Opinion ID: 6930065
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Whether the jury instructions error was harmless

Text: The Appellate Division held that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, because under State v. Breakiron, 108 N.J. 591, 532 A.2d 199, Perr, Kontakis’ psychiatric witness, should “never have been permitted to testify” with respect to Kontakis’ mental disease or defect. 6 Indeed, the Appellate Division found that “[t]he only possible consequence of the judge’s erroneous admission of [Kontakis’] mental disease or defect evidence and instructing the jury on the point was to improve unjustifiably [his] chances of securing a verdict to a reduced charge of homicide.” The district court rejected the Appellate Division’s finding of harmless error, indicating: In light of the Third Circuit’s explicit directive that ‘a jury may not be told in'this context that the mental disease or defect “evidence must be put aside ... unless it satisfied the preponderance standard,” ’ ... the Court cannot adopt the Appellate Division’s conclusion that any error was harmless because petitioner was not entitled to the instruction. Whether he was entitled to it or not, the Third Circuit has determined that such an instruction is prejudicial. Moreover, even if the trial judge actually had made explicit to the jury [that] the premise underpinning the State’s argument — ie., if the judge had instructed them, ‘Ignore the charge on diminished capacity, because defendant is not entitled to it’ — the Third Circuit also has indicated that ‘[a] charge that contradicts a constitutionally impermissible instruction does not cure the problem, ... when there is a reasonable likelihood that a juror may have understood the charge as conveying an unconstitutional message.’ (App. at 21-22) (emphasis in original; citations omitted). Moreover, the district court ruled that “(g)iven that the jurors were not instructed that petitioner had failed to satisfy the threshold Breakiron requirements, the likelihood of misunderstanding is at least as great in this case as it was in Humanik. Our focus in reviewing the district court’s grant of the writ is on whether Kontakis’ conviction violated “the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.” See Estelle v. McGuire, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 480. Therefore Humanik does not compel or even permit us to grant the writ without considering whether the error was harmful. A contrary holding would violate well-settled Supreme Court precedent that “a constitutional error does not automatically require reversal of a conviction.” Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1263, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991) (Rehnquist, C.J., delivering opinion of the Court on Part II) (citing Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967)). The Court in Fulminante recognized that, after Chapman, the Court “has applied harmless error analysis to a wide range of errors and has recognized that most constitutional errors can be harmless.” Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 306, 111 S.Ct. at 1263 (Rehnquist, C.J.). In discussing the possibility that an error was harmless the Court included a long list of cases involving “‘trial error’ — error which occurred during the presentation of the ease to the jury.” These cases included opinions considering infirm jury instructions. 7 Id. Accordingly, we hold that Ful- minante requires us to make a harmless error analysis when determining whether ha-beas relief should be granted on the basis that there had been unconstitutional jury instructions at a state trial. The Supreme Court now has ruled that in a habeas case, as distinct from a direct appeal, federal courts should apply the test set forth in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1253, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), to determine whether constitutional trial errors are harmless. Brecht v. Abrahamson, — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1722, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). The Kotteakos test provides that the error is not harmless if it “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1722 (quoting Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 776, 66 S.Ct. at 1253). 8 Thus, as the Supreme Court has found that errors in jury instructions fall within the category of trial errors, we apply the Kotteakos harmless error standard. 9 The Supreme Court has provided specific guidance for assessing whether a constitutional error in a jury instruction was harmless. In Estelle v. McGuire the Court found that the “only question for us is “whether the ailing jury instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.’ ” — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 482 (quoting Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 147, 94 S.Ct. 396, 400, 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973)). Moreover, Estelle recognized that “the instruction ‘may not be judged in artificial isolation,’ but must be considered in the context of the instructions as a whole and the trial record.” — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 482 (quoting Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. at 147, 94 S.Ct. at 400-01); see also Rock v. Zimmerman, 959 F.2d 1237, 1247 (3d Cir.) (in banc), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 3036, 120 L.Ed.2d 905 (1992).2 We hold that, under the reasoning of Estelle and Cupp, in our assessment whether Kontakis’ conviction violated the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States, we should view the state criminal proceeding as a whole, including the opinions on the state appeals. See Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 101 S.Ct. 764, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981). Of course, we need not follow a state court decision construing federal or constitutional law. Nonetheless, we find no justification for isolating the trial from the balance of the state, criminal proceedings when we determine whether the giving of unconstitutional jury instructions requires that we grant a habeas remedy. But Kontakis argues that Perr’s testimony satisfied Breakiron’s admissibility standards and therefore the Appellate Division erred as a matter of state law when it found his mental disease and defect evidence inadmissible. Accordingly, he views the Appellate Division opinion as flawed. 10 Kontakis also argues that he satisfied the Breakiron test by introducing other evidence admissible under state law to support his contention that his mental state negated an element of the offense. 11 Accordingly, Kontakis contends that the erroneous instructions allowed the jury to disregard valid evidence supporting his Humanik argument. The difficulty with Kontakis’ contention regarding the admissibility of Perr’s testimony is that it cannot be accommodated to the principle that “federal habeas corpus relief does not lie for errors of state law.” Estelle v. McGuire, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 480 (citations omitted). Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that “the Due Process Clause does not permit the federal courts to engage in a finely tuned review of the wisdom of state evidentiary rules.” Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 438 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. 843, 853 n. 6, 74 L.Ed.2d 646 (1983) (citing Spencer v. Texas, 385 U.S. 554, 564, 87 S.Ct. 648, 653-54, 17 L.Ed.2d 606 (1967)). 12 Therefore, we will not review the Appellate Division’s evidentiary ruling for errors of state law as if we were the New Jersey Supreme Court. Rather, we limit our review to determining whether, when viewing the state criminal proceedings as a whole, including the appellate proceedings, Kontakis’ conviction violated his constitutional rights. Therefore, as Kontakis does not argue that the exclusion of Perr’s testimony violated his constitutional rights, we accept the Appellate Division’s opinion and we will exclude that testimony in our harmless error analysis. The jury, after all, should never have heard the evidence and thus should not have been permitted to base a verdict on it. Therefore even though, as the district court noted, the instructions carried “an unconstitutional message” that did not matter. If there were no other state of mind evidence, this would end our inquiry for, as the Appellate Division concluded, in ■ these circumstances Kontakis could not possibly have been harmed by the faulty instructions. The instructions would have done nothing more than place a burden on Kontakis to establish a defense not even in issue in the case. But they would not have altered the state’s obligation to prove the elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, if Perr’s testimony had been stricken at the trial, and the erroneous instructions nevertheless given, they could have been used by the jury only to cast doubt on the state’s case even though they would have been given in a vacuum, i.e., given though not justified by the evidence. But this conclusion in itself does not resolve the question of whether the giving of the unconstitutional jury instructions was harmless error, for we must address the possibility that the instructions precluded the jury from properly considering Kontakis’ lay evidence concerning his state of mind. We will assume without deciding that the erroneous instructions Could have caused a reasonable juror to disregard Kontakis’ lay evidence on state of mind unless the juror found the evidence more probable than not. Therefore, as required by Brecht, we consider whether the jury’s possible failure to consider the evidence had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Accordingly, we reiterate Kontakis’ state of mind evidence. First, his brother testified that in January and February 1985, Kontakis threatened suicide and acted irrationally. Second, Hartley testified that Kontakis was “obsessed” with his marital problems such that he was unable to drive a car and called her 10 or 11 times each night. Third, Retner testified that on the day before the shooting, Kontakis was “in a very bad state of mind, ... was acting very irrationally, ... [and] was very suicidal that night.” Finally, his mother testified that Kontakis threatened suicide twice daily in March 1985. While there can be no doubt that the lay evidence demonstrated that Kontakis was emotionally distraught when he killed his wife, it is clear that the evidence regarding Kontakis’ acting purposely at the time of the shooting was so overwhelming that even if the jury did not consider Kontakis’ lay state of mind evidence, this omission could not have had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” Indeed, Kontakis’ lay evidence did not tend to negate the evidence that on the day of the shooting he acted purposely or knowingly. Quite to the contrary, it demonstrated the anger he felt and supplied evidence of his motive to act purposely in retaliation for what he believed was his wife’s misconduct. In this regard we emphasize that we are concerned with evidence of Kontakis’ mental state insofar as it related to his ability to act purposely and knowingly rather than in the abstract or for some other purpose. Of course, the evidence that Kontakis acted purposely and knowingly is manifest. It demonstrated that: (1) two days before the shooting Kontakis rented a car so he could follow his wife secretly in a ear she would not recognize; (2) on the day of the shooting, he waited outside Granny’s Deli and the post office for his wife to enter the post office; (8) after she left the post office he shoved her into an automobile; and (4) after arguing with his wife, he shot her three times in the head from a close distance. It would be difficult to produce more compelling evidence that a person committing a homicide acted purposely and knowingly. Furthermore, Brunt testified that Kontakis’ mental problems did not affect his ability to act with purpose and knowledge and Perr did not contradict him on this point. Therefore, we reject the district court’s order that Kontakis was entitled to habeas relief on the basis of Humanik: