Opinion ID: 1363816
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Connecticut v. Johnson

Text: In Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S. 73 (103 SC 969, 74 LE2d 823) (1983), the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in order to reconcile the conflicting approaches which the courts of this country had taken in resolving the question concerning the circumstances under which a Sandstrom error can be deemed harmless. At the time of the opinion in Johnson, there existed in state and federal courts basically three approaches to the question of whether Sandstrom error could be harmless. Under the first approach, a Sandstrom error would be considered harmless if the evidence of guilt was overwhelming. Under the second approach, the Sandstrom error would not be held harmless if the erroneous charge concerned a disputed issue in the case. Under the third approach, Sandstrom error was never considered to be harmless. See cases cited in Connecticut v. Johnson , 460 U. S., supra at p. 75, n. 1. Johnson and four cohorts abducted a woman. Each of them raped her, after which Johnson bound her hands with wire and threw her over a bridge in a temperature of 23-28 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind-chill factor of negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit. They then took the victim's car, and they were subsequently arrested while they were in or near the car. Johnson's cohorts pleaded guilty. Johnson was charged with, and convicted of, attempted murder, kidnapping, robbery, and sexual assault. His defense was that the woman had consented to travel with the group and to have sex with them, and that Johnson did not intend to kill the woman or keep her car. The trial court gave the jury general instructions concerning the presumption of innocence and the state's burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of each element of the crime. In addition, the trial judge charged the jury that, `a person's intention may be inferred from his conduct and every person is conclusively presumed to intend the natural and necessary consequences of his act . . .' 460 U. S., supra at p. 78. In charging the jury on the elements of the crime of attempted murder, the court again instructed the jury concerning the conclusive presumption. However, as to the kidnapping charge, the trial court instructed the jury that, what a man's intention has been is necessarily very largely a matter of inference. . .. Id. at p. 79, n. 6. On appeal, the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed Johnson's attempted murder and robbery convictions because of the Sandstrom error in the general instructions. However, the court did affirm the appellant's kidnapping conviction on the ground that the permissive language in the kidnapping instruction cured the Sandstrom error in the general instructions, and the sexual-assault conviction was also affirmed on the ground that this was not a specific-intent crime. On certiorari, the United States Supreme Court affirmed. A four-Justice plurality of the United States Supreme Court (composed of Justices Blackmun, Brennan, White and Marshall) held that although it is not true that instructional error of constitutional dimensions may never be harmless, (emphasis in original) id. at p. 83, it is only in rare situations in which an appellate court can hold a Sandstrom error to be harmless. Id. at p. 87. Under the plurality reasoning, the trial judge's instruction to the jury, that the elemental fact or facts are conclusively presumed if the predicate fact or facts are proved, is the functional equivalent of the direction of a verdict on this issue. Id. at p. 84. Since this would result in the jury's failing to consider whether there was any evidence on the issue, the plurality held that even overwhelming evidence on the point would not render harmless the giving of the instruction as to the conclusive presumption. As stated by the plurality, [a]n erroneous presumption on a disputed element of the crime renders irrelevant the evidence on the issue because the jury may have relied upon the presumption rather than upon that evidence. Id. at p. 85. (Emphasis supplied.) The plurality thus concluded that, [s]uch an error deprived [Johnson] of `constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error.' Chapman v. California, 386 U. S., at 23, [87 SC at 827-828]. 460 U. S., supra at p. 88. The plurality did allude to several situations in which harmless error could be found, to wit: If the erroneous instruction was given in connection with an offense for which the defendant was acquitted; if the instruction had no bearing on the offense for which the defendant was convicted [1] ; if the defendant conceded the issue, as by admitting the act and pleading insanity or self-defense (see Parker v. Pace, 254 Ga. 634 (2) (331 SE2d 546) (1985); Krzeminski v. Perini, 614 F2d 121, 125 (6th Cir. 1980)); or, if the defendant pleaded alibi. In Johnson, justice Stevens concurred in the judgment of affirmance, because the Connecticut Supreme Court had refused to hold the Sandstrom error harmless, and this, in Justice Stevens' view, did not present a federal question. The four-Justice dissent in Johnson (composed of Chief Justice Burger, and Justices Powell, Rehnquist and O'Connor) is based on the view that under the harmless-error precept enunciated in Chapman, a Sandstrom error in a jury instruction should be held to be harmless where the evidence so conclusively establishes the particular element that an appellate court can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found it unnecessary to rely on the presumption.