Opinion ID: 199135
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: application of the habeas standard

Text: 14 We turn now from the general to the specific. The Constitution requires that the prosecution, in a criminal case, prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970). Here, the petitioner claims that the state trial judge's repeated references to proof to a moral certainty left in the jurors' minds an indelible impression that the prosecution's burden of proof was something less than beyond a reasonable doubt. We examine this premise, subject to the stark limitations imposed by the AEDPA.
15 Before Congress enacted the AEDPA, a federal court's exercise of habeas corpus jurisdiction did not require that it pay any special heed to the underlying state court decision. E.g., Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 458 (1953) (observing that the habeas court treats the state court decision as nothing more than the conclusion of a court of last resort of another jurisdiction). The AEDPA amendments alter the legal landscape, placing the state court's decision at center stage in a federal habeas proceeding. O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 20. Only if that decision deviates from the paradigm described in section 2254(d) can a habeas court grant relief. Id. 16 In this instance, the relevant state court decision is the state superior court's denial of post-conviction relief. 1 Consequently, we focus not on the adequacy of the jury instructions per se, but, rather, on the reasonableness of the state court decision upholding those instructions.
17 We inquire, first, whether the relevant state court decision is contrary to existing federal law as enunciated by the Supreme Court. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1519; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 24. Here, we answer that inquiry in the negative. 18 The Supreme Court has directly addressed the use of the phrase moral certainty in jury instructions. E.g., Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 10-17, 21-22 (1994); Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 40-41 (1990), overruled on other grounds by Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62 (1991). But the standard laid out by these cases is open-ended and its application requires perscrutation of the specific facts of each particular case. See Victor, 511 U.S. at 6 (The constitutional question in the present cases, therefore, is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood the instructions to allow conviction based on proof insufficient to meet the [reasonable doubt] standard.). For this reason, the state superior court decision can run aground on section 2254(d)(1)'s contrary to prong only if that court either applied the wrong law or reached a conclusion opposite to that reached by the Supreme Court on nearly identical facts. See Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1519-20; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 25. 19 Neither situation obtains here. The state superior court identified the appropriate Supreme Court case law - notably, Victor and Cage - and recognized its relevance. Moreover, the state trial judge's jury instructions were quite different from those that the Supreme Court previously had considered. 20 To be sure, the statute's contrary to tine may pierce a state court decision if the latter is diametrically different from, opposite in character or nature from, or mutually opposed to Supreme Court precedent. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1520. Here, however, none of these characterizations fits. A state court decision that applies the correct legal rule but reaches an independent outcome on different facts cannot be deemed to run at cross purposes to Supreme Court precedent. Id. Accordingly, section 2254(d)(1)'s contrary to prong cannot be used here to spearhead habeas relief.
21 This brings us to the second step of the requisite analysis: whether the state court decision constitutes an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court case law. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1519; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 24-25. For purposes of this inquiry, a federal court operates within a closely circumscribed sphere. Its determination cannot be based simply on whether the state court reached the correct result when applying federal law. See O'Brien, 145 F.2d at 25 (We think it is pellucid . . . that the 'unreasonable application' clause does not empower a habeas court to grant the writ merely because it disagrees with the state court's decision, or because, left to its own devices, it would have reached a different result.). Rather, the federal habeas court must determine whether the state court's application of the law to the facts, as evidenced by the conclusion that it reached, was objectively unreasonable. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1521- 22. Measured by this yardstick, we believe that the state court's decision, though problematic, is not so offensive to existing precedent, so devoid of record support, or so arbitrary, as to indicate that it is outside the universe of plausible, credible outcomes. O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 25 (footnote omitted). 22 As the state superior court recognized, the salient Supreme Court precedents in this situation are Victor and Cage. Both of these cases dealt disapprovingly with the use of the phrase moral certainty in jury instructions on reasonable doubt. The cases, however, reached different results. The Cage Court found the particular instructions used there misleading, and granted the writ. Cage, 498 U.S. at 41. In contrast, the Victor Court found a different set of jury instructions adequate notwithstanding the trial judge's references to moral certainty. Victor, 511 U.S. at 17, 22. 23 The lesson of these cases is that context is all-important and that careful scrutiny must be afforded to the setting in which moral certainty references appear. See id. at 16 (explaining that moral certainty language cannot be sequestered from its surroundings). Using this mode of analysis, the habeas court must determine whether the remainder of the jury instructions provide sufficient cover to assure that the moral certainty language did not impermissibly dilute the beyond a reasonable doubt standard. See id. at 21. 24 A side-by-side comparison of Cage and Victor illustrates this point. In Cage, the trial judge's very brief charge described reasonable doubt as a grave uncertainty and an actual substantial doubt, and led the jury to believe that it needed to find the defendant guilty to a moral certainty. Cage, 498 U.S. at 40. The Court found this unacceptable because: 25 [T]he words 'substantial' and 'grave,' as they are commonly understood, suggest a higher degree of doubt than is required for acquittal under the reasonable-doubt standard. When those statements are then considered with the reference to 'moral certainty,' rather than evidentiary certainty, it becomes clear that a reasonable juror could have interpreted the instruction to allow a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof below that required by the Due Process Clause. 26 Id. at 41 (footnote omitted). In other words, nothing in the instruction lent a constitutionally appropriate gloss to moral certainty. Victor, 511 U.S. at 16 (explaining the holding in Cage). 27 In contradistinction, the jury instructions in Victor were not so sparse. The Court described the situation as follows: 28 The jury in [this] case was told that a reasonable doubt is 'that state of the case which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves the minds of the jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the truth of the charge.' The instruction thus explicitly told the jurors that their conclusion had to be based on the evidence in the case. Other instructions reinforced this message. . . . 29 We do not think it reasonably likely that the jury understood the words 'moral certainty' either as suggesting a standard of proof lower than due process requires or as allowing conviction on factors other than the government's proof. 30 Victor, 511 U.S. at 16 (internal citations omitted; emphasis in original). Accordingly, the Court concluded that the discouraged phrase (moral certainty) had been given a concrete meaning not inconsistent with proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and thus did not undermine the convictions. Id. at 16-17, 22. 31 Against this backdrop, we focus the lens of our inquiry on the state superior court's decision and ask whether the court's application of the analytic framework dictated by the relevant Supreme Court precedents was objectively unreasonable. See Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1522; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 25. 32 The state superior court plainly understood the primacy of context. In its rescript denying the petitioner's post-conviction motion for a new trial, the court carefully considered the trial judge's jury instructions as a whole. Citing cases such as Commonwealth v. Gagliardi, 638 N.E.2d 20, 25 (Mass. 1994), the court acknowledged that employment of the phrase moral certainty had come under fire in recent years. St. Ct. Op. at 6-7. It proceeded to recount the Cage Court's reasoning, see 498 U.S. at 40-41, concentrating on why the Supreme Court found the trial judge's reference to moral certainty misleading. St. Ct. Op. at 7-8. 33 The court followed this exercise by discussing the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 11-12. It then undertook a painstaking inquiry into the use of the phrase moral certainty in the jury instructions given in this case (the pertinent portions of which are set forth in an appendix to this opinion). The court had noted early on that the trial judge had used the term no fewer than fourteen times. Id. at 9. It now catalogued and dissected each reference, and reviewed the context to determine whether in practical effect the reference tended to erode the trial judge's statement of the constitutionally required burden of proof. Id. at 10-16. 34 In its careful examination, the court plodded phrase by phrase through the instructions. It found support at each step along the way for its ultimate conclusion that the instructions, though containing several references to the discouraged phrase (moral certainty), did not dilute the standard of proof below a reasonable doubt. We need not recite book and verse as to each perception, but, rather, offer a few examples that convey the flavor of the examination. 35 The court acknowledged that the trial judge had begun by defining proof beyond a reasonable doubt as proof to a moral certainty, a standard instruction theretofore approved by the SJC. E.g., Gagliardi, 638 N.E.2d at 24 n.3; Commonwealth v. Little, 424 N.E.2d 504, 506-07 & n.4 (Mass. 1981). But the judge did not dilute the Commonwealth's burden. Indeed, in most instances where moral certainty references appeared, an explanatory statement appeared in the immediate vicinity, thus providing a clear (and constitutionally correct) explication of the level of guilt required. E.g., St. Ct. Op. at 12 (equating moral certainty with a statement that any reasonable doubt of the existence of any fact . . . which is essential to the proof of guilt of this defendant requires acquittal). In this way, the judge reminded the jury that its decision had to be based on the evidence in the case - a concept that he reinforced at the end of the reasonable doubt instruction when he emphasized the need for the jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the facts. Id. at 13. 36 The superior court's confidence in the efficacy of these reminders was bolstered by the trial judge's inclusion of similar redeeming statements in other portions of the charge. Id. at 14-15. The court ascertained that each individual reference met the constitutional standard, and that the references, collectively, met the constitutional standard. Id. at 15-16. In this regard, it specifically found that the valid definition of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, contained early in the charge, when combined with the trial judge's repeated references to the appropriate standard in both his summary of the evidence and his recital of the law, foreclosed any possible confusion in the jurors' minds. Id. Finally, the court concluded that the charge, taken as a whole, could not have led a reasonable juror to apply the wrong standard or use the instructions incorrectly. Id. at 16. 37 To be sure, it is possible to argue the accuracy of this conclusion. Indeed, had the case come before us on direct appeal, we might well have decided it otherwise. After all, the references to moral certainty were numerous, and the risk of error seems readily evident. The test, however, is not whether we think that the state court reached the right result. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1522; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 25. When assessing a state prisoner's conviction under the AEDPA amendments, we can ask only whether the specific conclusion that the state court drew from its contextual examination was clearly outside the realm of reasonable outcomes. Taylor, 120 S. Ct. at 1522; O'Brien, 145 F.3d at 25. In this case, it was not: the state court's conclusion constitutes an objectively reasonable (though not inevitable) application of the relevant Supreme Court precedents. 38 The proof of the pudding is that the state superior court's approach drew heavily upon clearly established Supreme Court case law. E.g., Victor, 511 U.S. at 10-17, 21-22; Cage, 498 U.S. at 40-41. It followed the method of those decisions meticulously. Any argument over the correctness of the state court's ultimate conclusion would be one of degree, calling for a choice between credible, although mutually opposed, views. That ends our inquiry. When there are two plausible outcomes that can result from a reasoned application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent to a particular set of facts, the state court's choice between those outcomes, whether right or wrong, cannot constitute a basis for habeas relief under the second branch of section 2254(d)(1). Accordingly, the district court did not err in denying the application for a writ.