Opinion ID: 767804
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Independent Review by the Federal District Court.

Text: 53 In conducting its own independent harmless error review, erroneously believing that the California Court of Appeal had in fact applied the Watson and Chapman standards of harmless error review to all three of the errors committed at the trial level, the federal district court here applied the less stringent (i.e., in terms of being more forgiving of trial-type errors) Brecht standard. In Brecht, the Supreme Court held that a less stringent harmless error standard should be applied in 28 U.S.C. S 2254 habeas corpus cases where the state appellate court already had conducted a harmless error review (albeit in an improper manner) and the federal district court was conducting its own independent harmless error review. See Brecht, 507 U.S. at 636-38. Attempting to limit the holding of Brecht to the particular facts of that case, and seeking to distinguish those facts from the facts of his case, Bains now argues that the more stringent Chapman standard should have been applied where, as here, the state appellate courts never even had an opportunity to conduct their own harmless error review (because they did not find any constitutional errors susceptible to such review). We reject this argument and affirm the district court's selection and application of the Brecht standard. 54 We previously have not decided this issue. See, e.g., Hanna, 87 F.3d at 1038 n.2. However, as pointed out by Bains, the Eighth Circuit and a handful of federal district courts have argued that the Chapman standard should be applied where, as here, the state courts simply failed to identify certain constitutional errors and thus did not have the occasion to conduct their own harmless error analyses. See, e.g., Orndorff v. Lockhart, 998 F.2d 1426, 1430 (8th Cir. 1993). 7 These courts have argued that the holding of Brecht is not applicable when there is no state court harmless error ruling to which the federal district court can defer. See, e.g., id. Moreover, these courts have held that in the absence of any express indication in Brecht as to whether its holding should be read broadly or narrowly, its holding should be limited to the facts that were present there (i.e., the state court had identified constitutional errors but then simply had failed to apply the proper standard for its harmless error analysis). See, e.g., id. 55 Yet, at last count, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits have held that in habeas corpus cases, federal district courts always should apply the Brecht standard when conducting their own independent harmless error review, regardless of what, if any, type of harmless error review was conducted by the state courts. See, e.g., Tyson v. Trigg, 50 F.3d 436, 446-47 (7th Cir. 1995). 8 These courts have argued that the language used in the Brecht opinion suggests that its holding should not be limited to its particular facts, especially since the specific factual pattern at issue in Brecht was a rather uncommon one (i.e., state courts tend more frequently simply to fail to recognize constitutional errors entirely rather than to recognize constitutional errors as such, but then to conduct improper harmless error analyses), and thus the harms sought to be avoided by implementing the Brecht holding would be avoided only in a very small minority of cases. See, e.g., id. Moreover, these courts also have argued that the interests laid out in Brecht (i.e., finality of state court convictions, comity, federalism, and prominence of the trial itself) are disserved by a reversal stemming from a federal district court decision, regardless of whether the state court's mistake was simply applying the wrong harmless error standard or rather failing to identify constitutional errors entirely and thus never having had the chance to conduct its own harmless error analysis. See, e.g., Hassine, 160 F.3d at 951. The fact that there was no state court harmless error ruling that would be supplanted was immaterial; what was material was that, for whatever reason, a state court conviction would be interfered with by a federal district court. Furthermore, some of those courts also have noted that judicial decision-making costs would be greatly increased by requiring federal courts to delve into the harmless error methodology used by the state courts in every case so as to determine whether the Brecht or the Chapman standard should be applied at the federal level. See, e.g., Sherman, 89 F.3d at 1141. 56 For the reasons listed in the preceding paragraph, we now join the vast majority of our sister circuits by deciding that the Brecht standard should apply uniformly in all federal habeas corpus cases under S 2254. 57 Turning to the district court's application of the Brecht standard, and having reviewed the record below, we conclude that such application was proper. As emphasized by the California Court of Appeal, and as impliedly agreed with by the federal district court, given the telephone calls linking Bains with Hidalgo and his twin brother (especially the telephone call to Bains's home from Shergill's apartment at a time when Shergill was at the airport), the check for $200 that had been drawn by Bains and had been endorsed by Hidalgo (and very likely had been alluded to by Hidalgo during his pre-arrest phone call as something the details of which should be kept hidden from the police), the self-incriminating statements (i.e., the highly suspicious lies) made by Bains to the police, and the powerful evidence of Bain's motive and intent to murder Shergill, a strong case against Bains remained even in the absence of the erroneously admitted evidence. Moreover, the errors committed here did not involve the more sensitive structural aspects of the trial, such as the use of peremptory challenges or the composition of the grand jury, such that the errors might be said to have infected the entire process and rendered any outcome necessarily suspect. See, e.g., Smith v. Farley, 59 F.3d 659, 663-64 (7th Cir. 1995). Therefore, we conclude that in applying the less stringent Brecht standard, the district court properly did not have any grave doubt about whether the errors here had a substantial and injuriouseffect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. The errors that occurred at trial do not provide sufficient reason to doubt under the Brecht standard the district court's final conclusions as to the legitimacy of the process and the correctness of the outcome of Bains's trial. 58 Conclusion. 59 For the reasons above, we affirm the decision of the district court. 60 AFFIRMED.