Opinion ID: 2540167
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ring Applies Retroactively

Text: Whitfield also determined that the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine all the facts necessary to impose punishment recognized in Apprendi, Ring and Blakely would apply retroactively to cases on collateral review under the three-part Linkletter-Stovall retroactivity analysis long used in Missouri. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 266, 268, citing, Spidle v. State, 446 S.W.2d 793 (Mo.1969); State v. Ussery, 452 S.W.2d 146 (Mo.1970); McCulley v. State, 486 S.W.2d 419 (Mo.1972). [5] Missouri's Linkletter-Stovall retroactivity analysis requires a court to determine retroactivity by considering: (1) the purpose to be served by the new rule, (2) the extent of reliance by law enforcement on the old rule, and (3) the effect on the administration of justice of retroactive application of the new standards. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 268. Whitfield held that consideration of the three Linkletter-Stovall factors required retroactive application of the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury rather than a judge determine the facts necessary for imposition of the death penalty. In so doing, Whitfield noted that the purpose to be served by the rule set out in Ring is to ensure a jury of defendant's peers finds each of the factual elements necessary to his conviction and sentence of death. Id. Whitfield also noted that the extent of reliance by law enforcement on the old rule was small and the effect on the administration of justice of applying the new rule would be minimal, as the number of affected cases would be small, because in Missouri juries have always made the decision whether to impose the death penalty except in those few cases in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Id. Whitfield itself identified five such cases in addition to Whitfield but recognized that a small number of other similar cases might later be identified and that the retroactivity analysis necessarily also would be applied to them. Id. at 269. In the ensuing years, a number of additional cases, some pending and some no longer pending or on collateral review, have been identified in which a judge rather than a jury found the facts necessary to impose punishment. The Apprendi-Ring-Blakely analysis has been applied to each of them, as required by Whitfield. As this Court described the principle in applying Whitfield in State ex rel. Baker v. Kendrick, 136 S.W.3d 491 (Mo. banc 2004), which was pending at the time that Whitfield was decided: Because this case was tried after the United States Supreme Court decided Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), the principles set out in Ring must be applied to it. As stated in Whitfield, this means that, where, as here, the jury was unable to agree on punishment and the record fails to show that the jury found all facts necessary to impose a sentence of death, the trial court's only authority was to enter a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of probation or parole. Id. at 491. [6] Mr. Taylor correctly notes that he presents yet another of these cases in which a judge rather than a jury determined the facts necessary to impose a death sentence and that he too is entitled under Apprendi-Ring-Blakely-Whitfield to have his death sentence set aside. He argues that, having determined in Whitfield that the right to have a jury determine the facts necessary to punishment applies retroactively, the state cannot pick and choose to which defendants or in which fact situations that right will be retroactively applied without violating equal protection principles. I agree. Indeed, the state concedes in its brief that [t]here is no dispute that Ring . . . applies retroactively to Missouri cases under State v. Whitfield . . .. The reason for this concession is evident. While in his case a jury deadlock was not the reason that a judge imposed punishment, Ring and its progeny were not based on jury deadlock. In fact, Ring itself did not involve a jury deadlock. Rather, it involved a jury verdict of guilt, but the judge then found additional facts that justified an increase in punishment over that which would have been authorized by the charge submitted to the jury. It was this additional fact-finding that Ring found improper. 536 U.S. at 592-93, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Likewise, neither Apprendi nor Blakely involved a deadlocked jurythe defendants in both of those cases first pleaded guilty and thereafter sentences were imposed based on judge-found facts. Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 470-71, 120 S.Ct. 2348; Blakely, 542 U.S. at 300-01, 124 S.Ct. 2531. Therefore, it is settled that the Sixth Amendment right is to have a jury determine the facts necessary to impose punishment, whatever the context in which that right was denied. In Whitfield and the other Missouri cases that the courts have considered to date, that context was a jury deadlock resulting in judge sentencing. [7] Whitfield held that it would not deviate from Missouri's traditional Linkletter-Stovall test for retroactivity and that under that test the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury determine the facts necessary to impose punishment applied retroactively to those whose sentence had been imposed based on facts found by a judge. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 268. The majority argues that the above retroactivity analysis is irrelevant because the facts of this case are different, in that Mr. Taylor did not get sentenced to death after the jury was unable to agree on punishment but instead pleaded guilty without knowing he had a right to a jury trial on the facts necessary to impose death. While this factual distinction is present, it does not affect the retroactivity analysis, for in all legally relevant respects, Mr. Taylor is in the same position, in that he was denied a jury trial of the facts underlying punishment in violation of Apprendi-Ring-Blakely, just as in Whitfield and the other cases cited. Having chosen in Whitfield to retroactively apply the right to have a jury determine the facts necessary to punishment, this Court must do so uniformly to all similarly situated persons: It is the general doctrine that the law, relative to those who may be charged and convicted of crime, as well as the punishment to be inflicted therefore, shall operate equally upon every citizen or inhabitant of this state. State v. O'Malley, 342 Mo. 641, 117 S.W.2d 319, 325 (1938). O'Malley held it unconstitutional to allow ballot records to be preserved and used against those committing fraud in cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants for a longer period than against those committing fraud in smaller communities, stating: Every one has a right to demand that he be governed by general rules, and a special statute which, without his consent, singles his case out as one to be regulated by a different law from that which is applied in all similar cases, would not be legitimate legislation, but would be such an arbitrary mandate as is not within the province of free governments. Id. Similarly, in State v. Baker, 524 S.W.2d 122 (Mo. banc 1975), this Court held that a statute that mandated consecutive sentences for defendants convicted of two crimes, but did so only if they had not yet been sentenced for either crime, violated equal protection because the chronological order in which they were sentenced was immaterial to the reasons why a consecutive sentence might be appropriate. For this reason, for equal protection purposes, they were similarly situated and must be similarly treated, for Equal protection does not require that all persons be dealt with identically, but it does require that a distinction made have some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made. Id. at 129. As noted in Smith v. State, 680 S.W.2d 412, 413 (Mo.App.1984), citing State v. Brown, 554 S.W.2d 574 (Mo.App.1977), [s]ubsequent cases applied Baker retroactively and required that all defendants sentenced under its guidelines must be resentenced. See also State v. Davis, 765 S.W.2d 603, 605-06 (Mo. banc 1989) (equal protection requires equal treatment of those similarly situated and discrimination based upon a ground wholly irrelevant to the achievement of the legislative objective violates equal protection principles). To allow defendants who plead guilty, such as Mr. Taylor, to be singled out and deprived of the right to jury determination of the facts on which punishment is based runs afoul of this basic principle of equal treatment. As the Ninth Circuit has stated the point in holding that the California Supreme Court would violate the equal protection clause if it gave one class of persons but not another the benefit of retroactive application of its rule providing defendants a right to an impartial jury: The equal protection clause prohibits a state from affording one person (other than the litigant whose case is the vehicle for the promulgation of a new rule) the retroactive benefit of a ruling on a state constitution's right to an impartial jury while denying it to another. Myers v. Ylst, 897 F.2d 417, 421 (9th Cir. 1990). Similarly in LaRue v. McCarthy, 833 F.2d 140 (9th Cir.1987), the Ninth Circuit held that California could not pick and chose those to whom it would retroactively apply a rule that prohibited basing felony murder charges on child abuse. Rather, the state must apply its rule retroactively in all cases or in none because once a state has established a rule it must be applied evenhandedly. Id. at 142, citing, Johnson v. Arizona, 462 F.2d 1352, 1354 (9th Cir.1972). Johnson had held that Arizona could not apply a decision striking down determinant sentences retroactively in some cases but not all without violating equal protection principles. Id. at 1354. Other courts are in accord. Hill v. Roberts, 793 F.Supp. 1044 (D.Ks.1992), stated that a state is free to choose whether to apply many constitutional rules retroactively. But, it said: The equal protection clause clearly prohibits a state from affording one person the retroactive benefit of a ruling and denying it to another who is similarly situated. Id. at 1046. To the contrary, once a state establishes a new rule, it must be applied evenhandedly. Id. Hill found that the state had applied its new rule only to pending cases and, therefore, had not violated the equal protection clause. Here, unlike in Hill, this Court has applied its new rule retroactively to cases that were not pending at the time of the new rule. It cannot now choose not to apply it retroactively to some but not other cases in which that Sixth Amendment right was violated. While the particular reasons that Mr. Taylor and Mr. Whitfield were denied jury sentencinga guilty plea as opposed to a hung jurymay be different, they are similarly situated insofar as the Sixth Amendment right to a jury determination of the facts on which punishment is based is concerned. Apprendi, Ring, Blakely and Whitfield all involved very different fact situations, but all reached the same result because, in the only relevant respect, all were identicalin each the defendant was denied a jury determination of the facts necessary for punishment. Ring states that allowing a judge rather than a jury to find the facts necessary to impose death violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to jury trial. Blakely says that this principle extends to situations in which a defendant has pleaded guilty. Even in the case of a plea agreement, therefore, the state cannot violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to jury trial on all facts necessary to impose a sentence. Here, Mr. Taylor did not receive a jury trial on punishment, although he had a right to a jury determination of the facts necessary to impose the death penalty. As this Court noted on the prior appeal of this case in discussing the statutory right to jury trial, where a defendant previously had a right to have a jury impose sentence, section 565.035.5(3) does allow `a new jury' to be selected for purposes of imposing sentence. Taylor, 929 S.W.2d at 219. Mr. Taylor was denied this right here.