Opinion ID: 19038
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use of word “should” rather than “must”;

Text: (c) Trial court’s failure to instruct jury on effect of mitigating evidence. 8. Whether jury instructions on the victim’s status as a “peace officer” improperly amounted to a directed verdict on an essential element of the offense. 9. Whether the inclusion of irrelevant instructions on causation violated Hughes’s constitutional rights. 10. Whether the statutory requirement that 10 or more jurors vote “No” to enter a negative finding on special issues violated Hughes’s Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. 11. Whether the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). 8 defense counsel, he then added that when he used the term, it means “any probability.” Hughes concedes that a Texas trial court ordinarily is not required to define the word “probability” in the context of the second special issue, but he argues that Dr. Nottingham’s “misinterpretation” of the word possibly gave the jury an erroneous view of the law that the trial court was required to correct in its instructions. Hughes also concedes that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals deemed this claim barred by Hughes’s failure to advance a procedurally correct objection to the charge. He maintains that, under TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 36.15, no particularized objection is required as long as the defendant offers “special requested instructions” to call the trial court’s attention to the alleged error. He asserts that he requested exactly such an instruction. In rejecting a similar claim by Hughes on direct appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeals determined that Hughes had failed to preserve error on this issue because he “made no objection to the court’s refusal to define ‘probability’ based on Nottingham’s allegedly erroneous definition,” but he instead objected only that the “term was unconstitutionally vague and that without guidance the jury was left to speculate as to the meaning of the term.” See Hughes, 897 S.W.2d at 301-02. The district court concluded, and the state now argues, that this claim was procedurally defaulted, based on the Texas appellate 9 court’s conclusion that Hughes failed to preserve this claim for review. Hughes, 991 F. Supp. at 636. The procedural default doctrine, resting on our confinement to review of federal questions, precludes federal habeas review when the last reasoned state court opinion addressing a claim explicitly rejects it on a state procedural ground. See Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 801, 803 (1991). When the state court has relied on an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review is barred unless the petitioner demonstrates either cause and prejudice or that a failure to address the claim will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750 (1991). The doctrine presumes that a state procedural ground is adequate and independent – the rule must, for instance, be regularly followed – and, ordinarily, the burden is on the habeas petitioner to demonstrate otherwise. See Sones v. Hargett, 61 F.3d 410, 416-17 (5th Cir. 1995) (citations omitted).5 In determining that Hughes had failed to preserve this claim for appeal, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals relied on a version of Texas’s contemporaneous objection rule. See Hughes, 897 S.W.2d at 301-02 (“[A]ppellant’s claim on appeal does not comport with his 5 Although federal courts will “presume the adequacy and independence of a state procedural rule when the state court expressly relies on it in deciding not to review a claim for collateral relief, . . . [t]he presumption of adequacy can be rebutted . . . if the state’s procedural rule is not strictly or regularly followed.” Sones, 61 F.3d at 416 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). “The Supreme Court has further defined this concept of adequacy . . . to include a state procedural ground that is strictly or regularly applied evenhandedly to the vast majority of similar claims.” Amos v. Scott, 61 F.3d 333, 339 (5th Cir. 1995). 10 objections at trial . . . .”); see also Muniz v. Johnson, 132 F.3d 214, 221 (5th Cir.) (citing TEX. R. APP. P. 52(a) as source of contemporaneous objection rule), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 1793 (1998); Sheridan v. State, 950 S.W. 2d 755, 757 (Tex. App. 1997) (citing Rule 52(a) for requirement that complaint on appeal must “comport” with complaint made at trial). We have held that Texas applies its contemporaneous objection rule “strictly and regularly” and that it is an “independent and adequate state-law procedural ground sufficient to bar federal habeas review of federal claims.” Amos v. Scott, 61 F.3d 333, 345 (5th Cir. 1995). Hughes contends that TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 36.15 required only that he present “special requested instructions” to the trial court and that “no other exception or objection to the court’s charge shall be necessary to preserve any error reflected by any special requested instruction which the trial court refuses.” But this argument takes the statute too far. This language means only that to preserve an error for an appeal regarding jury instructions, a party who has already requested a certain instruction is not then required to object to the charge actually given by the trial court, after the court has decided to reject the requested instruction. See Vasquez v. State, 919 S.W. 2d 433, 435 & n.4 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). Under TEX. R. APP. P. 52(a), a party still must inform the trial court of any “specific defect” in the charge in order to preserve error. See Davis v. State, 905 S.W. 2d 655, 664 (Tex. 11 App. 1995). Under art. 36.15, “[a] defendant preserves error for appellate review if the request is specific enough to put the trial court on notice of an omission or error in the charge.” Brazelton v. State, 947 S.W.2d 644, 647 (Tex. App. 1997). It is undisputed that Hughes did not make the argument to the state trial court that Dr. Nottingham’s suggestion that “probability” meant “any probability” that Hughes would commit criminal acts of violence created a misimpression that the trial court was required to correct through jury instructions. In any event, if both we and the courts preceding before us are in error, Hughes’s claim lacks merit. As conceded by Hughes, the Texas courts repeatedly have rejected claims that in the penalty phase of a capital murder case the trial court is required to define terms, such as “probability,” which are included in the statutory special issues. See Corwin v. State, 870 S.W.2d 23, 36 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (en banc). Those courts have held that the failure to define such terms within TEX. CODE CRIM. P. art. 37.071, § (b)(2) does not render them unconstitutionally vague under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment. See id. We similarly have rejected contentions that “probability” and other terms included in the statutory special issues are unconstitutionally vague. See Woods v. Johnson, 75 F.3d 1017, 1033-34 (5th Cir. 1996) (and cases cited therein). Of course, since trial, Hughes has been arguing more than that the trial court’s definition of “probability” was 12 unconstitutionally vague; he has maintained that the trial court was required to correct any misperception regarding the meaning of that term that was created by Dr. Nottingham’s testimony. “The proper standard for reviewing a challenged jury instruction in the capital sentencing context is ‘whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence.’” Drinkard, 97 F.3d at 757 (quoting Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380 (1990)). “This ‘reasonable likelihood’ standard does not require the petitioner to prove that the jury ‘more likely than not’ interpreted the challenged instruction in an impermissible way; however, the petitioner must demonstrate more than ‘only a possibility’ of an impermissible interpretation.” Id. (citing Boyde, 494 U.S. at 380). Hughes’s contention is that the single reference by Dr. Nottingham to the phrase “any probability” required the trial court to ensure that the jury understood that such term meant “more likely than not.” He argues this point, notwithstanding Texas cases holding that its trial courts are not required to define the term “probability.” As we put it, [t]o the extent that the words strike distinct chords in individual jurors, or play to differing philosophies and attitudes, nothing more is at work than the jury system . . . . The answer is that such words, often of great consequence, do have a common understanding in the sense that they ultimately mean what the jury says by their verdict they mean. James v. Collins, 987 F.2d 1116, 1120 (5th Cir. 1993) (quoting 13 Milton v. Procunier, 744 F.2d 1091, 1096 (5th Cir. 1984)). Given these statements, Hughes cannot say that his proposed definition of “probability” is any more appropriate than the allegedly erroneous interpretation of the term stated by Dr. Nottingham. Hughes has not made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right as to this claim.