Opinion ID: 613858
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Due Process—Vagueness

Text: Mr. Kirby brings a second, related due-process challenge, arguing that the fraud statute is vague as applied to him. More specifically, he argues that the statute is void for vagueness because neither the statute nor any prior judicial decision put him on notice that his actions—i.e., preventing Mr. Collett from accessing the web pages he created and copyrighted—were subject to criminal liability. The district court, accepting the magistrate judge’s recommendation, held that Mr. Kirby was not entitled to habeas relief on this claim. “Objections to vagueness under the Due Process Clause rest on the lack of notice, and hence may be overcome in any specific case where reasonable persons would know that their conduct is at risk.” R., Vol. I, at 880 (quoting Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 361 (1988)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court concluded that the fraud statute—providing that “[f]raud consists of the intentional misappropriation or taking of anything of value which belongs to another by means of fraudulent conduct, practices or representations,” N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30- 14 16-6—was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to Mr. Kirby because “[a] person of ordinary intelligence would understand that the designer of the web pages has an ownership interest in the website on which the pages are displayed,” R., Vol. I, at 880. Thus, “[e]ven if Kirby owned the domain name and the webspace, Collett owned the designs and the copyright to the pages displayed on the website,” and “[b]y blocking Collett from accessing the website before paying him for the designs, Kirby should have known that his conduct was at risk for criminal liability.” Id. at 880–81. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with this outcome. Mr. Kirby first argues that the decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court, and the recommendation of the federal magistrate judge, were based on a factual error—viz., “the fallacious premise that [he] had barred access to Collett.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 15. The district court considered and rejected this argument. Reasonable jurists could not debate the correctness of this resolution. 6 Assuming, arguendo, that the factual determination that Mr. Kirby excluded or barred Mr. 6 The district court apparently viewed Mr. Kirby’s factual-error challenge as part and parcel of his request to expand the record. However, we are constrained to disagree. Before the district court, Mr. Kirby raised his factualerror argument in the context of his objections to the magistrate judge’s recommendation. See R., Vol. I, at 890. The argument was not necessarily a component of his request for leave to expand the record. Moreover, in seeking a COA from this court, Mr. Kirby is quite clear that the factual-error argument is part of his vagueness challenge. Although we do not view the factual-error issue as falling under the umbrella of Mr. Kirby’s request to expand the record, as noted above, we conclude that the district court’s ultimate resolution of the challenge could not be debated by reasonable jurists. 15 Collett was incorrect, Mr. Kirby would still not be entitled to relief because that determination was not “an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(2). Section 2254(d)(2) does not instruct federal courts to determine whether the state court made a correct determination, but rather whether the state court made an unreasonable determination. In this case, Mr. Collett stated that “the password [was] changed from what [he] had changed it to,” and he “did [not] know what the password had been changed to.” Dist. Ct. Doc. 37-2 at 57 (Aug. 13, 2010). He further stated that the change “kept [him] from removing all the files [he] had created,” and that he could “no longer access it” because Mr. Kirby “had taken control of the website.” Id. Thus, based on this testimony, it cannot be said that the factual determination that Mr. Kirby excluded or barred Mr. Collett was unreasonable. The district court correctly rejected Mr. Kirby’s factual-error argument. As to the legal merits of the vagueness challenge, we conclude that Mr. Kirby is not entitled to a COA on this issue. Our holding is based on substantially the same grounds as articulated by the magistrate judge and adopted by the district court. In order to succeed under this challenge, Mr. Kirby was required to demonstrate that the New Mexico fraud statute failed to give him “fair warning, at the time of [his] conduct . . . , that the act for which [he] now stand[s] convicted was rendered criminal by the statute.” Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 355 (1964). His challenge can “be overcome . . . [if] reasonable 16 persons would know that their conduct is at risk” under the statute. Maynard, 486 U.S. at 361. As the magistrate judge correctly concluded, and the district court recognized, “[a] person of ordinary intelligence would understand that the designer of the web pages has an ownership interest in the website on which the pages are displayed,” R., Vol. I, at 880—especially when the designer has not been paid for that design work. Therefore, “[b]y blocking Collett from accessing the website before paying him for the designs, Kirby should have known that his conduct was at risk for criminal liability.” Id. at 880–81. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with this outcome. Mr. Kirby argues, as he did before the district court, that “there is a need for [the] court to locate a published decision[] with fundamentally similar facts[,] prior to Kirby’s actions[,] to be able to [overcome] the vagueness challenge [and thereby] allow affirmation of Kirby’s conviction.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 17 (emphasis added). Contrary to Mr. Kirby’s assertion, however, this statement does not reflect the Supreme Court’s (or Tenth Circuit’s) vagueness jurisprudence. It appears, as the district court noted, that Mr. Kirby may be confusing the vagueness doctrine with the doctrine of qualified immunity. To defeat a claim of qualified immunity, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the constitutional right allegedly violated “was clearly established at the time of the alleged unlawful activity,” Swanson v. Town of Mountain View, Colo., 577 F.3d 1196, 1199 (10th Cir. 2009); “[o]rdinarily, in order for the law to be clearly 17 established, there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains,” Medina v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 960 F.2d 1493, 1498 (10th Cir. 1992) (emphasis added), overruled in part by Williams v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 99 F.3d 1009 (10th Cir. 1996). The law of qualified immunity, however, has no bearing on whether Mr. Kirby has successfully asserted a vagueness challenge. Accordingly, this argument is unavailing. 7 Mr. Kirby is not entitled to a COA on this claim. VI. Sufficiency of the Evidence—Ownership of the Website Mr. Kirby next argues that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction. More specifically, he argues there was not “any evidence, much less substantial evidence, produced at trial [to demonstrate] that someone other than [Mr. Kirby] owned the website.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 18. 8 In assessing a 7 Mr. Kirby also briefly argues that we should apply the rule of lenity in this case and construe the fraud statute in his favor. First, it appears that Mr. Kirby is raising the rule-of-lenity argument for the first time on appeal. Thus, it is waived. See supra note 4 and accompanying text. In any event, “the rule of lenity only applies if, after considering text, structure, history, and purpose, there remains a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute, such that the Court must simply guess as to what [the legislature] intended.” Barber v. Thomas, 130 S. Ct. 2499, 2508–09 (2010) (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). It cannot be said in this case that there is “grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute.” Id. at 2508. Thus, this argument is unpersuasive. 8 As the magistrate judge explained: The jury was instructed that to find Kirby guilty of fraud, the (continued...) 18 sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge, “the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979). The New Mexico Supreme Court reviewed this claim under the Jackson standard and held that “a rational jury could have concluded that Collett owned the website and its contents, and that Kirby had therefore committed fraud by taking property that belonged to someone other than himself.” R., Vol. I, at 883. This holding was based on evidence presented at trial, which included “the contract between Collett and Kirby, testimony that Collett owned the computer programming that made the web pages viewable, and testimony that Kirby changed the password and locked Collett out of access to his copyrighted pages.” Id. The district court, accepting the magistrate judge’s recommendation, concluded that the state court’s “determination was a proper application of Jackson based on the facts of this case,” and thus it was “neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of federal law.” Id. Reasonable jurists could not 8 (...continued) State had to prove the following three elements beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) Kirby intended to “deceive or cheat” Collett; (2) Kirby had “obtained a website”; and (3) the website belonged to someone other than Kirby. R., Vol. I, at 874 (emphasis added). Mr. Kirby does not contest the sufficiency of the evidence as to the first two enumerated elements. 19 disagree with this conclusion. Before this court, Mr. Kirby’s only argument is that Mr. Collett testified that “Mr. Kirby was the owner and administrator” of the website, and that the state court “did not have the authority to usurp Collett’s testimony that Kirby owned the website.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 19. As the district court correctly pointed out, however, a rational jury could have found that the web pages belonged to Mr. Collett based on the other evidence presented at trial, despite Mr. Collett’s allegedly conflicting statement. See, e.g., McDaniel v. Brown, 130 S. Ct. 665, 673 (2010) (“Jackson requires a reviewing court to review the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. Expressed more fully, this means a reviewing court faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presume . . . that the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution.” (citations omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, this argument is without merit, and Mr. Kirby is not entitled to a COA on this claim. VII. Sufficiency of the Evidence—Value of the Website Mr. Kirby next contends that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the website had a market value of over $250. 9 He first takes issue with the 9 As noted above, the state fraud statute in effect at the time Mr. Kirby was indicted stated that “[w]hoever commits fraud when the value of the property misappropriated or taken is over two hundred fifty dollars ($250) but not more than twenty-five hundred dollars ($2,500) is guilty of a fourth degree felony.” (continued...) 20 standard of review applied by the district court, which he suggests was an “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court case law. Aplt. Combined Br. at 19. More specifically, he argues that the district court incorrectly analyzed this claim under the Jackson framework when it “should have been resolved by asking whether the . . . error had a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Id. at 19–20 (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 623 (1993)) (internal quotation marks omitted). It is well-established that “[t]he controlling standard for insufficient evidence claims asserted by state habeas petitioners was established by the Supreme Court in Jackson v. Virginia.” Johnson v. Mullin, 505 F.3d 1128, 1134 (10th Cir. 2007); accord Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298, 330 (1995) (stating that, on habeas review, “the standard of Jackson v. Virginia . . . governs review of claims of insufficient evidence”). On the other hand, the standard urged by Mr. Kirby—articulated in Brecht v. Abrahamson—is a harmless-error standard, which is only applied once a reviewing court has determined that a constitutional error has been committed. See, e.g., Welch v. Workman, 639 F.3d 980, 992 (10th Cir. 2011) (en banc) (“If constitutional error is committed, we look to whether ‘the prejudicial impact of constitutional error in [the] state-court criminal trial’ rises to 9 (...continued) N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-16-6 (1987) (emphasis added). Thus, the government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that “the value of the property misappropriated” was more than $250. 21 the ‘substantial and injurious effect standard set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson.” (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 120, 121 n.3 (2007))). Accordingly, Mr. Kirby’s argument regarding the standard of review is without merit. Next, Mr. Kirby argues that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the website had a value of more than $250 because “[t]he record does not support any reference to the value of the website [itself],” but “only deals with suggested value to the work [done] on the web pages.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 20. The state court rejected this argument, “not[ing] that Kirby had agreed to pay Collett $1,890 for designing the web pages and that [a witness] testified [that] the work Collett provided was worth $600 to $700.” R., Vol. I, at 888. The federal district court concluded that Mr. Kirby was not entitled to habeas relief on this claim because, “even if there were no evidence as to the value of the website itself, a rational jury could reasonably infer that the value of the website was at least equal to the value of the design service.” Id. Thus, the state court’s adjudication of the matter was not contrary to nor an unreasonable application of federal law. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with this outcome. Mr. Kirby does not even attempt to undermine the evidence presented regarding the agreement to pay Mr. Collett $1890 or the witness’s $600-to-$700 valuation of the work provided by Mr. Collett. Viewing that evidence in the light most favorable to the government, a rational jury could have concluded that the 22 value of the website was more than $250. Accordingly, Mr. Kirby is not entitled to a COA on this claim. VIII. Fraud Predicated on Promises as to Future Events Mr. Kirby next argues that his conviction should be vacated because a fraud conviction cannot be predicated on unfulfilled promises as to future events—e.g., future payment for website services rendered. The state appellate court found this argument unavailing, noting that although under New Mexico law “an action for fraud will ordinarily not lie as to a pattern of conduct based on promises that future events will take place, . . . there are exceptions to this rule,” and that Mr. Kirby’s actions fell within one of those exceptions recognized under state law. R, Vol. I, at 27. In this federal habeas proceeding, the district court rejected this claim, endorsing the magistrate judge’s conclusion that “the issue was a matter of state law, and not reviewable on habeas.” Id. at 924. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with this outcome. The Supreme Court has made clear that “it is only noncompliance with federal law that renders a State’s criminal judgment susceptible to collateral attack in the federal courts.” Wilson v. Corcoran, 131 S. Ct. 13, 16 (2010). “[I]t is not the province of a federal habeas court to reexamine state-court determinations on state-law questions,” id. (alteration in original) (quoting Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67–68 (1991)) (internal quotation marks omitted); yet, that is precisely what Mr. Kirby asked the district court to do here. He points to 23 no Supreme Court case law supporting his position. Accordingly, he is not entitled to a COA on this issue. IX. Mootness of Sentence-Enhancement Challenges Mr. Kirby next asserts that the district court erred in dismissing his sentence-enhancement challenges—presented in his supplemental habeas pleading (i.e., coram-nobis petition) 10—as moot. The district court determined that the sentence-enhancement challenges were moot because Mr. Kirby had completed his sentence and had not demonstrated any collateral consequences flowing from the enhancement. Reasonable jurists could not disagree with the district court’s mootness determination. 10 Under our case law, a district court generally “must follow certain procedures before recharacterizing pro se pleadings as claims under §§ 2254 or 2255.” Davis v. Roberts, 425 F.3d 830, 835 (10th Cir. 2005). However, in this case, we see no reason to disturb the district court’s reclassification. First, Mr. Kirby does not argue that the district court was required to follow any such procedures before recharacterizing his petition as a supplemental habeas pleading. Additionally, the rule that courts should not sua sponte convert a pro se pleading into a habeas petition is based “‘largely [on the] concern that a subsequent § 2255 [or § 2254] motion would be considered successive’ and barred under AEDPA except ‘in very limited circumstances.’” United States v. Torres, 282 F.3d 1241, 1245 (10th Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Kelly, 235 F.3d 1238, 1241 (10th Cir. 2000)). Thus, we have generally applied this rule “in cases where the recharacterized petition would have been the petitioner’s first § 2255 [or § 2254] petition,” thereby “prevent[ing] a prisoner from raising a legitimate claim in a subsequent [habeas] petition.” Id. at 1246. In this case, however, the district court did not transform Mr. Kirby’s coram-nobis petition into his first habeas petition. Mr. Kirby had already filed his first § 2254 petition, and the district court was simply supplementing the claims raised in the initial petition with those raised in the supplemental pleading. Therefore, we will not revisit the district court’s conclusion that this petition constituted a supplemental habeas pleading. 24 Habeas claims will become moot upon a petitioner’s release from custody unless the petitioner establishes that “sufficient collateral consequences flow from the underlying judgment and the completed sentence to save the appeal from mootness.” United States v. Meyers, 200 F.3d 715, 718 (10th Cir. 2000). On appeal, Mr. Kirby does not even attempt to defeat the mootness determination by identifying any collateral consequences of the sentence enhancement. 11 Instead, he argues that his sentence-enhancement challenge is actually a “challenge to the jurisdiction of the state court to enhance [his] sentence,” which “is in fact a challenge to the conviction, not the sentence[] therefore defeating the mootness determination by the district court.” Aplt. Combined Br. at 25. However, by acknowledging that he is indeed challenging “the jurisdiction of the state court to enhance [his] sentence,” id. (emphasis added), Mr. Kirby’s argument defeats itself; it is clear that the focus of his challenge is the sentence enhancement, not the underlying conviction. Accordingly, because Mr. Kirby has failed to demonstrate any collateral consequences flowing from the now-completed term of the sentence enhancement, the district court did not err in dismissing the challenges as moot. See Kirby v. Janecka, 379 F. App’x 781, 784 (10th Cir. 11 Although collateral consequences are generally presumed in the context of a challenge to a petitioner’s conviction, that presumption has not—as the district court noted—been applied in the context of a challenge to a sentence enhancement, nor does Mr. Kirby argue that it should be applied in that context. See, e.g., United States v. Hernandez-Baide, 146 F. App’x 302, 304 (10th Cir. 2005). 25 2010) (holding that the petitioner’s “claim is moot because it challenges only the state court’s enhancement of his already-completed sentence, and [he] has failed to show any continuing collateral consequences stemming from that enhancement”); Lucero v. McKune, 340 F. App’x 442, 444 (10th Cir. 2009) (holding that the petitioner’s release from prison mooted his claim that his sentences were impermissibly increased because he failed to demonstrate collateral consequences associated with his previous incarceration). 12