Opinion ID: 3050053
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The AEDPA standards codified in 28 U.S.C.

Text: § 2254(d)(1) are mandatory and binding. The majority’s failure to apply AEDPA’s “contrary to” or “unreasonable application of” clearly established Federal law standard is clearly erroneous and conflicts with Supreme Court precedent mandating their application. AEDPA amended 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to restrict federal habeas corpus grants to state prisoners to cases where the state court proceedings “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). Section 2254(d)(1) creates two independent grounds for granting habeas relief to a state prisoner: (1) that the state court’s determination was “contrary to” Supreme Court precedent, and (2) that the state court’s decision was an “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court precedent. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 405 (approving of the Fourth Circuit’s interpretation that § 2254(d)(1) contains two independent grounds for relief). Section 2254 sets forth a “highly deferential standard for evalSARAUSAD v. PORTER 12083 uating state court rulings,” Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320, 333 n.7 (1997), that “demands that state court decisions be given the benefit of the doubt.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U.S. 19, 24 (2002) (per curiam). The panel majority, however, fails to identify the specific ground for granting relief to Sarausad on his accomplice liability instruction claim. Compare Sarausad, 479 F.3d at 676-77 (stating the two-part standard) with id. at 689-94 (discussing the accomplice liability instruction without finding that the Washington Court of Appeals reached a result “contrary to” clearly established Supreme Court precedent or made an objectively “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court precedent). 1. The panel majority fails to make sufficient findings for granting habeas to support an argument that the Washington Court of Appeals decision was “contrary to” clearly established Federal law. A finding that the state court decision was “contrary to” clearly established Supreme Court precedent, requires a determination that either “the state court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by [the Supreme Court] on a question of law” or “the state court confronts facts that are materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court precedent and arrives at a result opposite to [the Supreme Court].”10 Williams, 529 U.S. at 405. The Supreme Court has never held that an accomplice liability statute, or any similar statute or jury instruction, was unconstitutional or impermissibly shifted the burden of proof from the state to the defendant. The Supreme Court has also not confronted facts that are materially indistinguishable from Sarausad’s case. The majority’s failure to identify any applicable precedent, or point to any part of the Washington Court of Appeals opinion that was directly contrary to Supreme Court precedent precludes reliance on the “contrary to” prong of § 2254(d)(1). 10 Clearly established Federal law “refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme Court’s] decisions.” Id. at 412. 12084 SARAUSAD v. PORTER 2. The panel majority failed to make sufficient findings to justify granting habeas because the state court decision was an unreasonable application of Federal law. Assuming that the majority granted habeas based on an “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court precedent, then the majority’s opinion fails to apply the Supreme Court’s holding that “[u]nder the ‘unreasonable application’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Williams, 529 U.S. at 413. “[A] federal habeas court making the ‘unreasonable application’ inquiry should ask whether the state court’s application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable.” Id. at 409. “[A]n unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.” Id. at 410. “[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.” Id. at 411. “Under the ‘unreasonable application’ clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court’s decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of the prisoner’s case.” Id. at 413. The panel majority fails to conduct any analysis under the “unreasonable application” clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). See Sarausad, 479 F.3d at 689-94. Because it does not contain any discussion of the legal principle involved, or why the Washington Court of Appeals’ application of the principle was “objectively unreasonable,” the majority’s opinion fails to properly apply the AEDPA standards. See Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 15 (2003) (admonishing because “[t]he Court of Appeals, however, failed to cite, much less apply, this section”). The requirements of AEDPA deference are SARAUSAD v. PORTER 12085 binding directions to accord deference. See Uttecht v. Brown, 551 U.S. at ___, 127 S. Ct. 2218, 2224 (2007) (stating that the AEDPA requirements are “additional, and binding, directions to accord deference”). The Supreme Court in Williams gave specific directions to the federal courts on how to apply the “contrary to” and “unreasonable application” of Supreme Court precedent standards of AEDPA. Congress included that language specifically to prevent federal courts from granting habeas corpus by casually citing to broad language in Supreme Court opinions to justify overturning state court denials of habeas relief. The panel majority, however, does precisely that by pointing at broad principles from In re Winship, 397 U.S. at 364, Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. at 521, and Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. at 72, and glossing over the analysis required by Williams, 529 U.S. at 405, 409-11. See Sarausad v. Porter, 479 F.3d at 683-84, 689-94 (failing to make findings under the two prongs of AEDPA). The findings and analysis under both prongs of AEDPA stated in Williams are mandatory, not optional. We should not be so cavalier with the application of AEDPA when the Supreme Court has given us specific and detailed instructions on how to apply the deferential standards. 3. The Washington Court of Appeals’ decision was objectively reasonable. The majority opinion essentially argues that the jury instruction in this case was ambiguous because the Washington courts have come to conflicting results concerning the jury instructions for accomplice liability. See Sarausad v. Porter, 479 F.3d at 692. Sarausad has not, and cannot, demonstrate that the state appellate court’s decision was objectively unreasonable. As noted above, the Washington Supreme Court drew a clear line between permissible jury instructions that scrupu12086 SARAUSAD v. PORTER lously follow RCW § 9A.08.020 and impermissible jury instructions that create the inference that a defendant can be strictly liable for any subsequent offense committed by his codefendants if he aids and abets them in the commission of any crime.11 Roberts, 14 P.3d at 736. Given the Washington Supreme Court’s language expressly approving of Davis and the jury instruction that uses “the crime,” instead of “a crime,” the Washington Court of Appeals was well within the bounds of reason to conclude that the jury instruction in this case was an accurate statement of the law.12 See In re Sarausad, 39 P.3d at 318. Subsequent cases following the court of appeals’ reasoning in this case and concluding that jury instructions that follow the language of RCW § 9A.08.020 are correct, demonstrate that the state court’s approach was objectively reasonable. O’Neal, 109 P.3d at 441; Allen, 66 P.3d at 659. Furthermore, the state court of appeals could properly hold that the limited nature of the prosecutor’s argument in the circumstances of this case were within the bounds of Washington’s accomplice liability law based on prior case law. See Carothers, 525 P.2d at 736; Haack, 958 P.2d at 1003-04. Nothing about the state court of appeals’ decision makes it objectively unreasonable, much less an objectively unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court has never disapproved of the Model Penal Code concerning accomplice liability, or any statute similar to RCW § 9A.08.020 as unconstitutionally ambiguous.13 11 Of course correct statements of state law and the burden of proof are not constitutionally erroneous. See Bruce, 376 F.3d at 956 (concluding that instructions that comport with Winship and state law were not constitutionally erroneous). 12 Considering the court of appeals relied upon the Washington Supreme Court’s own language from Roberts, it is not surprising that the state supreme court refused to review the decision. 13 The cases cited by the panel majority concerning ambiguous jury instructions concerned federal statutes on direct review, not state interpretations of state statutes. See Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 424 (1985) (discussing 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b)(1)); Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 604 (1994) (26 U.S.C. § 5861(d)); Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 149 (1994) (31 U.S.C. §§ 5322(a) and 5324(3)); United States v. Speach, 968 F.2d 795, 796 (9th Cir. 1992) (42 U.S.C. § 6928(d)(1)). SARAUSAD v. PORTER 12087 This case was not before us upon direct review. We were required under Williams, 529 U.S. 409-413, to analyze whether the court of appeals identified a correct principle under Supreme Court precedent but applied the principle in an objectively unreasonable manner. The panel majority failed to conduct this inquiry, and even under state law, cannot show that the state appellate court’s analysis was objectively unreasonable. AEDPA was designed specifically to avoid unfettered review of the reasonableness of state court decisions. Sarausad has not demonstrated any objectively unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent, therefore, under AEDPA, our duty was to deny his petition. B. The majority’s opinion engages in improper de novo review without giving the Washington Court of Appeals’ legal conclusions about state law any deference in violation of Williams v. Taylor. The majority’s opinion improperly analyzes the jury instruction de novo and simply concludes that the Washington Court of Appeals’ decision was incorrect, instead of identifying what legal principle the state court applied in an “objectively unreasonable” manner. By setting aside the Washington Court of Appeals’ legal conclusion that the jury instruction given in Sarausad’s case was a proper statement of Washington law, the panel majority conflicts with this court’s opinion in Lambert v. Blodgett, 393 F.3d at 975-76, because it fails to find (and, as discussed above cannot find) that the state courts’ legal conclusions were objectively unreasonable or contrary to established Supreme Court precedent. Rather, the panel majority proceeds to undertake what amounts to a direct review of the allegedly improper jury instruction under Estelle, 502 U.S. at 71-72. See Sarausad, 479 F.3d at 689-94. The Supreme Court has reiterated time and time again after Williams, that a federal court cannot grant habeas relief by undertaking a de novo review and reaching a different conclusion than the state courts. See Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 665 (2004); Woodford, 537 U.S. at 24-25. Addition12088 SARAUSAD v. PORTER ally, the majority’s approach is improper because “[t]he fact that a jury instruction is inadequate by Ninth Circuit direct appeal standards does not mean a petitioner who relies on such an inadequacy will be entitled to habeas relief from a state court conviction.” Duckett, 67 F.3d at 744. In this case, the majority, after independent review, simply disagrees with the Washington Court of Appeals, and fails to conduct a proper AEDPA based inquiry into the reasonableness of the legal determinations concerning the propriety of the jury instruction under Washington law.14 The majority’s failure to recognize that the Washington Supreme Court approved of the instruction given in this case as a correct statement of Washington law was directly contrary to Supreme Court precedent. See Bradshaw, 546 U.S. at 78 (holding that failure to credit Ohio Supreme Court’s pronouncement that the doctrine of transferred intent applied to felony murder by reaching the opposite conclusion was error). By deciding to conduct a de novo review of the jury instruction and Washington’s accomplice liability law instead of applying the deferential AEDPA standards, the panel majority compounds its mistake and reaches a result contrary to Supreme Court and our own precedents.