Opinion ID: 780524
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The state appellate court decision

Text: 62 The Ohio Court of Appeals was the only state court to address the merits of Patterson's appeal of the jury-instruction issue. Its analysis was limited, however, to the two-paragraph explanation quoted in Part II.B.1. above. Basically, the court determined that the instructions for the offense of which Patterson was convicted were sufficiently detailed to sustain his conviction because the instructions for that offense were bookended by instructions that included causation as an element of involuntary manslaughter based on other predicate acts. At no point in its brief discussion, however, did the Ohio Court of Appeals acknowledge that the United States Supreme Court has clearly held that [t]he Constitution gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged. United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 522-23, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995) (emphasis added). 63 Instead, the Ohio Court of Appeals concluded that the jury instruction was sufficiently detailed because the trial court had correctly instructed the jury as to all of the elements of two other crimes with which Patterson was charged but not convicted — involuntary manslaughter based upon aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter based upon simple assault. Because the Ohio Court of Appeals based its decision on this legal issue rather than a factual determination, the unreasonable application prong of § 2254(d)(1) does not govern our analysis. See Doan v. Brigano, 237 F.3d 722, 730 (6th Cir.2001) (holding that the unreasonable application prong did not apply in a case where the state court of appeals failed to correctly identify the governing legal principle). 64 Our analysis is instead governed by the question of whether the state appellate court's adjudication of the claim resulted in a decision that was contrary to ... clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States .... 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). A state appellate court's decision is contrary to clearly established Supreme Court precedent only if it applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in [Supreme Court] cases, or if it confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a [Supreme Court decision] and nevertheless arrives at a result different from [Supreme Court] precedent. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405-06, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000). 65 In Gaudin, the defendant was charged with making false statements on Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) loan documents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. The trial court instructed the jury that the Government was required to prove, inter alia, that the alleged false statements were material to the activities and decisions of HUD, but that [t]he issue of materiality ... is not submitted to you for your decision but rather is a matter for the decision of the court. Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 508, 115 S.Ct. 2310 (alteration in original and internal quotation marks omitted). As in the present case, the parties agreed that the omitted instruction (materiality in Gaudin, proximate result here) was a necessary element of the crime of conviction. Id. at 509, 115 S.Ct. 2310. The parties in Gaudin, like those in the case before us, also agreed on the definition of the element in question. Id. After noting that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require criminal convictions to rest upon a jury determination that the defendant is guilty of every element of the crime with which he is charged, beyond a reasonable doubt, id. at 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, the Supreme Court held that the trial court's refusal to allow the jury to determine whether the government had proved an element of the crime of conviction violated the defendant's constitutional rights, id. at 522-23, 115 S.Ct. 2310. 66 Instead of examining whether the trial court's instructions complied with the constitutional mandate that gives a criminal defendant the right to have a jury determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, his guilt of every element of the crime with which he is charged, the Ohio Court of Appeals concluded that the jury instruction was sufficiently detailed, because the trial court had correctly instructed the jury as to all of the elements of two other crimes with which Patterson was charged. By applying a standard that requires the jury instructions only to be sufficiently detailed, the Ohio Court of Appeals applied a rule that contradicted the governing law as set forth by the Supreme Court in United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 509-10, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995). We therefore turn to the question of whether the constitutional error at trial was harmless.