Opinion ID: 1619733
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Applicable Harmless Error Test

Text: The United States Supreme Court has recently addressed whether an Apprendi error can be harmless. In Washington v. Recuenco, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 126 S.Ct. 2546, 2549, 165 L.Ed.2d 466 (2006), the jury found the defendant guilty of assaulting his wife with a deadly weapon, which the information charged was a handgun. At sentencing, the judge found that the defendant was armed with a firearm and imposed the three-year mandatory sentence enhancement attendant to that finding, rather than the one-year enhancement attendant to the jury's deadly weapon finding. On appeal, the State conceded that this violated Blakely and Apprendi, but argued the error was harmless. Id. at 2549-50. The Washington Supreme Court, however, had previously concluded that Apprendi/Blakely error could never be harmless. Id. at 2550 (quoting State v. Hughes, 154 Wash.2d 118, 110 P.3d 192, 205 (2005), which held that Blakely error was structural error requiring reversal). The Supreme Court granted review solely to determine whether harmless error analysis applies to such error. The Court acknowledged that under Apprendi it ha[d] treated sentencing factors, like elements, as facts that have to be tried to the jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 126 S.Ct. at 2552. Accordingly, the Court found the case before it in Recuenco indistinguishable from Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999), explaining: The only difference between this case and Neder is that in Neder, the prosecution failed to prove the element of materiality to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt, while here the prosecution failed to prove the sentencing factor of armed with a firearm to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Assigning this distinction constitutional significance cannot be reconciled with our recognition in Apprendi that elements and sentencing factors must be treated the same for Sixth Amendment purposes. Recuenco, 126 S.Ct. at 2552. Because the question of Apprendi/Blakely error also involved judicial factfinding versus jury factfinding, the Court concluded that the harmless error analysis applied in Neder also applied to the error in Recuenco. Id. In Neder, the Court framed the test as follows: Is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error? Neder, 527 U.S. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827. The Court concluded that the same harmless error analysis developed in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), and applied in cases concerning the erroneous admission of evidence under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, also applied to infringement of the jury's factfinding role under the Sixth Amendment. Neder, 527 U.S. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827. The Court explained that a court, in typical appellate-court fashion, asks whether the record contains evidence that could rationally lead to a contrary finding with respect to the omitted element. If the answer to that question is no, holding the error harmless does not reflec[t] a denigration of the constitutional rights involved. Rose [ v. Clark ], 478 U.S. [570, 577, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986)]. 527 U.S. at 19, 119 S.Ct. 1827. For example, in Neder, the jury instructions omitted the element of materiality, a fact which was improperly found by the judge in violation of the right to jury trial. Id. at 18, 119 S.Ct. 1827. The Court found that strong evidence supported the judicial finding and explained that [i]n a case such as this one, where a defendant did not, and apparently could not, bring forth facts contesting the omitted element, answering the question whether the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error does not fundamentally undermine the purposes of the jury trial guarantee. Id. at 19, 119 S.Ct. 1827. This Court has long applied Chapman's harmless error analysis, which we outlined in State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla. 1986), to claims of failure to instruct on an undisputed element. See Glover v. State, 863 So.2d 236, 237-38 (Fla.2003) (approving the district court's holding that the age of the defendant is an element of capital sexual battery but that any error in failing to instruct on this undisputed element was harmless); see also State v. Delva, 575 So.2d 643, 645 (Fla.1991) (stating that the failure to instruct on an element of the crime over which the record reflects there was no dispute is not fundamental error and is subject to the contemporaneous objection rule). Finally, in Recuenco, the Supreme Court reversed the Washington Supreme Court's holding that harmless error analysis does not apply to Apprendi error. Accordingly, to the extent some of our pre- Apprendi decisions may suggest that the failure to submit factual issues to the jury is not subject to harmless error analysis, Recuenco has superseded them. See, e.g., State v. Estevez, 753 So.2d 1, 7 (Fla.1999) (holding that even where the evidence is uncontroverted, to sentence a defendant to a minimum mandatory sentence for trafficking, the jury must make express findings of the amount of cocaine involved); State v. Hargrove, 694 So.2d 729, 730 (Fla. 1997) (holding that even where evidence regarding the use of a firearm is unrebutted, to impose mandatory minimum sentence, a jury must make that finding); State v. Overfelt, 457 So.2d 1385, 1387 (Fla. 1984) (holding that to enhance a sentence because of the defendant's use of a firearm, the jury must find the defendant guilty of a crime involving a firearm or otherwise specifically find that a firearm was used). We now turn to the question of harmless error in this case.