Opinion ID: 1288587
Heading Depth: 7
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Harmless Error in Capital Sentencing

Text: Crucial to this appeal is how the harmless-error principles discussed above apply in the capital-sentencing context when, as here, the jury considers an invalid aggravating factor when imposing a death sentence. One question is whether federal habeas courts can even conduct harmless-error review in that situation. The Supreme Court's recent opinion in Brown v. Sanders, 546 U.S. 212, 126 S.Ct. 884, 163 L.Ed.2d 723 (2006), casts some doubt on our current view that federal courts can do so. To fully assess these issues, one must first consider the development of the law in this area, including the Supreme Court's past reliance on the distinction between so-called weighing States and non-weighing States. Since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (per curiam), the Supreme Court has required States to limit the class of murderers to which the death penalty may be applied. Sanders, 546 U.S. at 216, 126 S.Ct. 884. This narrowing requirement is usually met when the trier of fact finds at least one statutorily defined eligibility factor at either the guilt or penalty phase. Id. (citation omitted). Once the narrowing requirement has been satisfied, the sentencer is called upon to determine whether a defendant found eligible for the death penalty should receive it. Id. Most States channel this function by specifying the aggravating factors (sometimes identical to the eligibility factors) that are to be weighed against mitigating considerations. Id. The question facing courts in cases like the present one is what happens when the sentencer imposes the death penalty after at least one valid eligibility factor has been found, but under a scheme in which an eligibility factor or a specified aggravating factor is later held to be invalid. Id. To answer that question, the Supreme Court has distinguished between so-called weighing and non-weighing States. Id. This terminology is somewhat misleading because the Court has held that in all capital cases the sentencer must be allowed to weigh the facts and circumstances that arguably justify a death sentence against the defendant's evidence. Id. at 217-18, 125 S.Ct. 2384 (citing Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 110, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982)). The Court identified as weighing States those in which the only aggravating factors permitted to be considered by the sentencer were the specified eligibility factors. Id. (citations omitted). Ohio is such a weighing state. See, e.g., Lundgren, 440 F.3d at 770. Because the eligibility factors by definition identify distinct and particular aggravating features, if one of them is invalid then the jury cannot consider the facts and circumstances relevant to that factor as aggravating in some other capacity. Sanders, 546 U.S. at 218, 126 S.Ct. 884. In a weighing State, therefore, the sentencer's consideration of an invalid eligibility factor necessarily skews its balancing of aggravators with mitigators. Id. (citation omitted). By contrast, a non-weighing State permits the sentencer to consider aggravating factors different from, or in addition to, the eligibility factors. Id. (It would be clearer to call these States complete weighing States, because the jury can weigh everything that is properly admissible. See id. at 229-30, 126 S.Ct. 884 (Stevens, J., dissenting)). Because the sentencer can consider aggravating factors that are different from the eligibility factors, an invalid eligibility factor does not automatically skew the sentence as it does in a weighing state. Id. at 217, 126 S.Ct. 884. The question here is a reviewing court's role when an invalid eligibility factor (i.e., evading kidnapping), in a weighing State like Ohio, skews the jury's balance of mitigating circumstances against that aggravating factor. Supreme Court decisions provide some reason to believe that a federal habeas court is simply not permitted to conduct harmless  error review  only a state court can do so. In Stringer v. Black, for example, the Supreme Court explained that an invalid aggravating factor in the weighing process invalidates the sentence and at the very least requires constitutional harmless-error analysis or reweighing in the state judicial system. 503 U.S. 222, 237, 112 S.Ct. 1130, 117 L.Ed.2d 367 (1992) (emphasis added). Additionally, in Richmond v. Lewis, the Court stated, Where the death sentence has been infected by a vague or otherwise constitutionally invalid aggravating factor, the state appellate court or some other state sentencer must actually perform a new sentencing calculus. 506 U.S. 40, 49, 113 S.Ct. 528, 121 L.Ed.2d 411 (1992) (emphasis added). We relied on these decisions when deciding cases involving invalid aggravating factors in weighing States, requiring States to conduct the new sentencing calculus. For example, in Houston v. Dutton, 50 F.3d 381 (6th Cir.1995), a Tennessee (weighing State) jury sentenced the defendant after finding that the State established the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravator. Id. at 387. The State admitted on appeal that the aggravator was invalid because of an overly vague instruction. Id. Relying on Richmond 's language quoted above, we explained that habeas relief was properly granted because the Tennessee courts did not conclude that the instruction was erroneous and therefore had not performed a new sentencing calculus. Id. (emphasis added); accord Cone v. Bell, 492 F.3d 743, 752 (6th Cir.2007) (Cone is not entitled to a new sentence unless the Tennessee Supreme Court did not (1) conduct a proper harmless error analysis; or (2) reweigh the mitigating and aggravating factors in examining his sentence. (citing Stringer, 503 U.S. at 230, 112 S.Ct. 1130)). In Coe v. Bell, 161 F.3d 320 (6th Cir. 1998), however, we held that, although we may not perform reweighing when a jury considers an invalid aggravator in a weighing state, we may engage in harmless-error analysis. Id. at 334. In reweighing, we explained, a state court effectively vacates the original sentence and resentences the defendant; this process is hardly appropriate in the course of collateral review by a federal court. Id. In harmless-error analysis, by contrast, a court determines that the original sentence is not constitutionally infirm in the first place, a process that is quite appropriately performed on federal collateral review. Id. The Coe decision explained that in Houston we did not address the harmless-error question; rather, we held only that reweighing must be performed by a state court. Id. at 335. Further, the Coe decision explained that conducting harmless-error analysis as a federal habeas court was consistent with the Supreme Court's statement in Richmond that state reweighing is required when the death sentence has been infected by a constitutionally . . . invalid aggravating factor because, by definition, . . . an error that is harmless does not `infect' the sentence and does not require reweighing by the state. Id. Finally, Coe reconciled Stringer 's language requiring constitutional harmless-error analysis or reweighing in the state judicial system by concluding that the phrase `state judicial system' modifies `reweighing' only, and not `harmless-error analysis.' Id. (emphasis added). Coe then concluded that the instructional error there  an overly vague instruction regarding the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravator  was harmless (under the Brecht standard) because the jury ignored the problematic aspect of the instruction. Id. at 336. Coe 's holding  that a federal habeas court can conduct harmless-error review where a jury considers an invalid aggravator in a weighing State  continued as the law in this Circuit. See, e.g., Cone v. Bell, 359 F.3d 785, 798 (6th Cir.2004) (conducting such a harmless-error analysis after noting that Coe drew a distinction between re-weighing and harmless error analysis and held that a federal habeas court is permitted to undertake the latter), rev'd on other grounds by Bell v. Cone, 543 U.S. 447, 459-60, 125 S.Ct. 847, 160 L.Ed.2d 881 (2005) (holding that we erred in concluding that state court failed to cure faulty heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravator instruction); see also Jennings v. McDonough, 490 F.3d 1230, 1252 (7th Cir.2007) (noting that the Seventh Circuit had yet to endorse federal harmless error review of death sentences based on invalid sentencing factors when the state appellate court has not performed its own harmless error analysis and joining the five circuit courts of appeals [that] have authorized such an approach) (citing Coe, 161 F.3d 320). Our holding in Coe is more questionable in light of the Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Sanders. To be sure, the Sanders Court was faced with harmless-error in the context of a non-weighing State. The Court explained that the weighing/non-weighing scheme is accurate as far as it goes, but it now seems . . . needlessly complex. . . . Sanders, 546 U.S at 219, 126 S.Ct. 884. We think it will clarify the analysis, the Court continued, and simplify the sentence-invalidating factors we have hitherto applied to non-weighing States, if we are henceforth guided by the following rule: An invalidated sentencing factor (whether an eligibility factor or not) will render the sentence unconstitutional by reason of its adding an improper element to the aggravation scale in the weighing process unless one of the other sentencing factors enables the sentencer to give aggravating weight to the same facts and circumstances. Id. at 220, 126 S.Ct. 884 (citation and footnote omitted) (first emphasis added). In other words, [i]f all the evidence was properly admitted and if the jury can use that evidence when it considers other aggravating factors, any error . . . must be harmless. Id. at 239, 126 S.Ct. 884 (Stevens, J., dissenting). This rule apparently modifies the analysis for non-weighing States, but leaves intact the Court's prior jurisprudence regarding weighing states. See Hertz & Liebman, § 31.3 (6th ed. Supp.2006) (noting that the pre- Sanders jurisprudence for `weighing states' . . . apparently remains intact but that Sanders reshaped the analysis . . . [it had] hitherto applied to non-weighing States) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); Adams v. Bradshaw, 484 F.Supp.2d 753, 787 n. 6 (N.D.Ohio 2007) (noting that Sanders does not apply to invalid-aggravator claim under Ohio law because Sanders involves a non-weighing state). When discussing weighing States, however, the Supreme Court in Sanders made a statement that might be taken to undercut Coe 's holding that a federal, not state, court may conduct harmless-error review where a jury considers an invalid aggravator. The Supreme Court first noted, as we did in Coe, that [i]n a weighing State . . . the sentencer's consideration of an invalid eligibility factor necessarily skewed its balancing of aggravators with mitigators. Sanders, 546 U.S. at 217, 126 S.Ct. 884 (citing Stringer, 503 U.S. at 232, 112 S.Ct. 1130). The Supreme Court then stated that, under Stringer, this skewing required reversal of the sentence (unless a state appellate court determined the error was harmless or reweighed the mitigating evidence against the valid aggravating factors). Id. (citing Stringer, 503 U.S. at 232, 112 S.Ct. 1130) (emphasis added). This reading of Stringer implicitly rejects the Coe Court's interpretation that Stringer 's language requiring constitutional harmless-error analysis or reweighing in the state judicial system allows a federal habeas court to conduct harmless-error review and merely limits reweighing to states. See Coe, 161 F.3d at 335 (noting that the phrase state judicial system in Stringer modifies `reweighing' only, and not `harmless-error analysis'); cf. Adams, 484 F.Supp.2d at 788(Recently the Supreme Court [in Sanders ] noted that in a weighing state, the sentencer's consideration of an invalid eligibility factor necessarily upsets its balancing of the aggravating circumstances with the mitigating factors requiring reversal of the sentence unless a state appellate court determined the error was harmless or reweighed the mitigating evidence against the valid aggravating factors.) (citation omitted) (emphasis added). Leading commentators appear to share this view: [I]n a weighing State, when an eligibility or aggravating factor is found to have been invalid, the federal courts may not themselves engage in either a reweighing or in harmless error analysis; the condemned individual has a constitutional right to have either the state courts or the original sentencer reweigh the valid aggravating and mitigating factors. Hertz & Liebman § 31.3 (6th ed. Supp.2006) (discussing Sanders and citing cases such as Richmond ). Although Sanders 's statements imply that only a state court may conduct harmless-error review in this situation, those statements are dicta, see Jennings, 490 F.3d at 1252 (noting that none of the Supreme Court decisions regarding this issue squarely addresses the issue of federal district courts conducting harmless error review in place of state courts), and do not demand that we change our current state of the law. Indeed, the Seventh Circuit's recent endorsement of our view in Coe (that federal courts may conduct harmless-error review in this context) considered Sanders. See id. In light of these considerations, we continue to hold that federal courts may conduct harmless-error review of invalid aggravating factors even where the state court has not done so. Though a contrary holding would be plausible in light of Sanders 's language, cf. Eddleman, 471 F.3d at 583 (Today, we reconsider our position in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Mitchell v. Esparza , which strongly implied that courts should apply only the Chapman plus AEDPA deference standard of review. (emphasis added)), we believe that should arise only from a clear statement from our en banc court or the United States Supreme Court. [3]