Opinion ID: 159789
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retroactivity of Cage v. Louisiana

Text: 11 Mr. Tillman challenges the constitutionality of the reasonable doubt instruction given to the jury at the guilt phase of the trial. He alleges the instruction unconstitutionally and impermissibly lowered the State's burden of proof, Aplt. Br. at 6., as did the instructions given in two cases decided after his conviction became final - Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39 (1990) (per curiam), and Monk v. Zelez, 901 F.2d 885 (10th Cir. 1990). Before reaching the merits of his argument, we must consider whether new rules regarding erroneous reasonable doubt instructions may be applied retroactively. Like the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits, we hold that the remedy for an unconstitutional reasonable doubt instruction must be applied retroactively. 12 The Supreme Court established in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 310 (1989), that new constitutional rules of criminal procedure are inapplicable to cases which became final prior to the announcement of the new rule. Teague denies habeas corpus petitioners the retroactive benefit of such new rules, subject to two exceptions. First, a new rule should be applied retroactively if it places `certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the criminal-lawmaking authority to proscribe.' Id. at 311 (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 692 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part)). Second, a new rule should be applied retroactively if it requires the observance of those procedures that . . . are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Id. (internal quotations omitted). To qualify under the second Teague exception, the new rule must (1) relate to the accuracy of the conviction and (2) alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding. Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 242 (1990) (citations and internal quotations omitted). 13 A case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final, Teague, 489 U.S. at 301 (emphasis omitted), or if it states a rule that is susceptible to debate among reasonable minds, Butler v. McKellar, 494 U.S. 407, 415 (1990). While at the time of his conviction, it was not a `new' notion that the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases implicates concerns of constitutional due process, Gaines v. Kelly, 202 F.3d 598, 602 (2d Cir. 2000), whether precedent dictated the result Mr. Tillman requests was certainly open to question. Compare Hopt v. Utah, 120 U.S. 430, 441 (1887) (suggesting that an instruction referring to the weighty and important concerns of life, would be likely to aid [the jury] to a right conclusion) with Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 140 (1954) (noting the instruction should have been in terms of the kind of doubt that would make a person hesitate to act, rather than the kind on which he would be willing to act). The Supreme Court itself noted that the Cage decision was the first in which it held that a [specific] definition of reasonable doubt violated the Due Process Clause. Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 5 (1994); see Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 17 (1984) (explaining that when a Supreme Court decision marks a clear break with the past, the rule established therein will almost certainly have been previously unavailable in the requisite sense (internal quotations omitted)). 14 Like the district court, we hold that Mr. Tillman seeks a new rule that must be applied retroactively in accordance with the second exception to the Teague rule. Clearly, a reasonable doubt instruction is central to an accurate determination of innocence or guilt. Teague, 489 U.S. at 313. [W]here the instructional error consists of a misdescription of the burden of proof, [the error] vitiates all the jury's findings. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 281 (1993). 15 By reshap[ing] our view of the importance of precise reasonable doubt instructions, Nutter v. White, 39 F.3d 1154, 1158 (11th Cir. 1994), Cage altered our understanding of a bedrock procedural element[] essential to the fairness of a proceeding, Sawyer, 497 U.S. at 242 (quotation omitted). As the Supreme Court emphasized in Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 281, [d]enial of the right to a jury verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is certainly [structural error], the jury guarantee being a `basic protectio[n]' whose precise effects are unmeasurable, but without which a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function. Id. (quoting Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 577 (1986)) (alteration in original). [T]he jury verdict required by the Sixth Amendment is a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and a constitutionally-deficient reasonable doubt instruction does not produce such a verdict. Id. at 278. Such a structural error, unamenable to harmless error review, see id. at 281, violates a right fundamental to the American scheme of justice, Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 149 (1968). 16 We note that several other circuits have also held the Cage rule satisfies the second Teague exception. See West v. Vaughn, 204 F.3d 53, 61 (3d Cir. 2000) (A `structural error' so severe that it resists harmless error analysis because it effectively nullifies the guilty verdict, as Sullivan described a Cage error to be, must necessarily implicate the fundamental fairness of the proceeding in a manner that calls the accuracy of its outcome into doubt. (citation omitted)); Gaines, 202 F.3d at 605 (Because any criminal conviction rendered pursuant to an unconstitutional definition of reasonable doubt is necessarily unfair, we conclude that the rule advanced by [the defendant] falls within the second exception to the Teague doctrine. (citation omitted)); Humphrey v. Cain, 138 F.3d 552, 553 (5th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (concluding that a Cage-Victor error fits within the second Teague exception as set forth in the reasoning of the earlier panel opinion at 120 F.3d 526); Adams v. Aiken, 41 F.3d 175, 178-79 (4th Cir. 1994) (holding a constitutionally-deficient reasonable doubt instruction is a breach of the right to a trial by jury, resulting in a lack of accuracy and the denial of a bedrock procedural element essential to fairness); Nutter, 39 F.3d at 1158 (Cage commands a new trial procedure to meet a fundamental concern that has long animated our criminal process. Thus, here we confront one of those rare instances where our interest in certainty is so clearly implicated that finality interests must be subordinated.).