Court Opinion

ID: 9555816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-15 13:11:21.8829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:34:14.092160
License: Public Domain

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
UNPUBLISHED

              Present: Judges Beales, Causey and Senior Judge Haley

              TYVON K. BANKS
                                                                             MEMORANDUM OPINION*
              v.     Record No. 0651-22-2                                        PER CURIAM
                                                                                AUGUST 15, 2023
              COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

                                    FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SUSSEX COUNTY
                                             Carson E. Saunders, Jr., Judge

                              (Rocco Columbus; Randall Page, P.C., on brief), for appellant.

                              (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General; Liam A. Curry, Assistant
                              Attorney General, on brief), for appellee. Appellee submitting on
                              brief.

                     Tyvon K. Banks challenges the 15-year period of active incarceration the Circuit Court of

              Sussex County imposed after convicting him of indecent liberties with a minor and aggravated

              sexual battery and finding that he had violated the terms of his previously suspended sentence.

              After examining the briefs and record in this case, the panel unanimously holds that oral argument is

              unnecessary because “the appeal is wholly without merit.” Code § 17.1-403(ii)(a); Rule 5A:27(a).

                                                       BACKGROUND1

                     In 2017, Banks pleaded guilty to one count of rape of a child under the age of 13 in

              violation of Code § 18.2-61. Consistent with the terms of the written plea agreement, the trial

              court sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment with 15 years suspended on the conditions that he

                     *
                         This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A).
                     1
                       Under settled principles of appellate review, we state the evidence in the light most
              favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party in the trial court, and accord the
              Commonwealth the benefit of all reasonable inferences fairly deducible from that evidence. See,
              e.g., Chavez v. Commonwealth, 69 Va. App. 149, 153 (2018).
comply with supervised probation and keep the peace and be of good behavior. Eight months

after his release from prison, Banks molested K.J., his nine-year-old niece, and was subsequently

indicted on three counts of sexual assault. In 2021, Banks pleaded guilty to indecent liberties with

a minor, in violation of Code § 18.2-370, and aggravated sexual battery, in violation of Code

§ 18.2-67.3, and he stipulated that he had violated the terms of the 2017 suspended sentence.2

        At a contested sentencing hearing, Banks’s grandmother and a family friend testified to

Banks’s personal history, his amenability to rehabilitation, and steps they would personally take to

ensure Banks complied with conditions set by the trial court. Banks took the stand to apologize and

explain how he had changed. The trial court also received a presentence report containing

information about Banks’s mental health and intellectual disabilities.

        After reviewing the evidence presented and argument from counsel, the trial court discussed

its five goals of sentencing: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restitution.

The trial court specifically noted that it wanted to address Banks’s mental health concerns when

crafting his sentence. The trial court then sentenced Banks to a total sentence of 45 years’

imprisonment with 30 years suspended. Banks appeals, contending that the trial court erred in

sentencing him to this period of active incarceration.

                                               ANALYSIS

        “We review the trial court’s sentence for abuse of discretion.” Scott v. Commonwealth,

58 Va. App. 35, 46 (2011). “[W]hen a statute prescribes a maximum imprisonment penalty and

the sentence does not exceed that maximum, the sentence will not be overturned as being an

abuse of discretion.” Minh Duy Du v. Commonwealth, 292 Va. 555, 564 (2016) (quoting Alston

v. Commonwealth, 274 Va. 759, 771-72 (2007)).

        2
         In exchange for his pleas, the Commonwealth agreed to nolle prosequi one count of
object sexual penetration of a minor less than 13 and agreed to a maximum of 20 years’ active
incarceration.
                                                -2-
       Banks argues the trial court abused its discretion by not considering the mitigating

evidence he presented. The record does not support Banks’s claim. The trial court not only

received evidence of Banks’s mitigation, but stated “[t]he [trial c]ourt looks at the mitigating --

[i]n other words, the positive sides for you and the positive sides have to be particularly the

family and friendship support that you have here today.” The weight given to those

circumstances, though, was within the trial court’s purview. Keselica v. Commonwealth, 34

Va. App. 31, 36 (2000).

       The trial court is not obligated to read into the record every factor considered and the

weight given to each one. “Absent a statutory requirement to do so, ‘a trial court is not required

to give findings of fact and conclusions of law.’” Bowman v. Commonwealth, 290 Va. 492, 500

n.8 (2015) (quoting Fitzgerald v. Commonwealth, 223 Va. 615, 627 (1982)). Considering the

record, it would be without support to find that the trial court neglected to weigh Banks’s

mitigation.

       To the extent that Banks’s argument that the sentence is “unnecessarily harsh and cruel”

is intended to present a proportionality challenge, we must reject it.3 Moreover, Banks agreed to

a maximum sentence of 20 years when he entered the plea agreement. “The defendant, having

agreed upon the action taken by the trial court, should not be allowed to assume an inconsistent

position.” Clark v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 201, 214 (1979). In arguing that a sentence below

the maximum to which one agreed is “unnecessarily harsh and cruel,” Banks is asking this Court to

       3
          This Court declines to engage in a proportionality review in cases that do not involve
life sentences without the possibility of parole. Cole v. Commonwealth, 58 Va. App. 642,
653-54 (2011). We noted in Cole that the Supreme Court of the United States “has never found
a non-life ‘sentence for a term of years within the limits authorized by statute to be, by itself, a
cruel and unusual punishment’ in violation of the Eighth Amendment.” Id. at 653 (quoting Hutto
v. Davis, 454 U.S. 370, 372 (1982) (per curiam)). Cf. Vasquez v. Commonwealth, 291 Va. 232,
243 (2016) (rejecting Eighth Amendment challenge to 133-year active sentence because the
sentence was imposed for 18 separate crimes).
                                                 -3-
revise the written plea agreement he negotiated with the Commonwealth. “No litigant, even a

defendant in a criminal case, will be permitted to approbate and reprobate—to invite error . . .

and then to take advantage of the situation created by his own wrong.” Fisher v.

Commonwealth, 236 Va. 403, 417 (1988).

       Banks’s argument that the trial court erred by sentencing him above the recommended

sentencing guidelines range lacks merit. The guidelines are “advisory only and do not require

trial courts to impose specific sentences.” Runyon v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 573, 577-78

(1999). “[T]he recommended sentencing ranges contained in these discretionary guidelines are

not binding on the trial judge but, rather, are mere tools to be used by the judge in fixing an

appropriate sentence within the limitations established by the statute governing punishment for

the particular crime.” Luttrell v. Commonwealth, 42 Va. App. 461, 465 (2004). A trial court’s

decision regarding whether to follow the discretionary sentencing guidelines is “not . . .

reviewable on appeal.” Code § 19.2-298.01(F).

                                          CONCLUSION

       For the foregoing reasons, the circuit court’s judgment is affirmed.

                                                                                             Affirmed.

                                                -4-