Opinion ID: 784364
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Merits of the Cronic claim

Text: 19 The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the effective assistance of trial counsel for criminal defendants. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). Generally, to establish constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel, a habeas petitioner must show both that his counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, id. at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052, and that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. 20 A criminal conviction must be set aside, however, even without the showing of any actual prejudice, if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of his trial. United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 659, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984) (discussing the situations where prejudice should be presumed). Thus, the Supreme Court has uniformly found constitutional error without any showing of prejudice when counsel was either totally absent, or prevented from assisting the accused[,] during a critical stage of the proceeding. Id. at 659 n. 25, 104 S.Ct. 2039. Hudson has not demonstrated, nor even contended, that actual prejudice resulted from his attorney's absence when the trial judge responded to the jury's note. The question on the merits, therefore, is whether Hudson's counsel was absent during a critical stage of the proceedings, so that prejudice should be presumed under Cronic. 21 This court's opinion in United States v. Harris, 9 F.3d 493 (6th Cir.1993), is relevant to the issue before us. In Harris, the court examined the propriety of a situation in which the jury, at the start of its second day of deliberations, sent a note to the judge that read: The jury is having a problem with the definition of entrapment could we have a copy of the instructions that were read to us concerning entrapment May we also have a flip chart and some markers Thank you. Id. at 499 (lack of punctuation in original). Without contacting the parties, the court responded by providing the jury with a complete written set of all of the jury instructions read by the court. Id. 22 The Harris court decided that, although the district judge's actions technically violated Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (dealing with when the defendant must be present), reversal of the conviction was not warranted because Defendant is unable to state a reasonable possibility of prejudice that resulted from the district court's conduct. Id. Implicit in this holding is the conclusion that trial counsel's absence was not during a critical stage of the proceedings because, had the absence occurred during a critical stage, prejudice would have been presumed under Cronic. 23 We respectfully disagree with the dissent's suggestion that our reliance on Harris involves an impermissible logical leap. Dis. Op. at 221. Although the court in Harris based its decision on Rule 43 rather than the Sixth Amendment, the opinion explicitly recognized that the defendant's counsel was not present when the trial court reinstructed the jury. See Harris, 9 F.3d at 495-96 (stating the issue as whether prejudicial error occurred when the district court responded to a note from the jury without notifying counsel ) (emphasis added). Because the Harris court was aware of trial counsel's absence, a reasonable inference can be drawn that the court's exclusive focus on Rule 43 is an indication that the Rule 43 argument was perceived to be stronger than the Cronic argument. So although Harris is not controlling, it supports the conclusion that the rereading of identical jury instructions is not a critical stage of a criminal trial. 24 Similarly, the Seventh Circuit has held that the court's reading of the jury instructions (as opposed, perhaps[,] to a court's jury instruction conference with counsel) [is not] a critical stage of the proceedings. United States v. Morrison, 946 F.2d 484, 503 (7th Cir.1991) (emphasis in original). The Morrison court therefore decided that Cronic was inapplicable where the trial judge instructed the jury at the close of evidence in the absence of defense counsel. Id. Morrison supports the proposition that reading instructions to the jury is not a critical stage of the proceedings if trial counsel has previously agreed to the instructions. 25 On the other hand, in French v. Jones, 332 F.3d 430 (6th Cir.2003), this court held that Cronic 's presumption of prejudice applied where trial counsel was absent when the state trial judge gave a supplemental instruction to a thrice-deadlocked jury and the third instruction was not the standard deadlocked jury instruction. Id. at 434, 438. French, however, is distinguishable from the instant case because the supplemental instructions given in French had not been articulated by the trial court before the jury began deliberating. In contrast, in the present case, the instructions given by the judge in Young's absence had been given verbatim in Young's presence during the initial charge. The only difference is that, during the initial charge, other instructions were interspersed between the murder instruction and the full aiding-and-abetting instruction. We find this difference immaterial. 26 Several cases from other circuits appear to track this new-versus-repeated distinction. In Curtis v. Duval, 124 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.1997), for example, the First Circuit stated in dicta that recalling the jury for supplementary instructions after deliberations are underway is a critical stage of a criminal trial. But the supplementary instructions in Curtis were new, not a repeat of earlier instructions given when counsel was present. In a later, unpublished decision, the First Circuit held that the prejudice per se doctrine does not apply where supplemental instructions were given, without notifying counsel, in response to a note from the deliberating jury, but the supplemental instructions were similar to portions of the charge, given earlier, that counsel had reviewed without objections. Gonzalez-Gonzalez v. United States, No. 02-1243, 2002 WL 31416029, at , 49 Fed. Appx. 322 (1st Cir. Oct. 29, 2002). 27 The Third Circuit has similarly rejected the application of Cronic in a situation where, upon a request from the deliberating jury, the trial judge provided the transcript of certain testimony without notifying counsel. United States v. Toliver, 330 F.3d 607 (3d Cir.2003). Clarifying the substantive elements of the charged offense ( Curtis ) or instructing a deadlocked jury ( French ) affirmatively guides jurors as to how they should fulfill their decisionmaking function. But submitting verbatim specifically excerpted record testimony that the jury itself had requested does not similarly `instruct' the jury. Id. at 614. 28 We are of the opinion that the factual situation in the present case is closer to Harris, Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Morrison, and Toliver than to French and Curtis. Because the trial judge here simply repeated, at the jury's request, specific instructions that had previously been given in the presence of Hudson's counsel, we conclude that their repetition should not be deemed a critical stage in the proceedings. Prejudice to Hudson will therefore not be presumed under Cronic, and no actual prejudice has been shown. The district court thus erred in deciding that Hudson was entitled to habeas relief on the basis of his Cronic claim.