Opinion ID: 608136
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 46 A comprehensive search has discovered no case on all fours with this one--no case where a court told a jury that a withdrawn guilty plea was part of the evidence against the defendant. If no such case exists, it is because it contradicts the character of a trial to ask a jury to consider a defendant's guilt in terms of specific testimony and also in terms of his own plea of guilty. A plea of guilty is no mere admission or an extra-judicial confession; it is itself a conviction. Like a verdict of a jury it is conclusive. Kercheval v. United States, 274 U.S. 220, 223, 47 S.Ct. 582, 583, 71 L.Ed. 1009 (1927). A fair trial cannot be had if the jury must weigh with all the other evidence, pro and con, the one overwhelming piece of evidence: the defendant pleaded guilty. 47 That the tactics of Standen's counsel had provoked the trial court into allowing the plea in evidence, that the court's error can thus be catalogued as invited, does not mitigate what was done. The defendant is bound by his counsel's strategic decisions. United States v. Martinez, 883 F.2d 750, 755 (9th Cir.1989), vacated on other grounds 928 F.2d 1470 (9th Cir.1991). But counsel's strategy cannot be held to have acted as a waiver of Standen's right to a fair trial by jury, cf., Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U.S. 506, 516, 82 S.Ct. 884, 890, 8 L.Ed.2d 70 (1962); and the state does not contend that it does. 48 Legally, the plea no longer had the effect of a conviction after the Nevada Supreme Court had permitted its withdrawal. The admission of every element of the crime remained, with damning force when the jury was told it could consider the plea as part of the case before it. Standen could not have had a fair trial when his withdrawn plea constituted evidence against him. 49 If the jury put together the instruction that it not consider statements of Standen involuntarily made and the instruction that the Nevada Supreme Court had found his guilty plea to be involuntary, the jury would not have considered the guilty plea at all. But the jury had twice been told by the trial court that the guilty plea was evidence before it. When the trial court gave contradictory instructions, the jury cannot be presumed to have chosen the correct one. United States v. Panter, 688 F.2d 268, 270 (5th Cir.1982). 50 The Supreme Court of the United States has distinguished two kinds of constitutional error in a trial: structural, destructive of such basic elements as an impartial tribunal, public trial, and competent counsel, and those trial errors impacting constitutional rights without destroying the trial's structure. Arizona v. Fulminante, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1264-65, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991); Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23 n. 8, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827 n. 8, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). It is difficult to classify the constitutional error here in terms of these alternatives. The error did not deny Standen an impartial judge and jury, competent counsel, or a public trial. But the error made the presentation of a defense a vain exercise. The error either aborted the basic trial process, or denied it altogether. Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 578 n. 6, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3106 n. 6, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986) (citations omitted). The error effectively destroyed the trial itself. The structure of the trial was undermined as the trial itself became an empty shell. 51 Considered as a structural error, the admission of, and instructions on, the guilty plea cannot be neutralized by harmless error analysis. Chapman, 386 U.S. at 23, 87 S.Ct. at 827. However, structural error may be the wrong classification. See Fulminante, --- U.S. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 1265. Rather, this type of error is more properly characterized as a trial-type error--an error which occurred during the presentation of the case to the jury, and which may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented in order to determine whether its admission was harmless. Id. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 1264. The improper admission of a guilty plea, like the admission of a coerced confession, is similar in both degree and kind to the erroneous admission of other types of evidence and is therefore amenable to harmless-error analysis. Id. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 1265. 52 Consequently, we apply the test, which is more stringent for the petitioner, appropriate in collateral review of trial error. Brecht v. Abrahamson, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1720, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). This test is the test originally announced in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1253, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). Under this standard habeas relief must be granted only if the trial error  'had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict.'  Brecht, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 1711 (quoting Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 776, 66 S.Ct. at 1253). Even on this scale, the verdict in this case cannot be salvaged. The weight of the guilty plea was heavier than all the other pieces of the prosecution's circumstantial case; its admission must have affected the minds of the jurors, short-circuited the process of rational deliberation and been harmful in the sense that it produced the guilty verdict. 53 The Nevada Supreme Court considered the case as though it were an appeal in which the sufficiency of the evidence for conviction were challenged. The court looked to what evidence supported the conviction apart from the guilty plea erroneously admitted. There is no basis in our law for such a review of constitutional error committed by a state trial court. There is a striking difference between appellate review to determine whether an error affected a judgment and the usual appellate review to determine whether there is substantial evidence to support a judgment. Roger Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error, 27 (1970). Review for harmless error requires the most painstaking examination of the record and the most perceptive reflections as to the probabilities of the effect of error on a reasonable trier of fact. Id. at 30. This duty of a meticulous review of the record becomes particularly significant in application of the Kotteakos standard. Brecht, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 1722-25. (Stevens, J., concurring). 54 No doubt the prosecution had a case without the intrusion of the plea. Standen was present at the Holiday Inn, near where Kaylyn Danner was probably abducted, and present at 11:40 p.m., near the probable time of the abduction. Standen was present at Sierra Sid's, not far from where her body was found, and present at 12:20 p.m., a time arguably close to the time the murder occurred, although in fact there is no evidence as to the hour of death of Kaylyn Danner. Standen went from the casino to the truck stop for no apparent reason and then called a taxi to take him back to the city he had just left. Standen apparently discarded his coat on a winter's night between the time he was seen in Reno and the time he was seen in Sparks. Standen lost his logbook, he thought at Sierra Sid's, and it was found not far from where Kaylyn Danner's body was found. Her car was parked at Sierra Sid's. He denied being at Sierra Sid's. He said he knew who the murderer was, and he alluded to an old acquaintance as being in his company in the days after the murder. His blood type was consistent with the semen found in Kaylyn Danner's vagina, and his hairs were consistent with those found on her clothes. 55 The defense argued that Standen did not have time to commit the crime. If Kaylyn Danner entered the parking lot at the Monte Carlo Casino at 11:47 p.m. and was immediately abducted, Standen had approximately 33 minutes to do the deed--that is, on the assumption that Standen was the murderer, he had 33 minutes to commit the murder between the time of abduction and his appearance at Sierra Sid's at 12:20 a.m. The driving time, calculated by a police officer driving at the speed limit, was 12 minutes from the casino to where the body was found, 5 minutes from there to Sierra Sid's. That left 16 minutes for the abduction, the fight with the victim, the knifing, and disposing of his coat and any other bloody garments (none of which were ever found)--a short time but arguably enough. 56 This evidence did not prove that Standen inflicted the fatal blows unless it is assumed that he acted alone. The state conceded that it could not exclude the possibility that another was involved. The assumption that Standen was alone was not supported by the evidence and indeed appears contrary to such clues as the speed with which the abduction was carried out; the use of a local backroad turnoff by a person who would not have known the local roads; Standen's looking for someone else at Sierra Sid's; his rapid and effective disposal of a presumably bloodstained overcoat; his close association with another person in leaving Reno in the days immediately following the murder, the person with whom he shared the use of Larry Mattson's credit card; and Standen's own claim that another man was the one they were looking for. 57 That Standen said, after he was arrested for murder, that the wanted man was the one who had signed Mattson's credit card, and that after his own guilty plea Standen supplied the name of Ron, does not confirm Standen's guilt. He had spent much of his life in institutions of the state and knew the harsh rule governing informers, so, as he told the police, he would not be a snitch. Caught by conflicting compulsions from his past, he dredged up one name (Santmeyer) he thought innocuous and gave it, and he gave the name of the murderer Ron without enough information to identify him. His lie caused Paul Santmeyer trouble but it did not identify the man who may have participated in the kidnapping and murder. 58 It is possible that the state might have proved Standen guilty of felony-murder. The state did not prove rape. The state explicitly disavowed seeking to prove homicide in the course of a robbery. But the state did produce enough evidence to make the conclusion irresistible that Kaylyn Danner was kidnapped. Death was inflicted in the course of the kidnapping. If Standen was involved in the kidnapping, he could be proved guilty of felony-murder. Payne v. State, 81 Nev. 503, 406 P.2d 922 (1965). Felony-murder is first degree murder under Nev.Rev.Stat. 200.030. The jury was instructed on the elements of felony murder. 59 The indictment of Standen, however, did not charge felony murder, but read as follows: 60 MURDER WITH THE USE OF A DEADLY WEAPON, a violation of NRS 200.010, NRS 200.030, and NRS 193.165, a felony, in the manner following: 61 That the defendant in the late evening hours of the 31st day of January A.D.1978, and the early morning hours of the 1st day of February A.D.1978, or thereabout, and before the filing of the Amended Information, at and within the County of Washoe, State of Nevada, did willfully, unlawfully, and with malice aforethought, deliberation, and premeditation, kill and murder KAYLYN DANNER, a human being, in the following manner, to wit: That the defendant did abduct, kidnap, sexually assault, batter, and stab the said KAYLYN DANNER in Washoe County, Nevada, which stabbing with the use of a deadly weapon caused the death of KAYLYN DANNER during the same period of time. 62 The charged crime was the actual killing of Kaylyn Danner. 63 The jury found Standen guilty of using a deadly weapon in the stabbing of Kaylyn Danner--a conclusion that indicates beyond doubt that the jury supposed that the evidence before it established that Standen was the killer. The verdict excludes the possibility that Standen was convicted of felony murder. While the evidence apart from his withdrawn plea might have shown him guilty of felony murder, the convergent circumstances pointed to by the prosecution did not show beyond a reasonable doubt that Standen was the killer, unless they were substantially helped by the plea of guilty. 64 Without the guilty plea there were several substantial problems with the state's case: 65 First, Standen's absence of motive. No certain evidence of rape was produced. Rather, there is the suggestion of a set-up--the victim's pants, pantyhose, panties removed and put in the back of the car, the boots that must have come off first left near the body; sexual assault intimated. 66 If rape was not Standen's motive, robbery is also eliminated. He already had access to Mattson's credit card--credit enough to live on. He could not use Danner's and her card disappeared from her purse never to be used again. She was a woman struggling to make a living, no person to rob. The state did not even charge robbery. 67 If not to rape or rob, why kidnap and kill? That there were those who might have had motive to do so was hinted at by the defense; it was not the defense's job to convict some other suspect. Although a vicious psychopath may need no rational motive, the failure to show a motive weakens the state's case. And the extraordinary violence with which Kaylyn Danner's life was ended points to a murderer absolutely intent on assuring her death, a person apparently different from the hapless, motiveless drifter, Warren Standen. Such a conclusion, if far from certain, is one that a jury that had not been substantially affected by Standen's withdrawn guilty plea might have reached. 68 Second, that the logbook was lost by Standen, not planted by perpetrators who set him up. That a man bent on kidnapping should carry his logbook with him, having already stored somewhere else his other gear, seems unlikely; that the logbook containing business entries from a much earlier date should have been needed by him that night is curious; that Kaylyn Danner could have opened a car window and thrown it out or that she would have possessed it after she had been dragged bleeding from the car seems improbable; that the logbook should turn up, unbloodied and unscuffed, on a road that good police work would be likely to search is surprising; that Standen would be looking for the logbook at Sierra Sid's suggests that he had turned it over to another who said it would be left for him there or that he, the possessor of the logbook, would meet Standen there; that Standen had reason to believe he would be met there is suggested by his failure to keep the cab he had ordered; that the book had no readable fingerprints suggests that whoever placed it wanted Standen's name to appear but nothing that would connect it with its last possessor. The police treated the logbook as a heaven-sent clue. But a jury uninfluenced by the guilty plea could well have suspected that the clue was placed there by a less than heavenly agency. 69 Third, Standen's failure to flee. Standen remained in Reno for three days after the murder. He did so sharing the benefits of a stolen credit card. He then embarked on an expedition that left a paper trail. A man guilty of murder must have been afraid of staying in the city of the murder and been afraid of being tracked in the days following the murder. 70 Standen's failure to flee converges with his conduct at the time when, according to the state, he had just finished completing a brutal, bloody murder. That there had been a real fight by Kaylyn Danner was undeniable--the blood within the car, on the window, on the windowscraper showed that she had been knifed inside the auto; the key clutched in her hand was a defensive weapon; the abrasions on her hands showed, in the medical examiner's opinion, that she had sought to ward off the blows; that the car's domelight's cover had been broken off indicated that in resisting she was able to move to some degree; there was blood on the hood showing that she continued to bleed after being dragged from the car. It is scarcely credible that the man who killed her had no blood on his clothes. It is barely possible that the man who had just killed her would strike two witnesses as neat, well-groomed, composed only a few minutes after the struggle. It is hardly believable that the assailant in such a bloody business would not try to conceal his face from a cabdriver or that he would inquire boldly in a small truck stop about a document tied to him. Standen's conduct does not show consciousness of guilt of a capital crime. Or so at least a jury not injuriously and substantially contaminated by the guilty plea in evidence might have concluded. 71 A defendant without proven motive; a defendant whose conduct on the night of, and the days following, the murder showed no fear of identification or arrest; a defendant, stranger to the town, simpleminded enough to have been set up by those who may have had a deep interest in Kaylyn Danner's death--could a jury find the evidence convincing beyond a reasonable doubt without the powerful assistance of the plea? 72 After a thorough review of the record we are convinced that the use of the guilty plea as evidence had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. 73 REVERSED. The district court is ordered to issue the writ sixty days from the issuance of the mandate, unless within that time the State of Nevada indicates to the district court its intention to re-try Standen. In that event, the district court shall order Standen released to the proper authorities for the purposes of re-trial.