Opinion ID: 767804
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Review of the California Court of Appeal Determination.

Text: 51 Since the California Court of Appeal failed to recognize two errors as being of constitutional magnitude, it necessarily also failed to select the appropriate standard in evaluating the harmlessness of those errors. To wit, by deeming two errors as being merely errors under state evidentiary law, the California Court of Appeal improperly selected the Watson standard rather than the Chapman standard in evaluating those errors. Arguably, such improper selection would permit a federal district court to grant the habeas corpus petition with the condition that the petition would not be granted if the California Court of Appeal were to reevaluate those errors under the appropriate standard of review. See, e.g., Jeffries v. Wood,114 F.3d 1484, 1500-01 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc) (permitting such a course of action where a state appellate court did identify an error as being of constitutional magnitude but then selected the wrong harmless error standard; noting that the [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty] Act if applied would not preclude the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus) (emphasis added). However, contrary to Bains's argument, the precedent cited by him does not support the proposition that a federal district court would be required to take such action under such circumstances, and much precedent supports the opposite proposition (i.e., that the federal district court is free to conduct its own independent review and to make its own determination). See, e.g. , Hanna v. Riveland, 87 F.3d 1034, 1038 & n.2 (9th Cir. 1996) (permitting independent harmless error review by a federal district court where the state appellate courts had failed to identify a constitutional error and thus had not conducted any harmless error review). Because the federal district court here did in fact choose to conduct its own independent review of the harmlessness of the state trial court errors, we now review the appropriateness of the federal district court's determination. 52