Opinion ID: 713024
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reweighing by the State Supreme Court

Text: 10 The district court's decision to grant the writ rests on two prongs: 1) our decision in Rust v. Hopkins, 984 F.2d 1486 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 967, 113 S.Ct. 2950, 124 L.Ed.2d 697 (1993); and 2) the district court's exhaustive independent examination of Nebraska statutory law. The district court properly concluded that, under Rust (and under Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990), for that matter), state appellate court reweighing of the factors underlying a death sentence is permissible only if state law allows it. However, the district court erred in dismissing the Nebraska Supreme Court's assertion of authority to reweigh as an incorrect interpretation of Nebraska law. 11 The Nebraska Supreme Court is the final arbiter of Nebraska law. Once that court has asserted its authority to reweigh based on its own practice, our only concern is whether the resultant configuration of state law results in a scheme that violates federal constitutional rights. See Clemons, 494 U.S. at 746-48, 110 S.Ct. at 1447-48 (state supreme court's assertion of authority to reweigh, based on its past practice, defeats petitioner's assertion of unqualified state law right to have all factfinding and weighing done by initial sentencer only); see also Hicks v. Oklahoma, 447 U.S. 343, 100 S.Ct. 2227, 65 L.Ed.2d 175 (1980) (due process is violated when state appellate court admits it is without authority to cure a void sentence, but affirms such sentence nonetheless). In this case, the Nebraska Supreme Court based its assertion of authority on its own past practice and its interpretation of Clemons. Reeves III, 476 N.W.2d at 835. By performing an exhaustive review of Nebraska statutory law in an attempt to show the Nebraska Supreme Court the inadequacy of its interpretation of its own authority under its own law, the district court exceeded the bounds of federal court authority. See Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 479-80, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991) (it is not the province of federal courts to reexamine state court determinations of state law questions). 12 As far as the federal constitution is concerned, in a weighing jurisdiction, 3 a state appellate court may cure a constitutional deficiency arising from improper applications or limitations of aggravating or mitigating circumstances in a capital case by engaging either in reweighing, or in traditional harmless error analysis. Clemons, 494 U.S. at 754, 110 S.Ct. at 1451. Reweighing, in the case of a sentence tainted by improper application of an aggravating factor, may be accomplished in one of two ways. The state appellate court may jettison the improper factor and weigh only the remaining aggravating and mitigating factors. 4 Or, that court may apply a corrected definition of an impermissible factor and include it in the balance. Id. at 751, 110 S.Ct. at 1449. What an appellate court in a weighing state may not do under the guise of reweighing is to create an automatic rule that a death sentence will be upheld as long as one valid aggravating circumstance remains. Id. at 751-52, 110 S.Ct. at 1449-50. 13 Because Nebraska is a weighing state, it may, state law permitting, constitutionally cure a death sentence tainted by the improper application of an aggravating factor by reweighing. The district court based its belief to the contrary on its independent interpretation of Nebraska law and on Rust v. Hopkins, 984 F.2d at 1486. As noted, the district court exceeded the bounds of its authority in rejecting the Nebraska Supreme Court's interpretation of Nebraska law. The district court also misread Rust. 14 In Rust, we addressed a very limited and unique situation. We were faced with a death sentence which had been imposed under a wrong and too lenient burden of proof. Rust, 984 F.2d at 1489, 1493. The Nebraska Supreme Court attempted to cure that grave error by applying the correct and more rigorous beyond a reasonable doubt burden on direct appeal. Id. at 1492. Relying on Hicks v. Oklahoma, 447 U.S. 343, 100 S.Ct. 2227, 65 L.Ed.2d 175 (1980), we found that such a procedure violated due process because Rust had the right to have a three-judge sentencing panel (which we analogized to the jury in Hicks ) find the relevant facts and impose his sentence in the first instance. Rust, 984 F.2d at 1493. Because a less rigorous burden of proof had been used below, there were no facts found for the Nebraska Supreme Court to review, and no death sentence for it to cure. Id. We found that under Nebraska's capital sentencing scheme, appellate factfinding and sentencing in the first instance amounted to an arbitrary and capricious disregard of state law, and deprived Rust of his liberty interest in his life without due process of law. Id.; see Hicks, 447 U.S. at 345-47, 100 S.Ct. at 2228-30. 15 We further found that conducting an initial sentencing proceeding on appeal, after the entire first tier of the sentencing process was invalid[ated], deprived Rust of his right to independent appellate review of his sentence (because, there was, in essence, no sentence, not just a flawed sentence, to review). Rust, 984 F.2d at 1493 (emphasis added). Because we interpreted Supreme Court precedent to require appellate review of capital sentences to prevent unconstitutionally arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty, we found that the initial appellate sentencing carried out in Rust's case also violated due process. Id. 16 However, in Rust we also recognized that the United States Supreme Court had explicitly found nothing constitutionally objectionable in state appellate courts making those findings of fact, even in the first instance, which are necessary to assure that Eighth Amendment capital sentencing channeling concerns are satisfied. Id.; see Clemons, 494 U.S. at 745-46, 110 S.Ct. at 1446-47. We therefore limited our Rust decision, very carefully stating that [a state] appellate court is fully competent to 'cure' some sentencing deficiencies in capital cases. Rust, 984 F.2d at 1493. We explained that Clemons applied to minor errors such as improper consideration of an invalid aggravating circumstance, but not to entirely void sentencings requiring completely new factfindings. Id. at 1493-95. Nowhere in Rust did we intimate that Nebraska could not, consistent with due process, reweigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances to cure minor sentencing errors such as those in issue in Clemons. Nor did we intimate, as indeed in view of Clemons we could not, that such reweighing would amount to a deprivation of a defendant's right to appeal his sentence. 5 As we have stated in other cases, whether the Nebraska Supreme Court will engage, or has the authority to engage, in reweighing in circumstances similar to those presented in Clemons is a question of state law which only it can decide. 6 See Moore v. Clarke, 951 F.2d 895, 897 (8th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 504 U.S. 930, 112 S.Ct. 1995, 118 L.Ed.2d 591 (1992); Harper v. Grammer, 895 F.2d 473, 480 (8th Cir.1990). 17 In Clemons, the Supreme Court rejected the very argument accepted by the district court. Clemons argued that the Mississippi statutory scheme explicitly vesting death penalty sentencing authority in the jury rendered reweighing in his case unauthorized by state law and therefore a violation of due process under Hicks. Clemons, 494 U.S. at 746, 110 S.Ct. at 1447. According to Clemons, vesting factfinding and sentencing authority in the jury meant that the appellate courts could not, consistent with state law, engage in the factfinding and sentencing inherent in independent appellate reweighing of the factors underlying a death sentence. Since appellate courts had no state law sentencing authority, appellate reweighing would violate Clemons' right not to be deprived of a liberty interest (his life) without due process of law. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, finding that the state supreme court's assertion of independent authority to reweigh tempered the statutory scheme and made unavailable Clemons' claim to an unqualified right to exclusive jury examination or weighing of the facts or factors underlying his death penalty. Id. at 747, 110 S.Ct. at 1447. Clemons' express consideration and rejection of the argument that appellate reweighing is constitutionally objectionable in states where sentencing authority is statutorily vested in a lower sentencing body makes the question one of state law. Id. at 746-47, 110 S.Ct. at 1447-48. 18 Clemons distinguished Hicks as an instance of an appellate court admittedly acting without authority and imposing a sentence in the first instance, rather than cur[ing] the deprivation by itself reconsidering the appropriateness of the underlying void sentence. Id. at 747, 110 S.Ct. at 1447. The Supreme Court found the Mississippi Supreme Court's independent assertion of authority to reweigh sufficient to overcome any Hicks problem. Id. That the Mississippi Supreme Court later reconsidered its interpretation of its own law is of no moment. 7 Compare Clemons v. State, 535 So.2d 1354, 1362-63 (Miss.1988) (court may affirm death sentence when an invalid aggravator has been considered), vacated, 494 U.S. 738, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990) with Clemons v. State, 593 So.2d 1004, 1006 (Miss.1992) (court is without authority to affirm death sentence when an invalid aggravator has been considered). What is relevant is that the original assertion of authority was enough to take the question out of the federal arena. Clemons, 494 U.S. at 747, 110 S.Ct. at 1447. 19 Nebraska's capital punishment scheme is similar to Mississippi's, except that a judge or panel of three judges, rather than a jury, imposes the death penalty in the first instance. A state appellate court's practice of reweighing defeats a defendant's assertion of an unqualified due process right to have a jury [read sentencing panel] assess the consequences of the invalidation of one of the aggravating circumstances [which the jury had applied]. Id. at 747, 110 S.Ct. at 1448. The Nebraska Supreme Court has expressly asserted its authority to reweigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Reeves III, 476 N.W.2d at 837; see State v. Moore, 243 Neb. 679, 502 N.W.2d 227, 229-30 (1993); see also Neb.Rev.Stat. § 29-2521.02 (Reissue 1989 & Supps.1992-94). Because [w]e have no basis for disputing [the Nebraska Supreme Court's] interpretation of [Nebraska] law, and because reweighing under Nebraska's sentencing scheme does not violate federal due process requirements, we find Nebraska's assertion of authority to reweigh to have been effective in Reeves' case. 8 Clemons, 494 U.S. at 747, 110 S.Ct. at 1447-48; Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 479-80, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991). 20 The dissent asserts that the Nebraska Supreme Court interprets Rust as the district court did. See infra p. 1436. However, and aside from the precatory nature of any state court interpretation of our decisions, the Nebraska Supreme Court has expressly and correctly found that Rust is a limited decision, based on the invalidity of the entire sentencing proceeding, which is distinguishable on its facts from the minor sentencing errors at issue in Clemons. Moore, 502 N.W.2d at 229-30. The Nebraska Supreme Court has further emphatically rejected the proposition that Rust forbids state appellate reweighing in the more typical situation involving an invalid sentencing factor, and adheres to its position that it has the authority to reweigh. Moore, 502 N.W.2d at 229-30. 21 That the Nebraska Supreme Court has chosen, in the interests of judicial economy, to refrain from exercising its asserted authority to reweigh, pending clarification of the scope of Rust in cases such as the one now before us, cannot fairly be said to be an embracement of the district court's position. See Moore, 502 N.W.2d at 230 (declining to exercise authority to reweigh in the interests of judicial economy). That the Nebraska Supreme Court bowed, in State v. Ryan, 248 Neb. 405, 534 N.W.2d 766, 796 (1995), to the district court's decision and interpretation of Rust in this case, hardly amounts to the Nebraska Supreme Court interpreting Rust as the district court did. Indeed, it only further highlights the injury done to comity when federal courts reject state supreme court interpretations of their own law. 22 In fact, even the dissent acknowledges that Rust is no bar to reweighing by the Nebraska Supreme Court. See infra p. 1436. Rather, the dissent joins the district court in finding fault with the Nebraska Supreme Court's interpretation its own law.