Opinion ID: 1802482
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Harris's Batson Claim

Text: In her Rule 32 petition, Harris contends that, in exercising its peremptory strikes of members of the venire, the prosecutor in Harris's trial violated Batson by purposefully discriminating against potential black jurors. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that Harris's Batson claim was procedurally barred under Rules 32.2(a)(2) and (4), Ala. R.Crim. P., as a ground that had been raised and addressed at trial and on direct appeal. Harris I, 947 So.2d at 1091. We note that Rules 32.2(a)(3) and (5), Ala. R.Crim. P., also preclude relief based on any ground that could have been, but was not, raised at trial or on appeal, with an exception not applicable here for grounds questioning the trial court's jurisdiction. Indeed, Harris's Batson claim was raised at trial and on direct appeal, but was rejected based on the following language set forth in Harrell v. State, 571 So.2d 1270, 1271 (Ala.1990): When the evidence shows only that blacks were struck and that a greater percentage of blacks sat on the jury than sat on the lawfully established venire, an inference of discrimination has not been created. See Harris v. State, 632 So.2d at 513. However, in Ex parte Thomas, 659 So.2d 3, 7 (Ala.1994), a case decided after Harris's direct appeals at the state level had been exhausted, but before the United States Supreme Court had disposed of her case on certiorari review, this Court held: We disapprove the statement in Harrell [ v. State, 571 So.2d 1270 (Ala.1990),] indicating that `[w]hen the evidence shows only that blacks were struck and that a greater percentage of blacks sat on the jury than sat on the lawfully established venire, an inference of discrimination has not been created,' 571 So.2d at 1271, to the extent that it has been construed to preclude a finding of a prima facie Batson violation where the attorney engaged in a pattern of striking blacks from the venire. In her appeal from the circuit court's denial of her Rule 32 petition, Harris argued to the Court of Criminal Appeals that, even though she had made a Batson claim at trial and on direct appeal, she was entitled to have that claim reviewed in light of Thomas, which she contended had a retroactive effect and was applicable to convictions not yet final when Thomas was announced. In effect, she argued that such retroactivity was an exception to the procedural bars of Rule 32.2. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that Thomas did not establish a new rule of criminal procedure, and therefore did not apply retroactively to Harris's Batson challenge. Harris I, 947 So.2d at 1094. Therefore, the court concluded, Harris's Batson claim was procedurally barred. We granted Harris's petition for the writ of certiorari in order to determine if the Court of Criminal Appeals' ruling that Harris's Batson claim was procedurally barred conflicts with that court's prior cases indicating that Thomas should be applied retroactively to convictions not yet final when Thomas was decided. In support of her argument in favor of retroactive application of Thomas, Harris cites Gorum v. State, 671 So.2d 761, 764 (Ala.Crim.App.1994), a case decided on December 29, 1994, in which the Court of Criminal Appeals held: The Alabama Supreme Court issued an opinion in Ex parte Thomas on May 20, 1994. On September 2, 1994, the Supreme Court withdrew the May 20, 1994, opinion and substituted another one. We note that the appellant was tried on February 28, 1994, before the Alabama Supreme Court issued its original opinion in Ex parte Thomas on May 20, 1994. Nevertheless, Thomas controls.  (Emphasis added.) Harris contends that the above-emphasized language in Gorum reveals that this Court's decision in Thomas should be applied retroactively in considering her Batson claim. Thus, Harris contends, the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision in the instant case conflicts with Gorum. However, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Gorum was considering a Batson claim presented on direct appeal. Gorum did not involve postconviction collateral review under Rule 32, Ala. R.Crim. P. Harris cites several other decisions by the Court of Criminal Appeals that she contends also indicate that Thomas should be applied retroactively. However, like Gorum, those decisions all involved direct appeals. See, e.g., Stargell v. State, 672 So.2d 1359 (Ala.Crim.App. 1994); Drake v. State, 668 So.2d 877 (Ala. Crim.App.1995); and McClain v. State, 659 So.2d 161 (Ala.Crim.App.1994). None of the cases Harris cites held that Thomas must be applied under the circumstance here presented, i.e., a postconviction collateral attack in a case in which the Thomas decision followed unsuccessful direct state appeals attacking the original judgment of conviction, but preceded the United States Supreme Court's decision on certiorari review. [1] Harris contends that she is nevertheless entitled to the retroactive benefit of Thomas. This is so, Harris argues, because certiorari review of this Court's affirmance on direct appeal of Harris's conviction and sentence was still pending in the United States Supreme Court when this Court decided Thomas. In other words, Harris argues that, as in the Gorum line of cases making Thomas available to other cases on direct appeal, her conviction, pending on certiorari review in the United States Supreme Court, was not final when Thomas was decided. Harris cites Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), in which the United States Supreme Court held that Batson should be applied retroactively to cases not yet final when Batson was decided. The Griffith Court defined a final case as a case in which a judgment of conviction has been rendered, the availability of appeal exhausted, and the time for a petition for certiorari [to the United States Supreme Court] elapsed or a petition for certiorari finally denied. 479 U.S. at 321 n. 6, 107 S.Ct. 708. Because certiorari review of her conviction and sentence was still pending in the United States Supreme Court when this Court decided Thomas, Harris contends that her conviction was not yet final and that therefore Thomas should be retroactively applied to her Batson claim. We disagree. The United States Supreme Court in Griffith was dealing with the retroactive application of its own earlier decision ( Batson ) to a conviction, still subject to review by certiorari in that Court, that had been affirmed by a state supreme court and where the petition for the writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court challenged that affirmance. Griffith did not, nor do any other cases cited by Harris, involve the retroactive application of a state court's interpretation of United States Supreme Court precedent, expressly overruling a prior interpretation of that state court, to a conviction that had been upheld by the state court on direct appeal, yet was, at the time of the new pronouncement, subject to further review only by certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. And we do not construe Griffith as requiring such retroactive application. Harris contends that the United States Supreme Court's reasons for applying its most current interpretation of the United States Constitution to cases still subject to that court's direct review compel this Court to apply Thomas retroactively to cases that had been finally reviewed by our Court on direct appeal yet were still pending in the United States Supreme Court when Thomas was announced. We disagree. In Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 304, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), the United States Supreme Court restated its reasons for applying its most current interpretation of federal constitutional law to only those cases that are still subject to that Court's direct review, either on certiorari review of state-court proceedings affirming a judgment of conviction on direct appeal or directly from a United States Circuit Court of Appeals: In Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1987), we rejected as unprincipled and inequitable the Linkletter [ v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618 (1965),] standard for cases pending on direct review at the time a new rule is announced, and adopted the first part of the retroactivity approach advocated by Justice Harlan [in Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 675 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in part and dissenting in part); and Desist v. United States, 394 U.S. 244, 256 (Harlan, J., dissenting)]. We agreed with Justice Harlan that `failure to apply a newly declared constitutional rule to criminal cases pending on direct review violates basic norms of constitutional adjudication.' 479 U.S., at 322. We gave two reasons for our decision. First, because we can only promulgate new rules in specific cases and cannot possibly decide all cases in which review is sought, `the integrity of judicial review' requires the application of the new rule to `all similar cases pending on direct review.' Id., at 323. We quoted approvingly from Justice Harlan's separate opinion in Mackey, supra, 401 U.S., at 679: `If we do not resolve all cases before us on direct review in light of our best understanding of governing constitutional principles, it is difficult to see why we should so adjudicate any case at all. . . . In truth, the Court's assertion of power to disregard current law in adjudicating cases before us that have not already run the full course of appellate review is quite simply an assertion that our constitutional function is not one of adjudication but in effect of legislation.' 479 U.S., at 323. (Emphasis added.) Thus, the United States Supreme Court has determined that, as a judicial body, it must consider its most current interpretation of federal constitutional law in disposing of cases arising from direct review, as opposed to collateral review of a postconviction petition, i.e., it considers its most current interpretation in cases petitioning for the writ of certiorari to the lower appellate court seeking review of the affirmance of a conviction by such court on direct appeal. That is precisely what this Court did when we decided Harris's Batson claim on direct appeal from the judgment of conviction based on Harrell, which was our most current interpretation of what federal constitutional law required at the time. The United States Supreme Court continued in Teague: Second, because `selective application of new rules violates the principle of treating similarly situated defendants the same,' we refused to continue to tolerate the inequity that resulted from not applying new rules retroactively to defendants whose cases had not yet become final. [ Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314], at 323-324 [(1987)] (citing Desist [ v. United States ], 394 U.S. [244], at 258-259 [(1969)] (Harlan, J., dissenting)).' 489 U.S. at 304, 109 S.Ct. 1060. The similarly situated defendants the United States Supreme Court considers itself bound to treat the same are defendants who can still come before that Court on certiorari review of an appeal from a final judgment of conviction or from a decision of a United States Court of Appeals. The term does not include petitioners whose judgments of conviction have previously been affirmed or have otherwise become final and who are now collaterally attacking the conviction in a postconviction proceeding. In fact, the United States Supreme Court refused, in Allen v. Hardy, 478 U.S. 255, 106 S.Ct. 2878, 92 L.Ed.2d 199 (1986), to apply Batson retroactively to a petitioner appearing before that Court on collateral review of a previous final judgment of conviction. The procedural posture of the postconviction petitioner in relation to the United States Supreme Court in Allen is analogous to Harris's posture in relation to this Court in the instant case. Neither the United States Supreme Court's rationale in Griffith for applying its most current interpretation of federal constitutional law to cases pending before it, nor the definition of a final case in Griffith compels the application of Thomas to Harris's Batson claim. Rather, for purposes of Harris's argument that Thomas applies, we conclude that her conviction was final when this Court decided Thomas. Therefore, Harris's case is distinguishable from those cases she cites indicating that Thomas should apply retroactively only to convictions not yet final. Harris does not argue that, even if her conviction became final before Thomas was released, Thomas should nevertheless apply to her. Therefore, we do not address that issue. Because the Court of Criminal Appeals' ruling that Thomas does not apply retroactively to Harris's Batson claim does not conflict with the cases Harris cites, we affirm its judgment. However, we express no opinion as to the Court of Criminal Appeals' conclusion that Thomas did not establish a new rule of criminal procedure. Harris I, 947 So.2d at 1094. We note that in Ex parte Floyd, 571 So.2d 1234 (Ala.1990), a postconviction petitioner argued that he was due a new trial based on an alleged violation of Batson, which was decided after his direct appeals at the state-court level had been exhausted but while his petition for the writ of certiorari was pending before the United States Supreme Court, which ultimately denied that petition. This Court ignored the fact that the petitioner, in his direct appeal, had failed to argue in both the Court of Criminal Appeals and in this Court that the prosecutor had discriminated in exercising peremptory strikes. The Court's action in ignoring what appears to have been a failure to preserve error was based on its conclusion that it was bound to apply Batson pursuant to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Griffith that Batson should apply to cases not yet final when Batson was decided, because that is what the Court in Floyd concluded the United States Supreme Court should have done when Floyd's certiorari petition was pending before it, but inexplicably failed to do. Nothing in Floyd requires this Court in this collateral proceeding to apply Thomas, which effected a change in our construction of United States Supreme Court precedent and which was announced after Harris's direct appeals in the state-court system had been exhausted.