Opinion ID: 4693763
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Due Process Violation under Darden

Text: The first question is whether the prosecutor’s repeated statement during closing argument that the presumption of innocence was “over” was misconduct in violation of due process under Darden. Prosecutorial misconduct includes misstatements of law. See Deck v. Jenkins, 814 F.3d 954, 985 (9th Cir. 2016) (finding Darden error where “the prosecutor gave incorrect direction to the jury about an element of California law under which Deck was convicted”). Improper prosecutorial statements violate due process if they “so infect[] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.” Darden, 477 U.S. at 181 FORD V. PEERY 21 (citation omitted). Prosecutorial misconduct within the meaning of Darden does not require improper motive on the part of the prosecutor; it requires only an improper statement. But such misconduct “rises to the level of Darden error only if there is a reasonable probability that it rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.” Deck, 814 F.3d at 985.
Because the California Court of Appeal assumed without deciding that the prosecutor misstated the law, there is no state-court decision to which we can defer on this point. However, even if there were a state-court decision holding that the prosecutor did not misstate the law, we would conclude that such a holding would have been unreasonable. In stating that the presumption of innocence was “over,” the prosecutor misstated clear and long-standing federal law as articulated in a number of Supreme Court decisions. A jury must evaluate the evidence based on the presumption that the defendant is innocent. If the jury concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, then—and only then—does the presumption disappear. The presumption of innocence is “the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary.” Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453 (1895). The presumption of innocence is “vital and fundamental.” Id. at 460. It is “a basic component of a fair trial under our system of criminal justice.” Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 503 (1976). “[I]ts enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.” Coffin, 156 U.S. at 453; see also Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 4–5 (1984). 22 FORD V. PEERY Criminal defendants lose the presumption of innocence only once they have been convicted. See, e.g., Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 399 (1993) (“Once a defendant has been afforded a fair trial and convicted of the offense for which he was charged, the presumption of innocence disappears.”) (emphasis added); Delo v. Lashley, 507 U.S. 272, 278 (1993) (“Once the defendant has been convicted fairly in the guilt phase of [a capital] trial, the presumption of innocence disappears.”) (emphasis added); Betterman v. Montana, 136 S. Ct. 1609, 1618 (2016) (a conviction “terminates the presumption of innocence”).
A violation of due process under Darden requires more than a prosecutorial misstatement. There must be “a reasonable probability” that the misstatement “rendered the trial fundamentally unfair.” Deck, 814 F.3d at 985. “In essence, what Darden requires reviewing courts to consider appears to be equivalent to evaluating whether there was a ‘reasonable probability’ of a different result.” Hein v. Sullivan, 601 F.3d 897, 914–15 (9th Cir. 2010); see also Deck, 814 F.3d at 979. On the assumption that the prosecutor misstated the law, the Court of Appeal held that the prosecutor’s misstatement was harmless under either of two standards. It wrote: “[A]ny assumed error is harmless under either the state ([People v.] Watson, [(1956)] 46 Cal.2d 818[, 836]) or federal constitutional standard (see Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24).” The Chapman standard for determining harmlessness is different from the Darden standard, so we put it to one side. But the Watson standard is indistinguishable from the Darden “reasonable probability” standard. The FORD V. PEERY 23 California Supreme Court wrote in Watson: “[A] miscarriage of justice should be declared only when the court, after an examination of the entire cause, including the evidence, is of the opinion that it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the appealing party would have been reached in the absence of the error.” People v. Watson, 46 Cal. 2d 818, 836 (1956) (quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). We recognize, of course, that in applying Watson the Court of Appeal was applying a state-law rather than a federal-law standard of harmlessness, but the Watson test is in haec verba the same as the Darden test. We therefore conclude that the Court of Appeal applied the functional equivalent of the Darden harmlessness test in holding that the prosecutor’s statement was harmless. If we were to decide harmlessness de novo under Darden, we would conclude that there was a reasonable probability of a different outcome absent the prosecutor’s misstatement of the law. The evidence against Ford was circumstantial, incomplete, and to some degree in conflict. The jury took four days to reach a verdict and did so only after having reported to the judge that it was “hopelessly deadlocked.” Finally, the jury’s verdict was logically inconsistent—an almost sure sign of a compromise verdict—finding Ford guilty of murder but failing to find that he used a firearm in the commission of the murder. A determination of prejudice constitutes an “adjudication on the merits” for purposes of AEDPA deference. See Davis v. Ayala, 576 U.S. 257, 269 (2015) (holding that the state court’s determination of harmlessness “undoubtedly constitutes an adjudication of [petitioner’s] constitutional claim ‘on the merits’”). We are therefore required to give deference to the decision of the Court of Appeal that the prosecutor’s misstatements were harmless under the Darden standard. Even with AEDPA 24 FORD V. PEERY deference, we view this as a close case. But we hold that a reasonable jurist could have concluded that there was no reasonable probability that, in the absence of the prosecutor’s statements that the presumption of innocence was “over,” the jury would have reached a different conclusion, for there was substantial evidence of guilt: Ford’s unexplained left palm print just below the window on the outside of the driver’s side door; a man matching Ford’s (albeit general) description on the street next to Martinez’s SUV just before the shooting; the stolen cell phones in Ford’s car; Ford’s recorded telephone conversation to his girlfriend while he was in jail (“[L]uckily I ain’t in here for murder, that’s all I keep thinking about . . . oh well I wish it didn’t have to happen”); and Ford’s Facebook post bragging about his shooting prowess.