Opinion ID: 789280
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sanders's Post-Conviction Proceedings

Text: 11 On direct appeal, Sanders's counsel, Scott King, did not challenge the trial court's failure to properly instruct the jury. Sanders filed a post-conviction petition raising, among other issues, the trial court's failure to give Proposed Instruction Two, the incorrect burden of proof stated in the manslaughter instructions, and his appellate counsel's ineffectiveness for failing to argue both issues on direct appeal. 1 The trial court held an evidentiary hearing where King testified that he could not remember why he did not include an argument challenging the jury instructions' misstatement of the burden of proof for sudden heat. 12 The trial court analyzed Sanders's claims under the standard of fundamental error, which Indiana defines as when errors are so blatant and serious that to ignore them would constitute a denial of fundamental due process. The trial court acknowledged that the manslaughter instructions tendered to the jury were erroneous because the instructions incorrectly listed the presence of sudden heat as an element of voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter. However, the trial court, relying on Indiana state law precedent, found that the error was harmless because the instruction told the jury that [t]he existence of sudden heat is a mitigating factor that reduces what otherwise would be murder under this chapter to voluntary manslaughter. The court found that Proposed Instruction Two, allocating the burden to prove absence of sudden heat to the State as an element of murder, was an incorrect statement of the law, so the trial court correctly excluded it. Finally, despite its explicit statement that the instruction was erroneous, the court held that Sanders's counsel could not have been ineffective because the jury was adequately instructed on voluntary manslaughter, and thus, the defendant was not prejudiced by counsel's faulty instruction. 13 Sanders appealed the denial of his post-conviction petition to the Court of Appeals of Indiana. The appellate court agreed with the trial court's finding that the voluntary manslaughter instructions were erroneous, but found the error harmless because the jury instructions also informed the jury that sudden heat is a mitigating factor. Therefore, the court found that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give the trial counsel's tendered instruction because the instructions were correct and adequately instructed the jury on voluntary manslaughter. The appellate court also agreed that Sanders's appellate counsel was not ineffective since there could be no prejudice because the jury instructions, when read as a whole, did not constitute fundamental error. The Supreme Court of Indiana denied review.