the center of this case. Again, we have no doubt that the failure to submit this element to the jury was harmless in light of the record before us.
4
Allen resists this conclusion by arguing that these enhancements are subjective in nature, that our review of the applicable evidence requires “difficult character and credibility assessments,” and that that this alone should give us grave doubt as to the harmlessness of the trial court‘s error. Appellant‘s Br. 26. In essence, Allen argues that, though the evidence could support a jury finding on all three enhancements, it does not necessarily support such a finding, and we must therefore find the failure to submit these elements to the jury was harmful. In many respects, this is a repackaging of his earlier argument for a “quasi clerical” standard of harmless-error review. We note again that this argument is without a legal basis and is contrary to the law of this circuit.
To the extent that this represents an argument against the weight of the record to support the enhancements, we are simply unpersuaded. Allen would have us ignore a near-insurmountable amount of relevant, persuasive, and uncontroverted evidence based upon speculation of what the jury might have done were these enhancements put to it. That is not how a harmless-error analysis works, especially within the deferential context of AEDPA. So long as the record leaves us free of grave doubt that a jury would have found the omitted element or enhancement satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, we must leave the conviction and sentence undisturbed. As the Supreme Court stated in Neder, the case that formed the logical basis for Recuenco: “[T]his approach reaches an appropriate balance between society‘s interest in punishing the guilty and the method by which decisions of guilt are to be made.” 527 U.S. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827.
C
Our opinion today is entirely consistent with our opinion in Villagarcia. There, a panel of this court found that Ohio‘s pre-Blakely sentencing regime violated the petitioner‘s Sixth Amendment jury-trial right. 599 F.3d at 537-39. Similar to the state here, the respondent in Villagarcia claimed that, based on the record, the state court undoubtably would have imposed the same sentence absent the Blakely error, and it was therefore harmless. Ibid. The panel disagreed, citing State v. Foster, 109 Ohio St.3d 1, 845 N.E.2d 470 (2006), abrogated on other grounds by Oregon v. Ice, 555 U.S. 160, 129 S.Ct. 711, 172 L.Ed.2d 517 (2009). Villagarcia, 599 F.3d at 537-39. In Foster, the Ohio Supreme Court found the statutory provision under which the petitioner was sentenced to be unconstitutional in light of Blakely and severed the provision from the state‘s sentencing scheme. Foster, 845 N.E.2d at 498-99. The resulting post-Foster regime gave Ohio courts unfettered discretion to consider any relevant enhancing or mitigating factor, discretion that trial courts did not enjoy pre-Foster when sentencing felons such as Villagarcia. Though the panel noted that the state‘s argument “[was] not without force,” Villagarcia, 599 F.3d at 537, it ultimately agreed that the pre-Foster sentencing court was unable to consider a number of mitigating factors that, based upon the record before it, may well have resulted in a reduced sentence for Villagarcia under the post-Foster framework and conditional habeas relief was therefore warranted. Id. at 538-39.
Unlike Ohio, Tennessee‘s sentencing statute has remained mostly the same. Though judges are no longer required to do so, the statute still recommends that sentencing judges consider the same basic list of enhancing and mitigating factors. The only major difference is that the mandatory threshold finding required by the pre-Cunningham version of the statute has been eliminated to give a court complete discretion at the beginning of its analysis. Allen has provided us with no reason to doubt that a sentence imposed under the post-Cunningham statute would be similar in all material respects to the sentence he is presently serving.4 Habeas relief would be fruitless and therefore inappropriate.
V
We are free of grave doubt that any error committed by the trial court did not prejudice Allen. He has accordingly failed to prove his entitlement to relief under AEDPA. We AFFIRM the district court‘s denial of the writ of habeas corpus.
DANNY J. BOGGS
UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE