Opinion ID: 2620316
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harrison Applies to the States

Text: In evaluating the validity of Mr. Lujan’s convictions, the California Court of Appeal conducted a harmful error analysis that considered Mr. Lujan’s trial testimony as independent evidence of his guilt. In reviewing Mr. Lujan’s federal habeas petition, the district court concluded that this analysis resulted in a decision that was contrary to the clearly LUJAN V. GARCIA 15 established federal law of Harrison. Respondent appeals this determination.2 Respondent argues that, because the Supreme Court’s decision in Harrison does not interpret any provision of federal law applicable to the States, Harrison is not clearly established federal law entitling Petitioner to federal habeas relief. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). In Harrison, the confessions were illegally procured according to rules applicable only to federal prosecutions.3 For this reason, Respondent argues that “Harrison was of non-constitutional dimension applicable only to federal prosecutions.” Harrison is not strictly a case holding that, under its unique set of facts, the use of the defendant’s trial testimony was unconstitutional. Rather, as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s own characterization of the case, Harrison is a Fifth Amendment case: If the prosecution has actually violated the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights by introducing an inadmissible confession at 2 The district court further applied the harmless error standard announced in Brecht and concluded that the error was not harmless “[b]ased on its substantial impact on the prosecution’s presentation of the facts, on the proof of material elements of the charges, on the defense strategy, and on the selection of the jury instructions given by the trial court, it is clear the trial court’s error in admitting the confession had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s verdict.” Respondent does not appeal this determination. We therefore accept the district court’s Brecht determination. 3 We note, however, that whether or not the confessions were illegally procured was not an issue in dispute before the Supreme Court in Harrison. 16 LUJAN V. GARCIA trial, compelling the defendant to testify in rebuttal, the rule announced in Harrison v. United States[,] 392 U.S. 219[](1968), precludes use of that testimony on retrial. Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 316–17 (1985). The Supreme Court could not have been any plainer. Harrison is clearly established federal law under § 2254(d)(1) because, as the district court explained in its well-reasoned opinion, Harrison looked to constitutional principles and case law to structure an exclusionary rule that would safeguard the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. The Harrison exclusionary rule applies to the case at bar because Mr. Lujan testified as to his guilt at trial “in order to overcome the impact of confessions illegally obtained and hence improperly introduced” at trial. Harrison, 392 U.S. at 223. Where, as here, such a causal link is shown, Harrison explains that the inculpatory trial “testimony was tainted by the same illegality that rendered the confessions themselves inadmissible.” Id. Under the Harrison exclusionary rule, the defendant’s inculpatory trial testimony, therefore, cannot be considered as evidence of the defendant’s guilt to support a conviction. Harrison created a clear exclusionary rule that, when applicable, precludes the use of a defendant’s inculpatory trial testimony to incriminate him in later proceedings. The Supreme Court laid out the framework for deciding whether its exclusionary rule applies as follows: The question is not whether the petitioner made a knowing decision to testify [at trial], but why. If he did so in order to overcome the LUJAN V. GARCIA 17 impact of confessions illegally obtained and hence improperly introduced, then his testimony was tainted by the same illegality that rendered the confessions themselves inadmissible. Id. Respondent focuses on the dissenting opinions in Harrison to argue that this rule does not apply to the States. For example, Respondent points to Justice White’s dissenting opinion, which states that the Harrison majority did not hold that a defendant’s decision to testify in response to the admission of an illegally obtained confession compels him to be a witness against himself in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Id. at 229 (White, J., dissenting). This argument misses the point of the Harrison majority opinion. The majority opinion outlines a “fruit of the illegally procured confessions” exception to the “general evidentiary rule that a defendant’s testimony at a former trial is admissible in evidence against him in later proceedings.” Id. at 221–22. The Fifth Amendment’s privilege against compulsory self-incrimination is not waived when a defendant’s testimony is impelled by the need to counter his own out-of-court confession that was illegally obtained by law enforcement and improperly admitted by the government in its case-in-chief. Id. at 221–24. As set forth in Harrison, a criminal defendant’s Fifth Amendment constitutional protection against compulsory self-incrimination is violated by the use of that defendant’s inadmissible confession in the prosecutor’s case-in-chief. Id. at 222–23 & n.9. When such a constitutional violation occurs, Harrison requires that both the confession and, if 18 LUJAN V. GARCIA induced by the unlawfully admitted confession, any inculpatory trial testimony be excluded from later proceedings.4 Id. at 222–24. The Supreme Court structured its rule in this way so as to fully eradicate the Fifth Amendment violation from later proceedings. The Supreme Court reasoned that any testimonial admission of guilt induced by such a Fifth Amendment violation at trial must be excluded because to hold otherwise would take away the essence of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. Borrowing from its Fourth Amendment case of Silverthorne, the Harrison court found the following principle to fit within its Fifth Amendment exclusionary rule framework: [T]he ‘essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all.’ Id. at 222 (quoting Silverthorne, 251 U.S. at 392). The Court further relied on a truncated portion of the following language from People v. Spencer, 66 Cal. 2d 158 (1967), as support for the Harrison exclusionary rule: 4 In Harrison, the burden rested with the government to show that its illegal action did not induce the trial testimony at issue. 392 U.S. at 225. Here, however, this burden and who properly bears it on federal habeas review is not at issue. Petitioner provides evidence that he did not wish to testify at trial in the event his out-of-court confession was suppressed. Respondent does not provide any evidence to dispute this. Thus, we presume that the unlawful admission of Petitioner’s out-of-court confession impelled his trial testimony. LUJAN V. GARCIA 19 If the improper use of defendant’s extrajudicial confession impelled his testimonial admission of guilt, we could hardly sustain his conviction on the theory that his confession to the police, although inadmissible, merely duplicated his subsequent confession to the jury; in that event we could not, in order to shield the resulting conviction from reversal, separate what he told the jury on the witness stand from what he confessed to the police during interrogation. See Spencer, 66 Cal. 2d at 164 (holding defendant’s trial testimony could not be considered on harmless error review absent a sufficient showing that the defendant did not take the stand as a result of the government’s use of an improper confession in court); Harrison, 392 U.S. at 223–24. In sum, Harrison focuses on how to cure a specific Fifth Amendment violation – the unlawful admission of a criminal defendant’s confession. The exclusionary rule outlined in Harrison had nothing to do with the underlying reasons why the unlawfully admitted confessions were inadmissible. What mattered was that they were inadmissible. This is evident from the Supreme Court’s discussion of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination as the principle that prohibits the government’s use of a “wrongfully obtained” confession against a defendant during the government’s case-in-chief. See Harrison, 392 U.S. at 222. The Supreme Court held that this “same principle . . . prohibits the use of any testimony impelled” by the use of the wrongfully procured confession at trial. Id. As set forth above, Harrison outlines a clear exclusionary rule that applies to the States. 20 LUJAN V. GARCIA