Opinion ID: 170276
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The district court's resolution of the claims

Text: The district court carefully examined the many challenges Mr. Brown alleged. The district court determined that the trial court's instructions and/or admonishments to the jury cured many of the purported errors. Overall, the district court concluded that these statements did not deprive Mr. Brown of the fundamental fairness to which he is entitled. Dist. Ct. Rec. doc. 28, at 34. As to the trial court's acknowledged error of admission of the gruesome autopsy photos during the sentencing stage, the district court also determined that this error did not deny Mr. Brown a fundamentally fair trial. The district court also addressed certain troubling contentions that the OCCA did not specifically mention in its resolution of the multitude of claims. For example, Mr. Brown maintained the prosecutor played the race card in offering an audiotape of Mr. Brown's statement. When asked, who did you kill, Mr. Brown responded Just a white dude. Feb. 20, 1997, Tr. trans. at 75. Defense counsel objected. The trial court overruled the objection but admonished the jury. The district court found, and we agree, that Mr. Brown did not show that the statement rendered the sentencing proceeding unfair. The OCCA's resolution of the prosecutorial misconduct contentions was not an unreasonable application of federal law As to the bulk of Mr. Brown's claims, we agree with the district court's thorough assessment and conclude that the OCCA did not unreasonably apply federal law in rejecting them. As to the autopsy photograph the trial court erroneously admitted during the sentencing stage, we note that the Supreme Court has reiterated the proper standard federal courts must apply in habeas proceedings when considering the effect of a trial court's error. See Fry v. Pliler, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2321, 168 L.Ed.2d 16 (2007). In Fry, the Supreme Court held that: in § 2254 proceedings a court must assess the prejudicial impact of constitutional error in a state-court criminal trial under the substantial and injurious effect standard set forth in Brecht [v. Abrahamson ], 507 U.S. 619, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 [(1993)], whether or not the state appellate court recognized the error. . . . Id. at 2328. Thus, unless the error had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict, the error is harmless. Brecht, 507 U.S. at 631, 113 S.Ct. 1710 (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946)). In attacking the OCCA's determination, Mr. Brown relies in part on Spears v. Mullin, 343 F.3d 1215 (10th Cir.2003), where we granted relief to the petitioner under the AEDPA standard of review. In Spears, photographs depicting the victim with fifty to sixty stab wounds were offered in the sentencing phase of a capital trial to prove conscious physical suffering. The OCCA held that the photographs were not probative for that purpose in light of the uncontradicted evidence that the victim died or lost consciousness early in the beating. Id. at 1226-28. Thus, there was no logical connection between the photographs and the proposition they were offered to prove. [T]he gruesome photographs potentially misled the jury, as they necessarily had a strong impact on the jurors' minds. Id. at 1228. Accordingly, the photographs rendered the sentencing stage fundamentally unfair. Id. Here, there is little doubt that the OCCA was correct to hold the admission of the autopsy photograph to be error. In contrast to Spears, however, there is more than minimal evidence that Mr. Yost was conscious during the beating, fought back to the extent he could, and endured conscious suffering. 343 F.3d at 1228; see infra § III.F.2. As we explain more fully below, even absent this evidence, the prosecution presented sufficient evidence in the sentencing phase to support the statutory aggravating factors. See infra § III.F thru III.H. Considering the entirety of the second stage evidence as a whole, and given our very limited role, we conclude that the erroneous admission of one gruesome photograph did not have a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Thornburg v. Mullin, 422 F.3d 1113, 1129 (10th Cir. 2005).