Opinion ID: 2975506
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicable Law Regarding Harmless-Error

Text: Review of Capital-Sentencing Error To assess properly the Ohio Supreme Court and district court’s analyses here, we must consider the proper standard for applying harmless-error review, the doctrine’s emphasis on the error’s actual (not hypothetical) impact, and the doctrine’s application where the error occurs in the unique context of capital sentencing. This subsection addresses those points.
Standard Before the enactment of AEDPA, the Supreme Court articulated two harmless-error standards. Eddleman v. McKee, 471 F.3d 576, 582 (6th Cir. 2006). On direct review, “before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967). On collateral review, however, the State’s burden is lessened: In those proceedings, courts should deem an error harmless unless the error “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Brecht, 507 U.S. at 637. “When Congress enacted AEDPA, it complicated this dichotomy” because AEDPA provides that habeas relief shall not be granted unless the state-court decision was either (1) “contrary to,” or involved an “unreasonable application of,” clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court; or (2) based on an “unreasonable determination of the facts.” Eddleman, 471 F.3d at 582 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)). We nonetheless continued to apply only the Brecht “substantial-and-injurious-effect” standard after AEDPA’s enactment because we concluded that if a petitioner meets that standard, “he will surely have demonstrated that the state court’s finding No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell Page 10 that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt—the Chapman standard—resulted from . . . an unreasonable application of Chapman.” Id. (quoting Nevers v. Killinger, 169 F.3d 352, 335 (6th Cir. 2001)). In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12 (2003), however, we reconsidered this position in Eddleman and held that “AEDPA replaced the Brecht standard with the standard of Chapman plus AEDPA deference when, as here, a state court made a harmless-error determination.” Eddleman, 471 F.3d at 583. In other words, when assessing a state court’s harmless-error review, we asked whether that review was “contrary to,” or an “unreasonable application of,” Chapman. See id. at 585 (“We now must determine whether the [state-court] decision that admitting Eddleman’s confession was harmless error was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Chapman.”). While Wilson’s appeal was pending, the United States Supreme Court rejected this approach. In Fry v. Pliler, No. 06-5247, __ U.S. __, 127 S. Ct. 2321 (2007), the Court unanimously concluded that regardless whether a state court applied Chapman’s harmless-error standard on direct review (i.e., that the state must prove that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt), a federal habeas court applies the stricter (more state-deferential) Brecht standard (i.e., harmless unless the error had substantial and injurious effect on the outcome). In so holding, the Court explained that AEDPA did not replace the Brecht standard. Id. at 2326–27. The petitioner in Fry argued (just as the Eddleman court concluded) that, because of AEDPA, a federal habeas court conducting harmless-error review had to ask whether the state court “unreasonably applied” Chapman to determine whether habeas relief was warranted. Id. The Supreme Court explained, however, that “it is implausible that, without saying so, AEDPA replaced the Brecht standard of ‘actual prejudice,’ with the more liberal AEDPA/Chapman standard which requires only that the state court’s harmlessbeyond-a-reasonable-doubt determination be unreasonable.” Id. at 2327 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). “That said,” the Court continued, “it certainly makes no sense to require formal application of both tests (AEDPA/Chapman and Brecht) when the latter obviously subsumes the former.” Id. In other words, a federal habeas court technically applies Brecht in light of AEDPA, but because the Brecht test is stricter (i.e., tougher on the petitioner) than AEDPA/Chapman, any petitioner that meets the Brecht standard will necessarily meet the AEDPA/Chapman standard. Thus, when conducting harmless-error review, we simply apply the Brecht standard and ask whether Wilson has shown that the error had substantial and injurious effect in determining the jury’s verdict.
to Actual, Not Hypothetical, Impact Characterizing an error as harmless might have either of two meanings. On the one hand, an error might be deemed harmless if it played such an inconsequential role in the actual trial in which it occurred that it assuredly had no impact on the trial’s verdict. 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice & Procedure § 31.4d (5th ed. 2005). On the other hand, an error might be deemed harmless—even if it played an important role in the actual trial—if a hypothetical new trial absent the error would likely produce the same outcome as did the actual trial. Id. The Supreme Court has indicated that of these two meanings the proper one is the first (i.e., whether the error had an actual impact on the outcome), and not the second (i.e., whether a hypothetical new trial would likely produce the same result): Consistent with the jury-trial guarantee, the question . . . the reviewing court [is] to consider is not what effect the constitutional error might generally be expected to have upon a reasonable jury, but rather what effect it had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand. Harmless-error review looks, we have said, to the basis on which “the No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell Page 11 jury actually rested its verdict.” The inquiry, in other words, is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. That must be so, because to hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact rendered—no matter how inescapable the findings to support that verdict might be—would violate the jury-trial guarantee. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279 (1993) (citations omitted) (quoting Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391, 404 (1991)). Likewise, as the Brecht Court explained, “[t]he standard for determining whether habeas relief must be granted is whether . . . the . . . error ‘had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.’” Brecht, 507 U.S. at 623 (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776 (1946) (emphasis added)).
Sentencing 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 (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 “nonweighing States.” Since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) (per curiam), the Supreme Court has required States to limit the class of murderers to which the death penalty may be applied. Sanders, 545 U.S. at 216. 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 (citing Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 110 (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. 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). No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell Page 12 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 (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. 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 (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 (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, __ F.3d __, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 14362, at –15 (6th Cir. June 19, 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)). 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 No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell Page 13 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 (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, No. 05-16363, __ F.3d__, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 15828, at  (7th Cir. July 3, 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 nonweighing 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. “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 (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 (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, No. 1:05 CV 1886, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30091, at  n.6 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 24, 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 harmlesserror 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 (citing Stringer, 503 U.S. at 232). 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) (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, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS at  (“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 No. 03-3362 Wilson v. Mitchell Page 14 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, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 15828, at  (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