Opinion ID: 2625939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Should the Court Review Sixth Amendment Ring II Error as Structural Error or for Harmless Error?

Text: ¶ 44 The Supreme Court struck down Arizona's former capital sentencing statutes because they permitted a judge, rather than a jury, to find aggravating factors. Ring II, 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. at 2443. We conclude that Arizona's failure to submit this element of capital murder to the jury does not constitute structural error. Consequently, the Sixth Amendment does not require automatic reversal of a death sentence imposed under the former sentencing statutes. Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 1833, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999); Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306-07, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1263, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). Instead, we will review the defendants' capital sentences for harmless error. ¶ 45 Most errors that we consider on appeal, even those involving constitutional error, constitute trial errors, which occur[ ] during the presentation of the case to the jury, and which may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented. Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 307-08, 111 S.Ct. at 1264. In cases involving trial error, we consider whether the error, so assessed, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. If so, we uphold the verdict entered. In a limited number of cases, however, structural error occurs. In such instances, we automatically reverse the guilty verdict entered. Unlike trial errors, structural errors deprive defendants of `basic protections' without which `a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence ... and no criminal punishment may be regarded as fundamentally fair.' Neder, 527 U.S. at 8-9, 119 S.Ct. at 1833 (quoting Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 577-78, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3106, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986)). ¶ 46 The Supreme Court has defined relatively few instances in which we should regard error as structural. Those instances involve errors such as a biased trial judge, [9] complete denial of criminal defense counsel, [10] denial of access to criminal defense counsel during an overnight trial recess, [11] denial of self-representation in criminal cases, [12] defective reasonable doubt jury instructions, [13] exclusion of jurors of the defendant's race from grand jury selection, [14] excusing a juror because of his views on capital punishment, [15] and denial of a public criminal trial. [16] In all those instances, the error infected the entire trial process from beginning to end. Neder, 527 U.S. at 8, 119 S.Ct. at 1833 (quoting Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 630, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1717, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993)). ¶ 47 The Court's Ring II decision turned upon the fact that aggravating circumstances serve as the functional equivalent of an element of the greater capital murder offense, rather than as a sentencing factor. Ring II, 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. at 2443. Because Arizona's enumerated aggravating factors operate as the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense,  the Supreme Court held, the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury. Id. (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotations omitted). The essential question, therefore, is whether we should characterize Arizona's failure to submit this element of the capital murder offense to the jury as structural or trial error. [17] ¶ 48 In a decision foreshadowing Apprendi and Ring II, the Supreme Court declined to find structural error when the trial judge failed to submit an element of the offense to the jury. In Neder v. United States , the Court held that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the materiality element of federal tax fraud should be reviewed as trial error. 527 U.S. at 19-20, 119 S.Ct. at 1839. The Court distinguished an error omitting an element of the offense in a jury instruction from structural error: Unlike such defects as the complete deprivation of counsel or trial before a biased judge, an instruction that omits an element of the offense does not necessarily render a criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence. Id. at 9, 119 S.Ct. at 1833. Thus, the Court concluded, omitting an element of the offense from the jury instruction is not the sort of error that taints the trial process itself. Neder was tried before an impartial judge, under the correct standard of proof and with the assistance of counsel; a fairly selected, impartial jury was instructed to consider all of the evidence and argument in respect to Neder's defense against the tax charges. Of course, the court erroneously failed to charge the jury on the element of materiality, but that error did not render Neder's trial fundamentally unfair, as that term is used in our cases. Id. at 9, 119 S.Ct. at 1834. [18] ¶ 49 In a similar decision that followed Apprendi and Ring II, the Court again applied the plain error test to a judge's consideration of a factor properly left to the jury. United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 630-31, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 1785, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002). Federal law makes available enhanced penalties for drug offenses if the government proves a statutory threshold drug quantity. Id. at 627, 122 S.Ct. at 1783. In Cotton, the government failed to allege in its superseding indictment the quantity of drugs involved in the offense, as required by the enhanced penalty. Id. Based on trial testimony, the district court found the petitioner responsible for at least 500 grams of cocaine base, ten times the amount set by statute for an enhanced penalty, and imposed the enhanced sentence. Id. at 628, 122 S.Ct. at 1784. The Supreme Court concluded that the district court improperly usurped the quantity finding from the grand jury, but reviewed for plain error. Id. at 630-33, 122 S.Ct. at 1785-86. The Court held that the trial evidence was so overwhelming and essentially uncontroverted that the error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. at 632-33, 122 S.Ct. at 1786. ¶ 50 Although Neder and Cotton did not involve a capital sentence, their holdings that a failure to submit one element of an offense to a jury does not infect the trial process from beginning to end apply equally here. Under both Arizona's superseded and current capital sentencing schemes, a defendant's trial consists of two phases: a guilt phase and a penalty phase. In the guilt phase, the jury decides whether the defendant committed first degree or felony murder as defined by A.R.S. section 13-1105. If the jury finds the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the trial continues to the penalty phase. Under the former system, the judge found, beyond a reasonable doubt, the ultimate element required to complete a capital murder offense: at least one aggravating circumstance not outweighed by one or more mitigating factors. A.R.S. § 13-703.E. Defendants' trials thus took place before an impartial judge and jury, who used the correct standard of proof. Defendants received the assistance of counsel, who were available during all phases of their prosecution. Any error, then, affected the submission of one element rather than the entire trial and did not render the entire trial fundamentally unfair. [19] See Neder, 527 U.S. at 9, 119 S.Ct. at 1833. ¶ 51 We are not the first court to reach this conclusion. Courts implementing Apprendi and Ring have reached a consensus that structural error does not occur when a judge fails to submit to the jury an element of a crime, otherwise required to be found by a jury under the Sixth Amendment. [20] In United States v. Matthews, the court held  Apprendi error is susceptible to harmless error analysis. 312 F.3d 652, 665 (5th Cir.2002). The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals also found that errors in both the indictment and the charge to the jury are subject to harmless-error analysis. United States v. Dumes, 313 F.3d 372, 385 (7th Cir.2002); accord United States v. Sanders, 247 F.3d 139, 150 (4th Cir.2001) (citing cases from the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits holding that harmless error applies in Apprendi cases); Johnson v. Nevada, 59 P.3d 450, 459-60 (Nev.2002). [21] ¶ 52 Those holdings comport with prior Arizona law. In State v. Styers, we applied the fundamental error test to the trial judge's failure to define the without legal authority element of the kidnapping offense in instructions to the jury. 177 Ariz. 104, 111-12, 865 P.2d 765, 772-73 (1993). ¶ 53 Accordingly, we hold that Arizona's failure to require a trial judge to submit the aggravating circumstance element of capital murder to a jury does not constitute structural error. We will review the sentences of these defendants for harmless error.