Opinion ID: 170677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Whether the state court's sentencing decisions were contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law?

Text: Mr. House also maintains that we should grant habeas relief because the state court's sentencing decisions were contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal due process rules. First, Mr. House contends that New Mexico Court of Appeals's interpretation of New Mexico's vehicular homicide statute, N.M. STAT. ANN. § 66-8-101, [15] was contrary to and involved an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Mr. House argues that the New Mexico Court of Appeals committed constitutional error in failing to apply the rule of lenity in assessing the legal propriety of his sentence under the vehicular homicide statute because that statute is ambiguous on the question of whether DWI-related offenses should be deemed more serious than those committed through reckless driving, and does not contain a preference for one alternative ground for conviction over the other. Aplt. Op. Br. at 53-54. More specifically, he contends that the New Mexico Court of Appeals unreasonably applied clearly established federal due process principles in upholding the trial court's decision to vacate the reckless-driving counts while retaining the DWI-related convictions. Second, Mr. House attacks the New Mexico Court of Appeals's ruling regarding the use of the recidivist sentencing provision of N.M. STAT. ANN. § 66-8-101(D). According to Mr. House, like the vehicular homicide statute, this provision is ambiguous and therefore the New Mexico Court of Appeals was obliged, under clearly established federal law, to employ the rule of lenity and failed to do so. We reject both arguments. [A]mbiguity concerning the ambit of criminal statutes should be resolved in favor of lenity. United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347, 92 S.Ct. 515, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Rewis v. United States, 401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 28 L.Ed.2d 493 (1971)). The rule of lenity applies when a statute is so ambiguous that reasonable doubt persists about a statute's intended scope even after resort to the language and structure, legislative history, and motivating policies of the statute. Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 108, 111 S.Ct. 461, 112 L.Ed.2d 449 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Bifulco v. United States, 447 U.S. 381, 387, 100 S.Ct. 2247, 65 L.Ed.2d 205 (1980)).