Opinion ID: 2546552
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Can Harmless Error Analysis Apply to Blakely Violations?

Text: ¶ 44 Not all federal constitutional errors require reversal, some may have been harmless in their effect on the trial. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 278-79, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). Some constitutional errors, however, will always invalidate the conviction and are considered structural errors. Id. at 279, 113 S.Ct. 2078. Such violations that have been deemed never to be harmless include a deficient reasonable doubt instruction, deprivation of the right to counsel, a biased trial judge, and violation of the right to self-representation. Id. (citing McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S. 168, 104 S.Ct. 944, 79 L.Ed.2d 122 (1984); Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963); Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927)). ¶ 45 This court addressed the question of whether violation of the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury find facts that increase the penalty for a crime beyond the absolute statutory maximum can be deemed harmless error in State v. Thomas, 150 Wash.2d 821, 849-50, 83 P.3d 970 (2004). There, we analyzed several errors regarding jury instructions and held that violations of the Sixth Amendment right to have a jury find aggravating circumstances cannot be harmless. Id. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely, we still hold that harmless error analysis is inappropriate but take this opportunity to clarify our reasoning. ¶ 46 The Supreme Court's reasoning in Sullivan articulates the absurdity of applying harmless error analysis to Blakely Sixth Amendment violations. See Sullivan, 508 U.S. 275, 113 S.Ct. 2078. There, the Supreme Court held that a constitutionally deficient reasonable doubt instruction could never be harmless, equating it to lack of a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 279-80, 113 S.Ct. 2078. The Court reasoned that the traditional harmless error analysis defined by Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), requiring a showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the error at issue did not contribute to the verdict received, could not be applied where there was no verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt: Consistent with the jury-trial guarantee, the question [ Chapman ] instructs the reviewing court to consider is not what effect the constitutional error might generally be expected to have upon a reasonable jury, but rather what effect it had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand.... The inquiry, in other words, is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. That must be so, because to hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact renderedno matter how inescapable the findings to support that verdict might bewould violate the jury-trial guarantee. Once the proper role of an appellate court engaged in the Chapman inquiry is understood, the illogic of harmless-error review in the present case becomes evident. Since, for the reasons described above, there has been no jury verdict within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment, the entire premise of Chapman review is simply absent. There being no jury verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, the question whether the same verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt would have been rendered absent the constitutional error is utterly meaningless. There is no object, so to speak, upon which harmless-error scrutiny can operate. The most an appellate court can conclude is that a jury would surely have found petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubtnot that the jury's actual finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt would surely not have been different absent the constitutional error. That is not enough. The Sixth Amendment requires more than appellate speculation about a hypothetical jury's action, or else directed verdicts for the State would be sustainable on appeal; it requires an actual jury finding of guilty. Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 279-80, 113 S.Ct. 2078 (some emphasis added) (citations omitted). ¶ 47 The Court reasoned that because there was not a proper reasonable doubt instruction, there had not been a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, there was nothing upon which to apply the harmless error analysis to conclude that, but for the error, the result would have been the same. To the contrary, the court would only have been speculating on how the jury would have found if they had been correctly instructed. ¶ 48 This is directly analogous to the situation presented by judges, rather than juries, finding facts necessary to increase sentences. In each case at hand, there was no jury finding beyond a reasonable doubt of aggravating factors warranting an enhanced sentence. It would be illogical to perform harmless error analysis on the absence of those findings. There is no object upon which to apply harmless error analysis. Instead of asking whether but for the error the findings would have been the same, the court would be asking whether but for the error the findings would have been different. Such an analysis is the equivalent of speculating on the jury's verdict, which the Supreme Court has held is never allowed. [8] ¶ 49 Supporters of harmless error analysis, argue that the Supreme Court and other federal courts have already held that harmless error analysis applies to Apprendi/Blakely Sixth Amendment violations. Those proponents, however, incorrectly characterize United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 631, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002). Instead of holding that harmless error analysis applied to Apprendi violations, the Supreme Court in Cotton actually applied the plain error doctrine. [9] It held that plain error analysis could be applied to Apprendi violations and concluded that the error at issue did not affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceedings. Id. at 631-32., 122 S.Ct. 1781 ¶ 50 The Ninth Circuit subsequently addressed whether harmless error could be applied to Apprendi violations and held that the Supreme Court's analysis in Cotton regarding plain error did not control its decision:  United States v. Cotton . . . does not control nor aid our analysis. The lack of drug quantity in the indictment and jury decision in that case was analyzed under plain error, not harmless error. United States v. Jordan, 291 F.3d 1091, 1096 n. 7 (9th Cir.2002). ¶ 51 The Ninth Circuit went on to find that harmless error is not appropriate where the exceptional sentence is greater than that allowed for the offense charged and found by the jury. Id. at 1096-97. Like the Supreme Court in Sullivan, the Ninth Circuit found that harmless error analysis in such a situation would require too much speculation [w]hen quantity [the basis for the exceptional sentence] is neither alleged in the indictment nor proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, there are too many unknowns to be able to say with any confidence, let alone beyond reasonable doubt, that the error was harmless. Id. at 1096. Additionally, the court was troubled that consideration of the defense's likely response to the aggravating evidence was also speculative. See id. at 1096-97. The court concluded that whenever a fact that increases the maximum sentence is not decided by the jury, the error must be corrected. Id. at 1097. ¶ 52 Harmless error proponents also assert that other persuasive authorities have applied such analysis to Apprendi/Blakely violations. [10] Indeed, some federal jurisdictions have applied harmless error analysis. See, e.g., Campbell v. United States, 364 F.3d 727, 737 (6th Cir.2004) (reasoning that Apprendi errors are trial-type errors subject to harmless error analysis and holding that the reviewing court must determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether the jury would have found the fact at issue in sentencing). The Fifth Circuit also applied harmless error analysis and provided more reasoning for doing so. See United States v. Matthews, 312 F.3d 652 (5th Cir.2002). There, the Fifth Circuit reasoned that an Apprendi violation really contains a defective indictment and a defective jury instruction, neither of which are in the limited class of structural constitutional errors that can never be deemed harmless. Id. at 665. It also noted that the Supreme Court applied harmless error analysis to the omission of offense elements from a jury instruction. But it did not discuss the implicit difference between asking whether but for the error, the jury would have rendered the same or different verdict. ¶ 53 The authority asserted by harmless error proponents is unpersuasive. The federal jurisdictions appear inconsistent in whether they will apply harmless error analysis to Apprendi/Blakely violations. Moreover, the Supreme Court has not yet ruled to clarify this issue. [11] ¶ 54 The proponents of harmless error analysis also seek to analogize Blakely Sixth Amendment violations to omission of offense elements from jury instructions, which the Supreme Court has held is subject to harmless error analysis. [12] See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 9, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999). The Court there held that conclusion was consistent with Sullivan, distinguishing the situation where all of the jury's findings were vitiated by the improper reasonable doubt instruction from that where the jury simply did not explicitly find on one element. Id. at 10-15, 119 S.Ct. 1827. ¶ 55 The situation arising in Blakely Sixth Amendment violations is readily distinguishable from the scenario in Neder. Although Neder involved the situation where a jury did not find facts supporting every element of the crime, it still returned a guilty verdict. Like traditional harmless error analysis cases, the reviewing court could ask whether but for the omission in the jury instruction, the jury would have returned the same verdict. Where Blakely violations are at issue, however, the jury necessarily did not return a special verdict or explicit findings on the aggravating factors supporting the exceptional sentence. The reviewing court asks whether but for the error, the jury would have made different or new findings. This situation is analogous to Sullivan there is no basis upon which to conduct a harmless error analysis. Instead, proponents of harmless error ask this court to speculate on what juries would have done if they had been asked to find different facts. This speculation is not permitted. Harmless error analysis cannot be conducted on Blakely Sixth Amendment violations.