On January 22, 1965, a three-judge district court panel postponed decision on the federal class-action case while the Lovings appealed Judge Bazile's decision on constitutional grounds to the Virginia Supreme Court. Justice Harry L. Carrico (later Chief Justice of the Court) wrote an opinion for the court upholding the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes. While he upheld their criminal convictions, he directed that their sentence be modified. Carrico cited as authority the Virginia Supreme Court's decision in "Naim v. Naim" (1955) and argued that the Lovings' case was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause because both the white and the non-white spouse were punished equally for the crime of miscegenation, an argument similar to that made by the United States Supreme Court in 1883 in "Pace v. Alabama". However, the court did find the Lovings' sentences to be unconstitutionally vague, struck them down, and ordered them resentenced in the Caroline County Circuit Court.