Robinson v. Woods

• Decision Date: 24 August 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-2067,16-2067
• Citation: 901 F.3d 710
• Parties: Loren T. ROBINSON, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Jeffrey WOODS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

901 F.3d 710

Loren T. ROBINSON, Petitioner-Appellant,

v.Jeffrey WOODS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 16-2067

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 7, 2018

Decided and Filed: August 24, 2018

ARGUED: Kristin Cope, Baker Botts, L.L.P., Dallas, Texas, for Appellant. Linus Banghart-Linn, Office of the Attorney General of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kristin Cope, Baker Botts, L.L.P., Dallas, Texas, for Appellant. Linus Banghart-Linn, Office of the Attorney General of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: BOGGS and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges; HOOD, District Judge.^*

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Sixth Amendment's jury guarantee to mean that "[a]ny fact that, by law, increases the penalty for a crime ... must be submitted to the jury and found beyond a reasonable doubt." Alleyne v. United States , 570 U.S. 99, 103, 133 S.Ct. 2151, 186 L.Ed.2d 314 (2013). In this appeal, petitioner Loren Robinson seeks a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that the Michigan trial court violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial by using judge-found facts to score sentencing variables that increased his mandatory minimum sentence. Because Alleyne clearly established that mandatory minimum sentences may only be increased on the basis of facts found by a jury or admitted by a criminal defendant, Alleyne , 570 U.S. at 108, 133 S.Ct. 2151, the Michigan Court of Appeals’ disposition of Robinson's case "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the district court, conditionally grant Robinson's petition limited to his sentence, and remand to the district court with instructions to remand to the state sentencing court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and the United States Constitution.

I.

Petitioner and two of his cohorts sold the victim a large amount of crack cocaine on credit, beat the victim when he was unable to repay petitioner, and, eventually, extorted from the victim's parents the roughly $1,000 petitioner felt he was owed for the drugs. As a result, a Michigan jury convicted petitioner of extortion, M.C.L. § 750.213, delivery of a controlled substance, § 333.7413(2), unlawful imprisonment, § 750.349b, and aggravated assault, § 750.81a(1). People v. Robinson , No. 303236, 2013 WL 3942387, at *1 (Mich. Ct. App. July 30, 2013) (per curiam).

As is standard in Michigan criminal practice, the Michigan Department of Corrections prepared, and the trial court considered, a "Presentence Investigation Report" (PSIR) in conjunction with petitioner's sentencing. See, e.g. , People v. Harper , 479 Mich. 599, 739 N.W.2d 523, 548 n.72 (2007) ("Michigan courts have long held that a sentencing court may presume that unchallenged facts contained in a PSIR are accurate.").¹ In general, the Department sets guidelines ranges by scoring offense and offender variables, M.C.L. §§ 777.22, 777.50 –.57, many of which do not reflect the mere elements of the offenses for which a defendant was convicted, see, e.g. , M.C.L. § 777.44 (directing the sentencing court to score 10 points if "[t]he offender was a leader in a multiple offender situation"). The parties agree, and the PSIR reflects, that the sentencing court scored multiple variables that went beyond the mere elements of the offenses for which Robinson was convicted, see, e.g. , M.C.L. § 777.39 (number of victims); § 777.40 (exploitation of a vulnerable victim), which resulted in higher minimum-sentence ranges than would have been warranted without the judge-found facts.

The PSIR provided the following sentencing guidelines ranges for the minimum sentence of each conviction: between 84 and 175 months for the extortion conviction (with a 30-year-maximum sentence), between 19 and 38 months for the delivery-of-a-controlled-substance conviction (with a 40-year-maximum sentence), between 50 and 125 months for the unlawful-imprisonment conviction (with a 22-years-and-6-months-maximum sentence), and no recommended range for the aggravated-assault conviction (which comes with a one-year-maximum sentence). The Department recommended that the court give petitioner a minimum sentence near the bottom of each range. At the time of petitioner's sentencing, the ranges were mandatory, allowing a trial judge to "depart" from them only with a showing of "substantial and compelling" reasons. M.C.L. § 769.34(3).

The sentencing judge reviewed and accepted the recommended scores for the guidelines variables but disagreed with the Department's "low end" recommendation. Instead, he sentenced petitioner to a minimum of 150 months to a maximum of 30 years for the extortion conviction, 38 months to 40 years for the delivery-of-a-controlled-substance conviction, 10 years to 22 years and 6 months for the unlawful-imprisonment conviction, and one year for the aggravated-assault conviction, all to be served concurrently.

The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed his convictions and sentences. Robinson , 2013 WL 3942387, at *1. Petitioner argued, in relevant part, that the sentence violated his Sixth Amendment rights because it was based on judge-found facts. Id . at *5. On that issue, the court held:

Defendant claims that the trial court improperly scored the offense variables because the facts used to support the scoring of them were not found beyond a reasonable doubt by the jury, contrary to the holding of Blakely v. Washington , [542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403] (2004). However, our Supreme Court has definitively held that Blakely does not apply to Michigan's indeterminate sentencing scheme. People v. Drohan , [475 Mich. 140, 715 N.W.2d 778, 791–92] (2006). We are required to follow the decisions of the Supreme Court. People v. Strickland , [293 Mich.App. 393, 810 N.W.2d 660, 665] (2011). Accordingly, defendant's argument is without merit.

Id . This brief discussion failed to address whether the United States Supreme Court's then-recent opinion in Alleyne , 570 U.S. 99, 133 S.Ct. 2151 (issued roughly a month and a half prior), affected the court's analysis. Petitioner then filed an application for leave to appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, which denied leave in a boilerplate order. People v. Robinson , 495 Mich. 915, 840 N.W.2d 352 (2013) (order).

Robinson filed a timely habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, asserting eleven separate grounds for relief. Our concern is his contention relating to "improper scoring of the legislatively imposed sentencing guidelines." After ordering a response to the petition, the district court denied Robinson's petition outright and declined to issue a certificate of appealability (COA). Robinson v. Woods , No. 2:14-cv-50, 2016 WL 3256837, at *18 (W.D. Mich., June 14, 2016). This court granted petitioner's motion for a COA, limited to his Sixth Amendment sentencing issue.

II.

"In an appeal from the denial of habeas relief, we review the district court's legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error." Scott v. Houk , 760 F.3d 497, 503 (6th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a state conviction may be overturned for an issue adjudicated on the merits in state court if the decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). To prevail under the "contrary to" clause of § 2254(d)(1), a petitioner must show that the state court "arrive[d] at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme] Court on a question of law" or that it "confront[ed] facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrive[d] at a result opposite" to that reached by the Supreme Court. Williams v. Taylor , 529 U.S. 362, 405, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). "[B]ecause the purpose of AEDPA is to ensure that federal habeas relief functions as a guard against extreme malfunctions in the state criminal justice systems, and not as a means of error correction," Greene v. Fisher , 565 U.S. 34, 38, 132 S.Ct. 38, 181 L.Ed.2d 336 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted), "[t]his is a difficult to meet, and highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings," Cullen v. Pinholster , 563 U.S. 170, 181, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 179 L.Ed.2d 557 (2011) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

III.

Petitioner challenges his sentence as violative of the Sixth Amendment. Because we hold that Alleyne clearly established the unconstitutionality of Michigan's mandatory sentencing regime, we reverse the district court and conditionally grant petitioner habeas relief, limited to his sentence.

A.

As an initial matter, the district court erred in its analysis of petitioner's Sixth Amendment claim. The court held that the claim was meritless because, under Harris v. United States , 536 U.S. 545, 566, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 153 L.Ed.2d 524 (2002), the Sixth Amendment prohibited only sentences beyond the statutory maximum that were based on judge-found facts. Robinson , 2016 WL 3256837, at *11. Though the court acknowledged that Alleyne overruled Harris , it reasoned that Harris still controlled because Alleyne did not apply retroactively on collateral review. Id . at *11 n.1.

But the district court failed to appreciate that the Supreme Court issued Alleyne while petitioner's direct appeal was pending— Alleyne was decided a little more than a month before the Michigan Court of Appeals issued its opinion in this case.² And Supreme Court opinions apply to all criminal cases pending on direct review, no matter how much of a departure the decision represents from prior caselaw. Griffith v. Kentucky , 479 U.S. 314, 328, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987) ("[A] new rule for the conduct of...