Opinion ID: 3002096
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Trial Court’s Actions After the Verdict

Text: Crockett’s final argument is that the Illinois Appellate Court made a legal error by employing the wrong burden of proof analysis. That court noted that the trial judge “clearly erred” by not informing defense counsel of the 14 No. 06-4066 jury note as soon as practicable after the verdict but held that the error was harmless. Crockett, 731 N.E.2d at 836. The district court stated that this factual finding was presumed correct due to Crockett’s inability to make a clear and convincing showing to the contrary. Crockett argues that because the Illinois Appellate Court concluded that the trial court made a constitutional error, it should have applied the burden of proof from Chapman; this would require the State, not Crockett, to satisfy the burden of proof, and the State must prove that the error was not just harmless error but harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 386 U.S. at 24. Crockett argues that the court’s failure to apply the correct standard had a substantial and injurious effect upon him, see Fry v. Pliler, 127 S.Ct. 2321, 2328, 168 L.Ed.2d 16 (2007) (applying a Brecht standard on habeas review where the state appellate court failed to apply Chapman) 4 because, if the trial court had informed him of the note immediately, he 4 Crockett first argues that the error was “structural error” (automatically requiring reversal) because it did not occur during the trial and hence could not be “trial error,” which the Brecht standard addresses. We reject the notion that all errors occurring after the verdict are structural errors, see Washington v. Recuenco, 548 U.S. 212, 218-19 (2006) (“Only in rare cases has this Court held that an error is structural, and thus requires automatic reversal. In such cases, the error necessarily renders a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence.” (internal footnote and quotation omitted)), but we do not need to reach the alternate question he poses: whether we should create a modified Brecht standard for the error’s effect on his ability to appeal. No. 06-4066 15 would have had the ability to obtain affidavits from more jurors while the event was fresh in their minds. He then could have satisfied the burden placed upon him by the Illinois Appellate Court in showing that the trial judge unreasonably delayed in answering the note before the verdict. Crockett argued to the Illinois Appellate Court that not informing counsel of the jury note after the verdict was constitutional error, citing People v. Childs, 636 N.E.2d 534, 538 (Ill. 1994), a case which invoked the Sixth Amendment’s right to “participate in person and by counsel at all proceedings which involve his substantial rights.” Although the Illinois Appellate Court determined that the trial court “clearly erred in its failure to ultimately notify the defendant of the jury’s question at the earliest opportunity after the verdict” the court never explicitly stated that it found the error to be constitutional. 5 Crockett, 731 N.E.2d at 836. The court also did not address which party had the burden of proof. The court did cite Childs, a case that used the harmless beyond a reasonable 5 Despite the ambiguity, Crockett assumes that the court found a constitutional error but does not argue in the alternative that the Illinois Appellate Court should have found a constitutional error but did not. Compare United States v. Widgery, 778 F.2d 325, 329 (7th Cir. 1985) (noting that in federal court “[a] judge’s failure to show jurors’ notes to counsel and allow them to comment before responding violates Fed. R. Crim. P. 43(a), not the constitution”) with Moore v. Knight, 368 F.3d 936, 940-42 (7th Cir. 2004) (discussing constitutional violations and prejudice to a defendant where the trial judge answered a jury’s question ex parte that went to the defendant’s alibi defense). 16 No. 06-4066 doubt standard and, as previously mentioned, invoked the Sixth Amendment. Crockett’s brief also advised the Illinois Appellate Court that constitutional errors require the State to prove that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, the court’s entire statement on harmless error was: [I]n spite of this violation of the defendant’s right to be informed by the trial court, we must con- clude that the error was harmless. The record is clear that the defendant in fact discovered the note before he made his motion for a new trial, which would point to the actual discovery of this note well within the thirty-day period following the verdict. The record is further clear that the motion was not argued until several months later, giving the defendant ample time and opportunity to investigate and make a record of the circumstances prevailing at the time the jury question was sent. Id. It is not clear, as Crockett contends, that the court applied the burden of proof to him on this issue. And while the court did not use the term “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” it is possible that the court was applying the correct standard, albeit ambiguously. Even assuming that the Illinois Appellate Court held the error was constitutional and failed to apply the harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard to the State, Crockett encounters another problem—he failed to present this claim to the Illinois Supreme Court. The district court discussed Crockett’s procedural default of a claim that the Illinois Appellate Court had inappropriately No. 06-4066 17 placed the burden on him in proving that prior to the verdict the trial court unreasonably delayed in answering the jury’s question. The district court did not discuss whether Crockett procedurally defaulted his after-theverdict Chapman claim because Crockett did not raise that claim in the district court either. A procedural default occurs where a habeas petitioner “has exhausted his state court remedies without properly asserting his federal claim at each level of state court review.” Malone v. Wells, No. 06-3235, 2008 WL 3823868, at  (7th Cir. Aug. 18, 2008). The exhaustion of state remedies requirement “serves the interests of federal-state comity by giving states the first opportunity to address and correct alleged violations of a petitioner’s federal right.” Lieberman, 505 F.3d at 669. The petitioner must fairly present the federal nature of his claim to the state court by submitting “both the operative facts and the controlling legal principles” of the federal claim through one full round of review. Malone, 2008 WL 3823868 at  (quotation omitted). This includes asserting the claim to the Illinois Supreme Court for discretionary review. O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 845 (1999). In Crockett’s petition for leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, the extent of his claim was that “[t]he court was required to convene the parties and then provide the jury with a clarifying instruction. Failure to do so deprived the defendant of a fair jury adjudication, by a properly instructed jury” (internal citation omitted). He never alerted the Illinois Supreme Court that the failure to inform him of the jury note after the trial was 18 No. 06-4066 a constitutional error to which the appellate court applied the wrong burden of proof. A “hypertechnical congruence” of the claims is not required between federal and state court for a claim to be fairly presented, Anderson v. Benik, 471 F.3d 811, 814-15 (7th Cir. 2006); instead “we assess whether the petitioner alerted the state court to the federal nature of his claim in a manner sufficient to allow that court to address the issue on a federal basis.” Lieberman, 505 F.3d at 670. Although Crockett was aware of a heightened burden of proof for constitutional violations because he addressed it in his brief to the Illinois Appellate Court, he did not inform the Illinois Supreme Court of his basis for the claim now presented on habeas review in a manner sufficient for the Illinois Supreme Court to address it in the first instance. Therefore, he has procedurally defaulted the claim. See Boerckel, 526 U.S. at 848 (“Boerckel’s amended federal habeas petition raised three claims that he had pressed before the Appellate Court of Illinois, but that he had not included in his petition for leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. . . . Boerckel’s failure to present three of his federal habeas claims to the Illinois Supreme Court in a timely fashion has resulted in a procedural default of those claims.”); Bintz v. Bertrand, 403 F.3d 859, 864 (7th Cir. 2005) (“It appears that Robert did raise this issue in his initial brief before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. Robert, however, never presented the [issue] to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in his petition for that court to review the decision of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. While the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied his petition for No. 06-4066 19 review, Robert was still required to present the issue to it.”). When a petitioner presents a defaulted claim for federal habeas review, we may consider it only if he can establish cause and prejudice for the default or that the failure to consider the claim would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Johnson v. Loftus, 518 F.3d 453, 455-56 (7th Cir. 2008). Crockett fails to argue either point, and so we cannot consider his claim. Habeas is an “extraordinary form of relief” to which Crockett has not demonstrated that he is entitled. Lieberman, 505 F.3d at 671.