Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
No. 11-7427
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Benjamin E. Rosenberg, DECHERT, LLP, New
York, New York, for Appellant. Robert H. Anderson, III,
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA,
Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Joshua D. N.
Hess, DECHERT, LLP, San Francisco, California, for Appellant. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II, Attorney General of Virginia,
Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. Rebecca K. Glenberg,
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF VIRGINIA
FOUNDATION, INC., Richmond, Virginia; Susan L. Sommer, Gregory R. Nevins, LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE
AND EDUCATION FUND, INC., New York, New York, for
Amici Supporting Appellant.
OPINION
KING, Circuit Judge:
In 2005, William Scott MacDonald was convicted after a
bench trial in the Circuit Court of the City of Colonial
Heights, Virginia, of two offenses: the misdemeanor offense
of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, in contravention of Virginia Code section 18.2-371; and the felony offense
of violating the Commonwealths criminal solicitation statute,
found in section 18.2-29. The criminal solicitation statute provides that "[a]ny person age eighteen or older who commands, entreats, or otherwise attempts to persuade another
person under age eighteen to commit [a predicate felony, i.e.,]
a felony other than murder," shall be guilty of a felony. Va.
Code 18.2-29.
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
The district courts unpublished Opinion is found at J.A. 400-12. (Citations herein to "J.A. ____" refer to the contents of the Joint Appendix filed
by the parties in this appeal. Citations to "S.J.A. ____" refer to the contents of the Supplemental Joint Appendix.)
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
The remainder of Virginia Code section 18.2-361(A) prohibits bestiality by criminalizing the carnal knowledge "in any manner [of] any
brute animal." The constitutionality of the bestiality portion of subsection
(A) is not challenged in this proceeding nor affected by todays decision.
3
Our account of the facts is largely derived from the evidence presented
at MacDonalds bench trial in state court. The facts are recited in the light
most favorable to the Commonwealth, as the prevailing party in the trial.
See Roach v. Angelone, 176 F.3d 210, 219 (4th Cir. 1999).
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
"suck his dick." J.A. 51. MacDonald also suggested that they
have sex in a shed in Johnsons grandmothers yard. Johnson
declined both proposals, however, and she drove MacDonald
back to the Home Depot parking lot.
Nearly three months later, in December 2004, MacDonald
filed a report with the Colonial Heights police maintaining
that Johnson had abducted and sexually assaulted him. MacDonald thereafter met with and was interviewed by Detective
Stephanie Early. MacDonald advised Early that, sometime in
September, Johnson had paged him and asked that he meet
her in the Home Depot parking lot. MacDonald stated that,
once they met, he got into Johnsons car and she drove them
away. When MacDonald asked Johnson where she was going,
she did not respond. MacDonald told her, "[T]his has got to
stop, lose my number, Im married, dont call me anymore."
J.A. 59. MacDonald also advised Detective Early that he and
Johnson stopped at a location on Canterbury Lane in Colonial
Heights, and "at that point Ms. Johnson forcibly removed his
penis from his pants and performed oral sex against his will."
Id. MacDonald acknowledged that he knew Johnson was only
seventeen years old.
Soon thereafter, Detective Early met with and interviewed
Johnson, who gave a sharply conflicting account of what had
occurred. Crediting Johnsons version of the events, Early
secured three arrest warrants for MacDonald, charging: (1)
the felony criminal solicitation offense; (2) the misdemeanor
offense of contributing to the delinquency of a minor; and (3)
the misdemeanor offense of "knowingly giv[ing] a false
report as to the commission of a crime to the Police with the
intent to mislead," in violation of Virginia Code section 18.2461. See J.A. 4-6. MacDonald was arrested on January 25,
2005. He was prosecuted in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Colonial Heights on the false police report
charge, and in the circuit court on the other two charges.
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
At his bench trial, MacDonald testified consistently with his initial version of the events of September 23, 2004, under which he had been
abducted and sexually assaulted by Johnson. By its verdict, the trial court
rejected that testimony.
MACDONALD v. MOOSE
Though the appellants last name in the earlier appeal is spelled differently, it is clear that both appeals involved the same individual, known
here as petitioner William Scott MacDonald.
6
After the state court of appeals affirmed his earlier sodomy convictions, MacDonald sought review in the Supreme Court of Virginia. See
McDonald v. Commonwealth, 645 S.E.2d 918 (Va. 2007). MacDonalds
efforts were to no avail, however, as the state supreme court rejected MacDonalds as-applied challenge. The court reasoned that the anti-sodomy
provision was constitutional as applied because MacDonalds victims
were minors, and it concluded that his facial claim had not been preserved
in the trial court. See id. at 921, 924. Thereafter, MacDonald pursued his
due process contentions in federal habeas proceedings, but the district
court dismissed his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. See MacDonald v. Johnson,
No. 1:08-cv-00781, 2009 WL 3254444 (E.D. Va. Oct. 9, 2009). Our Court
declined to issue a COA on June 24, 2010. See MacDonald v. Johnson,
384 F. Appx 273 (4th Cir. 2010).
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B.
1.
Put succinctly, the Ulster County decision does not operate
to deny standing for MacDonald to pursue a facial due process challenge to the anti-sodomy provision. Under the Article III case-or-controversy requirement, a litigant must assert
a concrete interest of his own. See Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992) (explaining that Article
III requires (1) that the plaintiff has suffered an "invasion of
a legally protected interest," (2) that there is a causal connection between the injury "fairly traceable" to the challenged
action; and (3) that it is likely that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision" (citations omitted)). The Virginia courts ruled that MacDonald had not asserted his own
concrete interest in his facial challenge, but rather was pursuing the interests of third parties, in that the anti-sodomy provision is constitutional as applied to him. Under that theory,
MacDonald could only pursue a facial challenge to the antisodomy provision as it applies to others. This determination
of the jurisdictional predicate for standing to sue relied
entirely on an unfavorable legal resolution of the merits of
MacDonalds as-applied constitutional claim. In turn, our resolution of MacDonalds as-applied claim informs at least
under the theories propounded by the state and district courts
See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(c). Finally, even if collateral estoppel was not
waived, that doctrine requires that the issue be "actually determined and
necessarily decided in prior litigation in which the party against whom
collateral estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate."
Va. Hosp. Assn. v. Baliles, 830 F.2d 1308, 1311 (4th Cir. 1987). Our
denial of a COA in the earlier case in which MacDonald was proceeding pro se is not precedent here, does not constitute a decision on the
merits of MacDonalds constitutional claims, and did not afford MacDonald a full and fair opportunity to litigate. See Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537
U.S. 322, 331 (2003) (recognizing that "a COA ruling is not the occasion
for a ruling on the merit of petitioners claim").
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It is worth noting that the Martin court rejected as waived the defendants argument that the plaintiff lacked standing to contest the statutes
constitutionality (in that she was unlikely to be prosecuted), but nonetheless assured itself that its ruling did not amount to an advisory opinion,
inasmuch as "the Courts decision on the constitutionality of [the challenged statute] will determine Martins right to pursue her tort claim for
damages." 607 S.E.2d at 369.
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Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786-87 (2011). The majority ultimately may be proven right that the Virginia "anti-sodomy
provision facially violates the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment." Maj. Op. at 4. But because the matter is not beyond doubt after Lawrence, and because the district court was bound to give Virginia courts the benefit of
that doubt on federal collateral review, I respectfully dissent.1
I.
While we review a district courts denial of habeas relief de
novo, Wolfe v. Johnson, 565 F.3d 140, 160 (4th Cir. 2009), in
adjudicating a federal petition for habeas relief from a state
court conviction, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA") "limit[s] the federal courts
power to issue a writ to exceptional circumstances" where the
state court decision on the merits "resulted in a decision that
was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States." Richardson v. Branker, 668 F.3d
128, 138 (4th Cir. 2012) (quoting 28 U.S.C. 2254(d)). "If
this standard is difficult to meet, that is because it was meant
to be." Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786.
The majority elides this burden altogether, passing upon the
constitutionality of the Virginia anti-sodomy provision as if it
were presented in the first instance. In doing so, my colleagues fail to account for the rigor of federal habeas review,
which is not intended to be "a substitute for ordinary error
correction through appeal." Id. Because MacDonalds conviction does not rise to the level of an "extreme malfunction[ ]
in the state criminal justice system[ ]," id. (quoting Jackson v.
Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n.5 (1979) (Stevens, J., concurring)), I would affirm the district courts judgment.
1
For the reasons stated by the district court, I would also affirm the
denial of habeas relief on the additional constitutional claims asserted by
MacDonald.
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II.
A.
The majority grants MacDonald federal habeas relief on the
basis that the Virginia anti-sodomy provision2 facially violates
the Due Process Clause. The Virginia Court of Appeals, citing
its own precedent, concluded that Lawrence did not facially
invalidate all sodomy statutes,3 but rather only the application
of such statutes to private, consensual sexual activity among
adults. See MacDonald v. Commonwealth, No. 1939-05-2,
2007 WL 43635, at *1 (Va. Ct. App. Jan. 9, 2007) (citing
McDonald v. Commonwealth, 630 S.E.2d 754, 756-57 (Va.
App. 2006)). Accordingly, the Virginia Court of Appeals concluded that the Virginia anti-sodomy provision was constitutional as applied to MacDonald because his sexual conduct
involved a minor. Id.
The majority appears to disagree with this "as-applied"
interpretation of Lawrence on two unrelated grounds. First,
Lawrence overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186
(1986), which dismissed a facial challenge to the constitution2
I refer to the statute in question, Va. Code 18.2-361(A), as the Virginia anti-sodomy provision. Section 18.2-361(A) provides: "If any person
carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or carnally knows any
male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily
submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6
felony."
3
The Virginia Court of Appeals also ruled that MacDonald lacked
standing to advance such a facial challenge under Ulster County, which
held that a litigant can not raise a facial attack to a statute that is constitutional as applied to him. Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 155
(1979). The majority dismisses this principle, reasoning that because the
Virginia anti-sodomy provision is facially unconstitutional, the law cannot
be constitutional as applied to MacDonald.
While this analysis is circular, I do not believe the standing principle set
forth by Ulster County matters here. The as-applied and facial challenges
brought by MacDonald entail the same inquirywhether Lawrence invalidated sodomy statutes on an as-applied or facial basis.
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ality of a sodomy law. Because the Virginia anti-sodomy provision is indistinguishable from the statute in question in
Bowers, the majority reasons that MacDonalds facial challenge must succeed just asaccording to Lawrencethe
facial challenge in Bowers should have. Second, the majority
contends that allowing the Virginia anti-sodomy provision to
apply to minors would entail rewriting the statute in a manner
forbidden by Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. New Eng.,
546 U.S. 320 (2006). I address each ground in turn.
B.
In Lawrence, Texas police officers responding to an alleged
weapons disturbance entered a private residence where two
men were engaged in a sexual act. Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 56263. The state charged the men with violating a Texas sodomy
statute criminalizing "any contact between any part of the
genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person." Id. at 563 (citing Tex. Penal Code Ann. 21.01).
Overruling Bowers, Lawrence explained that decisions
made in private by consenting adults "concerning the intimacies of their physical relationship, even when not intended to
produce offspring, are a form of liberty protected by the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." Id. at 578
(quoting Bowers, 478 U.S. at 216 (Stevens, J., dissenting)). In
the penultimate paragraph of the opinion, however, Lawrence
prefaced its holding with the following qualification:
The present case does not involve minors. It does not
involve persons who might be injured or coerced or
who are situated in relationships where consent
might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve
whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons
seek to enter. The case does involve two adults who,
with full and mutual consent from each other,
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