Opinion ID: 1804987
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is Ring Substantive or Procedural?

Text: The next step is to determine whether the new constitutional rule in Ring is procedural or substantive. The decision in Ring, however, simply applied the Court's decision in Apprendi to the death penalty context. Therefore, before considering whether Ring created a substantive rule, I will first discuss whether Apprendi did. The Supreme Court in Apprendi acknowledged that it was addressing New Jersey's criminal procedure, and not its substantive law. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 475, 120 S.Ct. 2348 (The substantive basis for New Jersey's enhancement is thus not at issue; the adequacy of New Jersey's procedure is.). The effect of its rule was solely to shift factfinding responsibility from the judge to the jury and to increase the burden of proof for those facts that increase the penalty for a crime beyond its statutory maximum. Several federal and Florida appellate courts have concluded that Apprendi's holding constituted a new procedural rule that did not apply retroactively. [32] In Curtis v. United States, 294 F.3d 841, 843 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 976, 123 S.Ct. 451, 154 L.Ed.2d 334 (2002), for example, the court noted that  Apprendi is about nothing but procedure  who decides a given question (judge versus jury) and under what standard (preponderance versus reasonable doubt). In Figarola v. State, 841 So.2d 576 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), notice invoking discretionary jurisdiction filed, No. SC03-586 (Fla. Apr. 7, 2003), the Fourth District Court of Appeal recently noted that the Supreme Court itself characterized Apprendi as a procedural rule. Id. at 577 n. 3. In Ring, the Court merely extended Apprendi to the death penalty context to hold that the Sixth Amendment requires that the aggravating factors in capital cases be found by a jury, not a judge alone. See 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428. The Court itself described the question before it in Ring as who decides, judge or jury. 536 U.S. at 605, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Therefore, as the Eleventh Circuit recently acknowledged, [j]ust as Apprendi `constitutes a procedural rule because it dictates what fact-finding procedure must be employed,' Ring constitutes a procedural rule because it dictates what fact-finding procedure must be employed in a capital sentencing hearing. Turner, 339 F.3d at 1284 (citations omitted). The Eleventh Circuit agree[d] with other courts who have concluded that because Apprendi was a procedural rule, it automatically follows that Ring is also a procedural rule. Id.; see also Lambert, 365 F.3d at 562 (Because the rule in Apprendi is not retroactive ..., it stands to follow that the rule in Ring, an Apprendi child, is not retroactive for the same reasons.); Towery, 64 P.3d at 833 (Logic dictates that if Apprendi announced a procedural rule, then, by extension, Ring ... did also.); cf. Cannon v. Mullin, 297 F.3d 989, 994 (10th Cir.2002) (concluding, in the context of a successive habeas petition, that [i]t is clear ... that Ring is simply an extension of Apprendi to the death penalty context). In Turner, the Eleventh Circuit explained why Ring affected only procedure: Ring changed neither the underlying conduct the state must prove to establish a defendant's crime warrants death nor the state's burden of proof. Ring affected neither the facts necessary to establish Florida's aggravating factors nor the state's burden to establish those factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, Ring altered only who decides whether any aggravating circumstances exist and, thus, altered only the fact-finding procedure. 339 F.3d at 1284; see also Towery, 64 P.3d at 833 (noting that Ring only altered  who decides whether any aggravating circumstances exist, thereby altering the fact-finding procedures used in capital sentencing hearings). Only one court has held that Ring imposed a substantive rather than a procedural rule. In Summerlin, 341 F.3d at 1108, the Ninth Circuit recently concluded that Ring redefined Arizona's capital murder law, making murder and capital murder separate substantive offenses. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the rule in Ring is substantive and that Teague does not apply. In my opinion, Summerlin misinterprets the analysis in Ring. The Supreme Court in Ring did not substantively change Arizona's death penalty law, as the Ninth Circuit claims. To the contrary, it deferred to the Arizona Supreme Court's interpretation of that law. The Court [r]ecogniz[ed] that the Arizona court's construction of the State's own law is authoritative. 536 U.S. at 603, 122 S.Ct. 2428. Based on the Arizona Supreme Court's interpretation, the Court then stated, quoting from Apprendi, that [b]ecause Arizona's enumerated aggravated factors operate as `the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense,' the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury. 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428 (citation omitted). The Supreme Court's characterization of its holding in Apprendi, which it expressly stated addressed procedure, was no different. See id. at 602, 122 S.Ct. 2428. The Court explained that [t]he right to trial by jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment would be senselessly diminished if it encompassed the factfinding necessary to increase a defendant's sentence by two years, but not the factfinding necessary to put him to death. Id. at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428. In other words, the Court's analyses in Apprendi and Ring are identical. The hate crime aggravator in Apprendi operated the same way the aggravator necessary for imposition of the death penalty operated in Walton and Ring. Thus, the Court's holding in both Apprendi and Ring only specified the procedure required for determining a fact that increases a defendant's punishment beyond the statutory maximum. See Summerlin, 341 F.3d at 1126 (Rawlinson, J., dissenting) (The linkage in Ring of the Walton death penalty factors and the Apprendi hate crime aggravator is fatal to the majority's syllogism.). The rule of Ring is thus procedural, not substantive.