Opinion ID: 2976833
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: “Necessary to the Outcome”

Text: Next, the dissent argues that, though Ohio law forbids a state appellate court from affirming a death sentence unless it first determines which mitigating factors are present in the case and weighs those factors de novo against any aggravating factors, see State v. Jenkins, 473 N.E.2d 264, 296 (Ohio 1984) (holding that an Ohio appellate court’s role in reviewing a death sentence “parallels that of a jury when the sentence of death is imposed”), the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination that Michael Bies is mentally retarded was somehow not “necessary” to its decision to affirm Bies’ death sentence. If the panel had held otherwise, however, it would have applied a tortured meaning to the word “necessary.” In order to invoke collateral estoppel, an accused must prove, among other things, that resolving the factual issue determined by an earlier proceeding was necessary to the outcome of that proceeding. N.A.A.C.P., 821 F.2d at 330; see Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 96 (1980) (“Under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause of action involving a party to the first case.”) To say that X is “necessary” to Y is the same thing as saying that it is impossible for Y to exist unless X also exists. Accordingly, because it is impossible for an Ohio appellate court to affirm a death sentence without first determining which mitigating factors are present in a case, see Jenkins, 473 N.E.2d at 296, the Ohio Supreme Court’s resolution of the question of whether or No. 06-3471 Bies v. Bagley Page 6 not Michael Bies is mentally retarded was necessary to its eventual decision to affirm Bies’ death sentence; and the panel committed no error in applying collateral estoppel in Bies. The dissent claims that collateral estoppel does not apply to the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination that Bies is mentally retarded because that finding “cuts against” that court’s ultimate conclusion that Bies should be executed. Dissenting Op. at 12. This claim, however, overstates the extent to which the fact that a court’s determination was contrary to its ultimate holding precludes the application of collateral estoppel. It is generally the case in the collateral estoppel context that “[a] determination adverse to the winning party does not have preclusive effect.” Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. Int’l Market Place, 773 F.2d 1068, 1069 (9th Cir. 1985). Moreover, as the dissent correctly states, the purpose of this general rule is to protect litigants from being estopped “from relitigating an issue decided in proceedings from which it could not appeal.” Dissenting Op. at 12; see United Aircraft Corp. v. NLRB, 440 F.2d 85, 99 (2d Cir. 1971); see also White v. Elrod, 816 F.2d 1172, 1174 (7th Cir. 1987) (“[W]hen a decision of a tribunal of first instance is subject to appeal, the decision cannot be given collateral estoppel (or res judicata) effect if the party sought to be bound could not have appealed it, for example because he had won.”) When, however, the party against whom collateral estoppel is asserted was able to challenge the findings reached in the prior proceeding on appeal, courts have held that a finding of fact which is adverse to the party prevailing in that prior proceeding may nonetheless have preclusive effect. See, e.g., United States v. Weems, 49 F.3d 528, 533 (9th Cir. 1995); United Aircraft, 440 F.2d at 99. Thus in United States v. Weems, defendant Clarke Weems used structured funds to purchase two parcels of land,1 one of which was used for the cultivation of marijuana. 49 F.3d at 530. In a 1990 opinion concerning whether or not the properties were subject to forfeiture, a district court found that Weems was unaware of the marijuana cultivation on his property, but nevertheless held that the properties were subject to forfeiture because they had been purchased with illegally structured funds. Id. About fifteen months later, Weems was indicted on three counts of structuring currency transactions, and the trial court permitted the prosecution to introduce evidence that Weems was growing marijuana on his property as evidence of Weems’ motive in structuring the transactions. Id. After he was convicted, Weems appealed his conviction on collateral estoppel grounds, arguing that the 1990 finding that he was unaware of marijuana cultivation on his property precluded the prosecution from arguing in a successive proceeding that this cultivation motivated his decision to structure funds. The government argued on appeal that because it was “not entitled to appeal, as of right, the district court’s finding [which] was contained in a judgment in the government’s favor,” that finding should not be given preclusive effect. Id. at 533. The Ninth Circuit, however, rejected this argument, explaining that “the government had the opportunity to cross-appeal the court’s decision in this case when defendant appealed the forfeiture,” and thus Weems did not fall within the normal complement of cases where a judgment in favor of the party against whom collateral estoppel is asserted could not have be appealed by that party. Id. Under Weems, when the fact that a judgment was obtained in a party’s favor does not prevent any findings contained in that judgment from being appealed by that party, collateral estoppel may operate against that party with respect to the judgment’s findings of fact. The Second Circuit reached a similar result in United Aircraft Corp. v. NLRB. In that case, a union attempted to relitigate the question of whether an employer’s unfair labor practice had caused the union to lose majority support among the employer’s workers, even though a prior NLRB decision, whose ultimate result was favorable to the union, had found that the employer’s unfair labor 1 “Structuring” consists of manipulating transactions with a financial institution with the purpose of evading the reporting requirements governing such institutions. 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a)(3). No. 06-3471 Bies v. Bagley Page 7 practices did not result in the union losing its majority. United Aircraft, 440 F.2d at 99. Although the finding of fact adverse to the union was contained in a decision favorable to the union, the court held that collateral estoppel prevented the union from relitigating the adverse finding of fact because “the union could have sought review of the Board’s adverse determination on this issue.” Id. Once again, “the general rule that ‘determinations adverse to the winning litigant do not have conclusive effect as collateral estoppel’ should not be applied” when the litigant’s victory in the prior proceeding did not prevent them from appealing the adverse determination. Id. (quoting 1B James William Moore, Federal Practice 3923 (1965)). Bies v. Bagley fits comfortably within the rule articulated by Weems and United Aircraft. Michael Bies was convicted and sentenced to death in an Ohio trial court. Bies appealed his sentence to an intermediate appeals court, which found both that Bies is mentally retarded and that he should nonetheless be executed, and he appealed it again to the Ohio Supreme Court, which reached the same conclusion. Thus, although Bies’ mental retardation was initially determined in a decision favorable to the government, the government was never prevented from seeking reconsideration of this determination on appeal. Indeed, the final decision to determine that Bies is mentally retarded was issued by the Ohio Supreme Court, which is the court of last resort for all issues of fact raised in Ohio state court. See Ohio Rev.Code § 2953.02. Thus, the government had every possible opportunity to appeal the determination that Bies is mentally retarded, and the determination nonetheless survived appellate review. In such circumstances, “the general rule that ‘determinations adverse to the winning litigant do not have conclusive effect as collateral estoppel’ should not be applied.” United Aircraft, 440 F.2d at 99 (quoting 1B Moore 3923). Indeed, the dissent does not contest the existence of the rule described in Weems and United Aircraft. Instead, the dissent claims that Bies may not benefit from the collateral estoppel doctrine because the government’s victory before the Ohio Supreme Court prevented it from appealing the question of Bies’ mental retardation to the United States Supreme Court. Dissenting Op. at 12-13. This claim, however, reflects a misunderstanding of the United States Supreme Court’s jurisdiction. With a few rare exceptions, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is entirely discretionary, and the Court generally will only exercise its discretion to resolve an “important question of federal law,” or to resolve a question federal law which has created confusion amongst the lower courts. See Sup. Ct. R. 10 (describing the Supreme Court’s “Considerations Governing Review on Certiorari”). The United States Supreme Court does not exercise its jurisdiction to review a state court’s finding of fact, especially when multiple state courts have all reached the same factual conclusion. See, e.g., Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 175 n.4 (1984) (“[W]e do not review here the state courts’ finding as a matter of ‘fact’ that the area searched was not an ‘open field.’”); Page v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp., 286 U.S. 269, 271 (1932) (“Many and complicated questions of fact are involved and were argued here, but, as they have been found in favor of the respondent by both courts below, we do not review them . . . .”); Creswill v. Grand Lodge Knights of Pythias of Georgia, 225 U.S. 246, 261 (1912) (“[I]t is true that upon a writ of error to a state court we do not review findings of fact”). Thus, the dissent’s concern—that it is somehow unfair to apply collateral estoppel when the outcome of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision prevented review of a factual conclusion by the United States Supreme Court—is baseless. Regardless of the outcome of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision, the United States Supreme Court does not review a state court’s findings of fact.