Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/475/237
Timestamp: 2013-12-20 19:08:17
Document Index: 279178831

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2911', '§ 2903', '§ 2903', '§ 2903', '§ 2903', '§ 2945']

T.L. MORRIS, Superintendent, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Petitioner v. James Michael MATHEWS. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
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475 U.S. 237 (106 S.Ct. 1032, 89 L.Ed.2d 187)
T.L. MORRIS, Superintendent, Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Petitioner v. James Michael MATHEWS.
[HTML] See 475 U.S. 1132, 106 S.Ct. 1663.
Syllabus Respondent and another man (Daugherty) robbed a bank in Ohio. After an automobile chase, the police surrounded the two men when they stopped at a farmhouse. Thereafter, the police heard shots fired inside the house, and respondent emerged from the house and surrendered. The police then entered the house and found Daugherty dead. Based on the Coroner's opinion that Daugherty had committed suicide, the State did not charge respondent with Daugherty's death but with aggravated robbery. Respondent pleaded guilty, but two days later admitted having shot Daugherty. Respondent was then indicted for aggravated murder based on the bank robbery. The state trial court denied his pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment as violative of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and he was found guilty after a jury trial. Ultimately, the Ohio Court of Appeals, finding that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred respondent's conviction for aggravated murder, modified that conviction to that of the lesser included offense of murder. After the Ohio Supreme Court denied respondent's motion to appeal, he sought a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court, which denied the petition. The Federal Court of Appeals reversed. Apparently agreeing with respondent's assertion that evidence was admitted at his trial for aggravated murder that would have been inadmissible in a trial for murder and stating that the jury "may have been prejudiced" by that evidence, the court held that respondent had established a "reasonable possibility" that he was prejudiced by the double jeopardy violation sufficient to warrant a new trial on the murder charge.
Based on the Coroner's first opinion that Daugherty took his own life, the State did not charge respondent with Daugherty's death. Instead, he was indicted under Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2911.01 (Supp.1984) on aggravated robbery charges.
Two days after entering his guilty plea, respondent made the first of two statements in which he admitted having shot Daugherty. Respondent maintained that Daugherty initially had shot himself in the head, and that he was still alive when respondent discovered him after returning to the farmhouse with the stolen money. Acting on the theory that, if Daugherty were dead, respondent could claim that he was kidnapped and had not voluntarily robbed the bank, respondent "put the gun an inch or two from Daugherty's chest and pulled the trigger." App. 6.
Respondent's second statement, given one week later, reiterated these same points. Id., at 8-16.
On June 1, 1978, the State charged respondent with the aggravated murder of Steven Daugherty. Ohio Rev.Code § 2903.01 (1982) defines aggravated murder, in part, as "purposely causing the death of another . . . while fleeing immediately after committing . . . aggravated robbery."
On remand, the Court of Appeals found that the Double Jeopardy Clause, as construed by this Court in Vitale, barred respondent's conviction for aggravated murder. State v. Mathews, No. 2578 (Licking County, Nov. 7, 1980). The court noted, however, that § 2903.01 defines aggravated murder as purposely causing the death of another while committing certain felonies, and that § 2903.02 defines murder simply as purposely causing the death of another. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-26.
Once again, the Ohio Supreme Court denied respondent's motion to appeal, and this Court denied his subsequent petition for certiorari review. Mathews v. Ohio, 451 U.S. 975, 101 S.Ct. 2057, 68 L.Ed.2d 356 (1981).
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. Mathews v. Marshall, 754 F.2d 158 (1985). Although refusing to hold that in a case like this a new trial on the nonbarred charge is always necessary, the court held that "a conviction obtained in violation of the double jeopardy clause cannot be modified if the defendant can show that there was a 'reasonable possibility that he was prejudiced' by the double jeopardy violation," and that " 'an exceedingly small showing . . . would suffice.' " Id., at 162, quoting Graham v. Smith, 602 F.2d 1078, 1083 (CA2 1979). Apparently agreeing with respondent's assertion that "evidence was admitted in his trial for aggravated murder that would not have been admissible in a trial for murder," and stating that the jury "may have been prejudiced" by that evidence, the court concluded that respondent had established a sufficient possibility of prejudice to warrant a new trial on the murder charge. Mathews v. Marshall, supra, at 162.
As an initial matter, we note several issues that are not in dispute. First, the State concedes that under our cases the prosecution of respondent for aggravated murder violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. Similarly, respondent concedes that the Clause would not prevent the State from trying him for murder. Next, all of the courts that have reviewed this case have agreed that, in finding respondent guilty of aggravated murder, the jury necessarily found that he "purposely caused the death of another," which is the definition of murder under Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2903.02 (1982). See n. 4, supra. Finally, this is not a "harmless error" case: allowing respondent to be tried for aggravated murder was error, and it was not in any sense harmless. With these considerations aside, the only issue before us is whether reducing respondent's conviction for aggravated murder to a conviction for murder is an adequate remedy for the double jeopardy violation.
This holding in Price did not impose an automatic retrial rule whenever a defendant is tried for a jeopardy-barred crime and is convicted of a lesser included offense. Rather, the Court relied on the likelihood that the conviction for manslaughter had been influenced by the trial on the murder chargethat the charge of the greater offense for which the jury was unwilling to convict also made the jury less willing to consider the defendant's innocence on the lesser charge. That basis for finding or presuming prejudice is not present here. The jury did not acquit Mathews of the greater offense of aggravated murder, but found him guilty of that charge and, a fortiori, of the lesser offense of murder as well.
Benton urged that his burglary conviction must also fall because certain evidence admitted at his second trial would not have been admitted had he been tried for burglary alone. This evidence, he claimed, prejudiced the jury and influenced their decision to convict him of burglary. We rejected that argument, saying both that "it was not obvious on the face of the record that the burglary conviction was affected by the double jeopardy violation," and that we should not make this kind of evidentiary determination "unaided by prior consideration by the state courts." Id., at 798, 89 S.Ct., at 2064 (footnote omitted). We thus vacated the judgment of the Maryland court, and remanded for further proceedings.
Second, the Court of Appeals appeared to agree with respondent that certain evidence admitted at his trial would not have been admitted in a separate trial for murder, but it did not expressly say so, nor did it refer to any Ohio authorities. Mathews v. Marshall, 754 F.2d, at 162. The State submits that under Ohio law, conduct of a defendant tending to show either "his motive or intent," or his "scheme, plan or system," is admissible, "notwithstanding that such proof may show or tend to show the commission of another crime by the defendant." Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2945.59 (1982).
See generally State v. Moorehead, 24 Ohio St.2d 166, 169, 265 N.E.2d 551, 553 (1970). We normally accept a court of appeals' view of state law, but if this case turns on the admissibility of the challenged evidence in a separate trial for murder, the issue deserves a more thorough consideration by the lower court.
The "reasonable possibility" standard originated in Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963), where it was applied to the improper introduction of illegally seized evidence. Less than two years prior to this Court's decision in Chapman, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit persuasively demonstrated that the Fahy standard was equally applicable to situations of the kind involved here, i.e., jeopardy-barred prosecutions that ultimately result in convictions on lesser included charges that are not barred. See United States ex rel. Hetenyi v. Wilkins, 348 F.2d 844 (1965), cert. denied, sub nom. Mancusi v. Hetenyi, 383 U.S. 913, 86 S.Ct. 896, 15 L.Ed.2d 667 (1966). Hetenyi was charged by the State with first-degree murder but convicted only of second-degree murder, a lesser included offense. After his conviction was overturned on appeal, he again was prosecuted for first-degree murder, and ultimately convicted once more only of second-degree murder.
Writing for the Court of Appeals, then-Judge Marshall noted that the Constitution forbade the reprosecution of Hetenyi for an offense of which he had been impliedly acquitted in the first trial, but that the State constitutionally could have prosecuted Hetenyi again for second-degree murder. Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals invalidated Hetenyi's reconviction for the lesser offense, because there was a "reasonable possibility that he was prejudiced" by the fact that he was charged with first-degree murder. 348 F.2d, at 864 (emphasis in original). "For example," Judge Marshall explained, "it is entirely possible that without the inclusion of the first degree murder charge, the jury, reflecting a not unfamiliar desire to compromise might have returned a guilty verdict on the first degree manslaughter charge," a lesser included offense of second-degree murder. Id., at 866. The court refused to apply a more lenient test for harmless error, noting:
This Court relied on Hetenyi in Price v. Georgia, 398 U.S. 323, 90 S.Ct. 1757, 26 L.Ed.2d 300 (1970), a case with similar facts. Price was tried for murder and found guilty of manslaughter. His conviction was overturned on appeal, he was retried for murder, and he again was found guilty of manslaughter. This Court held that the reprosecution for murder was barred on double jeopardy grounds, and rejected the State's argument that the error was rendered harmless by the fact that the second jury convicted Price only of the unbarred offense. Citing Hetenyi, the Court noted that "we cannot determine whether or not the murder charge against petitioner induced the jury to find him guilty of the less serious offense of voluntary manslaughter rather than to continue to debate his innocence." 398 U.S., at 331, 90 S.Ct., at 1762. The Court did not explicitly employ the "reasonable possibility" standard, but it observed: "The Double Jeopardy Clause . . . is cast in terms of the risk or hazard of trial and conviction, not of the ultimate legal consequence of the verdict. To be charged and to be subjected to a second trial for first-degree murder is an ordeal not to be viewed lightly." Ibid. The Court certainly gave no indication that it would consider the error harmless unless Price could show that "but for the improper inclusion of the jeopardy-barred charge, the result of the proceeding probably would have been different." See ante, at 247.
The Court today offers virtually no explanation for departing from Chapman and Fahy in favor of a more lenient approach. It cites no support at all for the "reliable inference" and "probably would have been different" formulations of the new test it announces. In support of the "reasonable probability" formulation, the Court refers to Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), which used the same words but did not concern the adequacy of a proffered remedy for an acknowledged constitutional violation. The question in Strickland was whether there had been a constitutional violation in the first place. Id., at 691-692, 104 S.Ct., at 2066-2067. We held that a professionally unreasonable mistake by defense counsel constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment only if in retrospect there is a "reasonable probability" that the mistake altered the verdictthat is, "a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Id., at 694, 104 S.Ct., at 2068; cf. United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985) (prosecutor's failure to disclose evidence favorable to the accused violates due process where there is a "reasonable probability" that disclosure would have affected the outcome).
In this case, however, it is common ground that respondent's rights under the Double Jeopardy Clause were violated when Ohio tried him for aggravated murder. The question is not whether Ohio has also violated the Sixth Amendment or the Due Process Clause. The question is whether the State has sufficiently contained the damage from its acknowledged violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, or whether that transgression taints even the conviction for simple murder. At issue is the extent to which the law will tolerate a conviction that may have been obtained through abridgment of a defendant's constitutional rights. Once it is established that the State has violated the Constitution in the course of a prosecution, the proceedings lose whatever presumption of regularity they formerly enjoyed, and the State properly bears a heavy burden in arguing that the result should nonetheless be treated as valid.
Given all this, respondent is obligated to spell out with some specificity how the trial might have gone better for him had the State charged only simple murder. He has not done so; instead, he has simply speculated that all sorts of things might have been different. That is not enough to prevent this Court from "declaring a belief that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." Chapman, 386 U.S., at 24, 87 S.Ct., at 828. If it were, the remand in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707 (1969), would have been inappropriate: the Court there simply would have vacated the burglary conviction, because there was no telling what would have happened had the defendant not been forced to defend himself against the larceny charge. Perhaps different trial tactics would have been tried; perhaps defense counsel would have prepared more fully on the burglary charge. Indeed, if abstract speculations of this sort sufficed to create a "reasonable doubt" that an error was harmless, it is difficult to see how any constitutional error ever would qualify.
"There can never be any certainty as to whether the jury was actually influenced by the unconstitutionally broad scope of the reprosecution or whether the accused's defense strategy was impaired by this scope of the charge, even if there were a most sensitive examination of the entire trial record and a more suspect and controversial inquest of the jurors still alive and available." United States ex rel. Hetenyi v. Wilkins, 348 F.