Opinion ID: 786766
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Substantial and Injurious Effect

Text: 45 Before Sanders is entitled to habeas relief, however, we must also apply our own harmless-error analysis to determine whether the Eighth Amendment error had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury's verdict. When a federal judge in a habeas proceeding is in grave doubt about whether a trial error of federal law had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict, that error is not harmless. And, the petitioner must win. O'Neal v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 436, 115 S.Ct. 992, 130 L.Ed.2d 947 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). 46 Morales v. Woodford, 336 F.3d 1136 (9th Cir.2003), another federal habeas case involving California's post-1978 death-penalty law, provides a point of contrast. In that case, applying Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993), we found harmless an invalid special circumstance weighed by the jury in the penalty phase, where the jury also relied on another valid special circumstance in deciding to impose the death penalty. The invalid special circumstance required the jury to find that the murder involved the infliction of torture (defined as the infliction of extreme pain). Morales, 336 F.3d at 1145 & n. 20 (internal quotation marks omitted). However, the special circumstance did not require the jury to find that the defendant intentionally tortured the victim. Id. Applying our prior caselaw, we held that special circumstance constitutionally invalid because the unintentional infliction of extreme pain might have nothing to do with the mental state or culpability of the defendant and would not seem to provide a principled basis for distinguishing capital murder from any other murder. Id. at 1146; see also Wade v. Calderon, 29 F.3d 1312, 1320 (9th Cir.1994) (invalidating this special circumstance), overruled on other grounds, Rohan ex rel. Gates v. Woodford, 334 F.3d 803, 815 (9th Cir.2003). 47 Despite this legal conclusion, we noted that the facts strongly suggested that the defendant had tortured the victim and that he had done so intentionally. There[was] no reason to doubt that after [the defendant] failed to kill [the victim] by strangling her with [a] belt, he beat her head in with a hammer, and when she still lived, dragged her out of the car, raped her, and stabbed her several times. Morales, 336 F.3d at 1149. Given this overwhelming evidence, the jury would have reached the unavoidable conclusion that the defendant intended to inflict extreme pain on the victim as part of the murder. Id. Because we did not doubt in Morales that the jury in fact did find that the defendant intended to torture the victim, we concluded that the constitutional error had no substantial or injurious effect on the defendant's sentencing. 48 Here, in contrast, the jury likely considered the legally improper aspects of the invalid special circumstances. The jury could well have relied on the vague language in the heinous-murder instruction in finding the murder heinous, atrocious, and cruel. The facts do nothing to cure the problem with this special circumstance, because the terms of that circumstance are `so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.'  People v. Superior Court (Engert) 31 Cal.3d 797, 801, 183 Cal.Rptr. 800, 647 P.2d 76 (1982) (quoting Connally v. Gen. Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926)). 49 The jury also easily could have considered the improper aspect of the burglary-murder special circumstance. According to the California Supreme Court, the flaw in the burglary-murder special circumstance was that the trial court's felony-murder jury instructions during the guilt phase had improperly permitted the jury to find a burglary based on[Sanders'] intent to commit an assault. Sanders, 51 Cal.3d at 517, 273 Cal.Rptr. 537, 797 P.2d 561. Because the jury could have improperly found first degree felony murder by bootstrapping — finding burglary based on intent to assault and then using the finding of burglary to convict Sanders of first degree murder without proof of malice aforethought and premeditation — the California Supreme Court held the burglary-murder special circumstance instruction generally invalid. 5 Id. at 509, 517, 273 Cal.Rptr. 537, 797 P.2d 561. Given that it was unclear from the evidence presented at trial whether Sanders or Cebreros actually killed Allen, and that at least one of the defendants, who may have been Sanders, said that he wanted to leave before the murder began, it is realistic to conceive that a juror could have concluded that Sanders entered Boender's apartment intending only to commit assault, not murder. If the jury had concluded that Sanders' burglary was committed with only an intent to commit assault, the jury's finding of the burglary-murder special circumstance was improper. Therefore, we cannot conclude that the facts of the case made the legal problems in the aggravating circumstance instructions harmless. 50 We may not conclude that the jury's consideration of these aggravating circumstances did not substantially influence the jury's assessment of Sanders' suitability for the death penalty. 6 As outlined above, California's weighing process differs from that of other weighing states. Under California law, `weighing' ... connotes a mental balancing process, but certainly not one which calls for a mere mechanical counting of factors ... or the arbitrary assignment of `weights' to any of them. Brown, 40 Cal.3d at 542, 230 Cal.Rptr. 834, 726 P.2d 516. We cannot know as an appellate court what individual weight a juror assigned to a finding of an aggravating special circumstance. Thus we may not simply assume harmless error because of the presence of other aggravating circumstances or the absence of mitigating ones. 51 On the facts here, we cannot say with sufficient certainty that the jury's consideration of the two improper special circumstances did not substantially influence its sentencing determination. There is good reason to believe that the jury may have had doubts about Sanders' role in the murder and that it may thus have been only marginally inclined to impose the death penalty. There was no physical or overwhelming circumstantial evidence indicating who, as between Sanders and Cebreros, delivered the fatal blow to Allen's head. 52 There was also considerable uncertainty about the extent to which the murder had been pre-planned by Sanders. On the one hand, Maxwell testified that after the first attempted robbery, Sanders had expressed concern that Boender could identify him. On the other hand, Thompson told Maxwell after the murder that Allen wasn't supposed to be dead and that wasn't what was planned. 53 Similarly, the existence of other factors did not overwhelmingly compel a death sentence to the point where we can state with confidence that these circumstances, and not the invalid heinous-murder or burglary-murder special circumstances, were decisive determinants of the death sentence. Certainly, Sanders' prior violent robberies and felony conviction were aggravating. However, the last robbery he committed was 11 years before the robbery of Boender and Allen. As for the robbery-murder and witness-killing aggravating circumstances, it is not clear they would have made the heinous murder circumstance merely superfluous, because the heinous-murder circumstance may have particularly emphasized the brutal nature of Allen's murder and thus have compelled the jurors to vote for death. The jury might have chosen to be more lenient because the means by which the victim was killed, beating rather than shooting or stabbing, do not necessarily imply an intention to cause death. The jury might also have chosen to be lenient with Sanders because Maxwell, despite her initiative in bringing about the murder, was not even charged. We cannot, of course, reconstruct the jury's penalty determination, but there is enough uncertainty in this case to cause us to believe that consideration of the improper circumstances may well have had a substantial effect or influence on the jury's determination. 54 The state contends that consideration of the two invalid special circumstances was harmless because when the title special circumstance is removed from the evidence the substance of that evidence remains intact. Even assuming that the state is correct that on the facts of this case, the jury could still have considered the substance of the evidence that led it to find true the invalid special circumstances, we have grave doubt as to whether it would have imposed death absent the special-circumstance label. This was a close case, for the reasons we have already discussed, including the uncertainty as to who struck the fatal blow and which assailant wanted to leave before Allen was killed. We also note that the first jury hung on guilt. In such a situation, unlike in Morales and Allen where we could easily ascertain what led the jury to impose death, in this case the jury's improper weighing of special circumstances may well have mattered. 55 In sum, the jury was told to weigh two special circumstances that were improperly deemed special circumstances. In a weighing state, if the trier of fact is erroneously directed to weigh certain aggravating factors due to an invalid jury instruction, and that misdirection substantially affects the jury's sentencing determination, then the defendant has not received a properly individualized sentence and the error is not harmless. In these circumstances, we are required to grant habeas relief. Here, the jury was erroneously instructed on two special circumstances that it may have applied in an invalid manner, and we have grave doubt about whether that error had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Accordingly, applying the standards of Brecht, 507 U.S. at 638, 113 S.Ct. 1710, and O'Neal, 513 U.S. at 440, 115 S.Ct. 992, we hold the error to be not harmless.