Opinion ID: 3065080
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: analysis

Text: In reviewing the district court’s grant or denial of a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, we conduct our analysis de novo. See, e.g., Yee v. Duncan, 463 F.3d 893, 897 (9th Cir. 2006). The function of the federal courts under the standards of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (“AEDPA”) is to review the “last reasoned decision” of the state courts. Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797, 804 (1991). A federal habeas petitioner is entitled to habeas relief in limited circumstances. Even if his conviction involved a violation of the United States Constitution, habeas relief is warranted only if the decision of the state court “was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or if the state court decision “was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) & (2). The Supreme Court has held that “clearly established Federal law” under AEDPA means “the governing legal principle or principles set forth by the Supreme Court at the time the state court renders its decision.” Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 71-72 (2003). In this case, the last reasoned state court decision is the 2000 decision of the California Court of Appeal.
The trial judge in this case instructed the jury, after it had returned deadlocked for the third time, that it should consider certain “consistencies and inconsistencies” in the evidence apart from the DNA evidence that the holdout juror, Juror 10, had questioned. The evidence that the district court selected and replayed for the jury consisted of the post arrest statements of the codefendants, Hinex and petitioner Smith. The statements were all consistent in stating that Smith went into 12580 SMITH v. CURRY the house where the crimes were committed, but were inconsistent as to whether Hinex went in and whether Hinex was ever alone with Mrs. S. The trial judge delivered his com- ments over defense counsel’s vehement objection that they were calculated to produce a guilty verdict in light of Juror 10’s concerns about DNA evidence, because the judge had heard so much scientific evidence the jury did not hear that validated the DNA results in the case. Defense counsel also insisted that the judge’s comments on the evidence would not be “scrupulously fair” because they isolated Smith’s and Hinex’s contradictory in-court testimony. [1] California’s constitution expressly provides that a judge may comment on the evidence. “The court may make any comment on the evidence and the testimony and credibility of any witness as in its opinion is necessary for the proper determination of the cause.” Cal. Const. art. VI, § 10. In approving the judge’s instruction and commentary, the state Court of Appeal cited two California cases in which the judge had commented on the evidence to a deadlocked jury. People v. Proctor, 842 P.2d 1100 (Cal. 1992); People v. Rodriguez, 726 P.2d 113 (Cal. 1986). Neither involved a trial court addressing known concerns of a holdout juror. In upholding the commentary and instruction in this case, the California Court of Appeal correctly recognized that California law is more lenient than federal guidelines imposed by the United States Supreme Court in the exercise of the Court’s supervisory powers over the federal district courts instructing a deadlocked jury. The state court also acknowledged that California courts must respect federal constitutional protections as delineated by the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue in federal habeas review is whether the Court of Appeal’s opinion is contrary to clearly established federal law or an unreasonable application of established federal law. [2] The Supreme Court has not often had occasion to deal with the constitutional dividing line between instructing a jury SMITH v. CURRY 12581 and coercing it. This is no doubt because the Court in the exercise of its supervisory powers has developed prophylactic rules to govern the federal courts. See, e.g., Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466 (1933). We therefore deal with only a handful of cases directly applying constitutional limits on the authority of a trial judge to encourage a jury toward produc- tive deliberations resulting in an unanimous verdict. Those cases, however, define with clarity some of the critical federal constitutional boundaries. An analysis of the Supreme Court’s decisions, dating back to 1896, requires us to conclude that the California Court of Appeal’s approval of the instruction in this case, directing the jurors to the evidence the judge believed supported conviction, crossed the boundary from appropriate encouragement to exercise the duty to deliberate in order to reach a unanimous verdict, and went into the forbidden territory of coercing a particular verdict on the basis of the judge’s selective view of the evidence. The state court’s decision upholding the instruction as a fair instruction was an unreasonable application of established Supreme Court law. The grandparent of all the cases dealing with instructing a deadlocked jury is Allen, 164 U.S. 492, the first case to consider and approve the use of a supplemental charge to a deadlocked jury. The Allen instruction charged the jurors in the minority to consider the views of the majority and to ask themselves whether their own views were reasonable. 164 U.S. at 501. In approving this instruction, the Court said that jurors should listen and be willing to change their minds: While, undoubtedly, the verdict of the jury should represent the opinion of each individual juror, it by no means follows that opinions may not be changed by conference in the jury room. The very object of the jury system is to secure unanimity by a comparison of views, and by arguments among the jurors themselves. It certainly cannot be the law that each juror should not listen with deference to the arguments, and with a distrust of his own judgment, if he 12582 SMITH v. CURRY finds a large majority of the jury taking a different view of the case from what he does himself. It can- not be that each juror should go to the jury room with a blind determination that the verdict shall represent his opinion of the case at that moment, or that he should close his ears to the arguments of men who are equally honest and intelligent as himself. Id. at 501-02. The charge approved in Allen is similar to the first two supplemental charges that the trial judge gave the jurors in this case. Those instructions are not challenged. The third supplemental charge, however, went far beyond Allen. The trial court by that time knew what was dividing the jury and therefore commented on specific evidence to address the known concerns of a holdout juror. For further guidance we jump forward nearly a hundred years to the Supreme Court’s decision in Lowenfield, 484 U.S. 231. Lowenfield was a habeas case arising out of a Louisiana state court conviction. After receiving notes from the jury that it was having difficulty reaching a decision, the judge polled the jury as to whether further deliberations would be helpful. The judge asked each juror, “Do you feel that any further deliberations will enable you to arrive at a verdict?” Id. at 234. Eleven jurors answered in the affirmative and one in the negative. Id. at 234-35. The court then reinstructed the jury, telling it that if it was unable to agree unanimously on a recommendation “the Court shall impose the sentence of Life Imprisonment without benefit of Probation, Parole or Suspension of Sentence.” Id. at 235. Defense counsel did not object to the polling or the supplemental instruction, and the jury returned in thirty minutes with a verdict sentencing the defendant to death. Id. In upholding the conviction and rejecting the habeas petitioner’s claim of improper coercion, the Court reiterated the SMITH v. CURRY 12583 same standard that it had previously used in cases involving its exercise of supervisory powers of lower federal courts, which is that reviewing courts must consider the trial court’s supplemental charge “in its context and under all the circumstances.” Id. at 237 (quoting Jenkins v. United States, 380 U.S. 445, 446 (1965) (per curiam)). The Court concluded in Lowenfield that the instruction was not coercive in the circumstances of that case. It rested this conclusion in major part upon its determination that the instruction in that case was less coercive than in Allen, because the court in Allen urged the minority to consider the views of the majority and to question the reasonableness of the minority’s own views. Id. at 237-38. Quoting the famous language from Allen that the object of the jury system is to “secure unanimity by a comparison of views,” the Supreme Court in Lowenfield said that the “continuing validity of this Court’s observations in Allen are beyond dispute, and they apply with even greater force in cases such as this, where the charge given, in contrast to the so-called ‘traditional Allen charge,’ does not speak specifically to the minority jurors.” Id. In the case before us, of course, the court’s third supplemental instruction spoke directly to the minority juror. With respect to the polling of the jury that informed the trial court in Lowenfield of the jury’s numerical division on the utility of future deliberation, the Supreme Court stressed that the trial court did not know how the jurors stood on the merits. In polling the jury, the trial judge in Lowenfield was not asking the jurors “how they stood on the merits of the verdict, but how they stood on the question of whether further deliberations might assist them in returning a verdict.” Id. at 240. In this case, the court did know exactly how the jurors stood on the merits. [3] Lowenfield went so far as to observe that it is impermissible for the judge to instruct the jury it must reach a ver- dict. 484 U.S. at 239. In this case, the trial court can be said to have gone beyond simply instructing the jury that it must 12584 SMITH v. CURRY reach a verdict; the judge pointed the jury to evidence leading to a particular verdict. [4] The California Court of Appeal did not discuss any of these federal constitutional standards. The most recent Supreme Court decision with respect to deadlocked jury instructions and habeas relief reminds us, however, that the state court need not expressly cite federal law in its decision. See Early, 537 U.S. at 8 (for the state court, avoiding a decision that is “contrary to” clearly established federal law “does not require citation of [Supreme Court] cases — indeed, it does not even require awareness of [Supreme Court] cases, so long as neither the reasoning nor the result of the state court decision contradicts them.”) (original emphasis). It is not enough that the state courts “failed to apply” clearly established Supreme Court law; the state court decision must be contrary to Supreme Court law or an unreasonable application of it. Id. Accordingly, whether a supplemental instruction amounts to coercion of a constitutional degree must be judged on the basis of all the circumstances in the case. Lowenfield, 484 U.S. at 237 (citing Jenkins, 380 U.S. at 446). [5] The trial court in this case effectively highlighted the specific evidence the court thought supported the guilty verdict favored by the majority of jurors. Moreover, the court did so over the vehement and eloquent objection of defense counsel, who pointed out in no uncertain terms that the instruction was likely to coerce the holdout juror to agree to convict. [6] The California Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the trial court’s instruction was not coercive—in particular its determination that “the [trial] court’s comments on the evidence were scrupulously fair” and so they did not deprive Smith of his constitutional right to trial by jury — was an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court law. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). The judge knew not only the division of the jury but also the precise reasons the holdout juror, in his note, said he “in good conscience SMITH v. CURRY 12585 [could] not vote for conviction.” In light of this knowledge, the judge directed — not suggested — that the jury, and the holdout juror in particular, concentrate on certain evidence. The judge did so after presenting a summary of that evidence that was one-sided both as to the description of the evidence itself and its relation to the other evidence in the trial as a whole. By taking over the jury deliberations in this manner, the trial judge deprived Smith of his constitutional right to trial by jury. The California Court of Appeal’s contrary conclusion was objectively unreasonable, for several reasons. [7] First, the trial judge’s comments on the evidence were addressed to the holdout juror, and the juror had to have known that. The judge had told the jury that because of its inability to reach a verdict, and in light of the communications the judge had thus far received, he was issuing a further instruction, which, as it turned out, included the summary of the evidence and the direction to listen to the replaying of the taped interrogations. The jury, or the holdout juror at the very least, knew that Juror 10’s note was one of the communications the judge was referring to, and would expect the judge’s further instructions to address the concerns stated in that note. In particular, given the specific inquiry in Juror 10’s note about whether there was any other credible evidence on the oral copulation charge, and the nature of the judge’s new instructions and comments, the holdout juror reasonably could have understood that the trial court was specifically urging that juror to reconsider his inability to vote for conviction, by pointing to evidence other than the DNA evidence that, in the judge’s view, supported a guilty verdict. [8] Second, the judge’s charge, using mandatory language, directed the jury to weigh Smith’s and Hinex’s post-arrest statements to the police. The charge did not merely suggest that the jury “consider and discuss” the statements; the judge told it to do so. In addition, the judge required the jury to lis- ten again to the taped interrogations. The judge highlighted the importance of Smith’s and Hinex’s interrogation evidence 12586 SMITH v. CURRY even further by sending transcripts of the statements — and only those statements — into the jury room, although the jury had not asked for them. [9] Third, the summary of the evidence was not neutral by any reasonable standard, whether viewed in isolation or in light of all the evidence at trial. In describing the consistencies and inconsistencies between Hinex’s and Smith’s statements, the judge twice referred to Hinex’s insistence that he did not go in the house. Yet, Hinex’s contention that he stayed outside the house’s screen door at all times was strongly contradicted by all the other witnesses’ trial testimony. For example, both Mr. and Mrs. S testified that two men had been in the house. Right after the crime, both identified Hinex as one of them—indeed, as the one who carried the gun and sexually assaulted Mrs. S. And both Hinex and Smith insisted in their police statements that they were the only two individuals at the scene. Yet, in the Hinex interview the judge summarized for the jury, required the jury to hear, and made available to the jury in the jury room in transcript form, Hinex maintained that only one person, Smith, went into the main part of the house. The judge’s comments thus isolated Hinex’s statement from the other trial evidence that placed Hinex in the Ss’ home and possibly responsible for the oral copulation crime, directing the jury to compare the Hinex statement to the post-arrest interview of Smith. Viewed in the context of the rest of the trial evidence, the judge’s comments inappropriately directed the jury to give equal weight to Hinex’s and Smith’s postarrest statements with respect to whether a second person was in the home. The judge omitted to point out that much of Hinex’s account did not square with the other trial evidence, while Smith’s basic story — leaving aside his denial on the oral copulation issue — did. [10] Fourth, the judge’s summary of the taped interroga- tions omitted a key inconsistency between Smith’s and SMITH v. CURRY 12587 Hinex’s post-arrest statements to the police. As the judge summarized the statements, both Smith’s and Hinex’s statements were consistent in that both represented that Smith was alone with Mrs. S in the bedroom for a while. But Smith’s actual statement was that Smith at some point left Hinex with Mrs. S in the bedroom while Smith searched other rooms in the house. Thus, from the judge’s summary of what were, in his view, the “most important” consistencies and inconsistencies in the statements, both Smith and Hinex agreed that only Smith had been alone in the bedroom with Mrs. S. The judge omitted Smith’s contrary exculpatory statement to Detective Willover, that Hinex had also been alone with Mrs. S and so had the opportunity to perpetrate the sexual assault. The omission was highly detrimental to Smith. Overall, in contrast to the California Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the trial court “highlight[ed] the defendants’ statements to the police” in a way that “did not ‘specifically reference’ any particular inconsistency to the defendant’s detriment,” the trial judge twice repeated, and so emphasized, Hinex’s statement that only Smith went into the house, while ignoring a critical portion of Smith’s testimony that contradicted Hinex’s account. The trial court thus did select particular inconsistencies to the defendant’s detriment. [11] The probable coercive effect is illustrated by the fact that the jury deliberated for only slightly longer than one hour after receiving the last instruction. See Lowenfield, 484 U.S. at 240 (“[W]e are mindful that the jury returned with its verdict soon after receiving the supplemental instruction, and that this suggests the possibility of coercion.”). Defense counsel timely objected on coercion grounds, demonstrating that the potential harm to the defendant, as well as the judge’s precon- ceived view of Smith’s guilt, was immediately apparent. Cf. id. (defense counsel’s failure to object to a supplemental instruction “indicates that the potential for coercion argued now was not apparent to one on the spot”). 12588 SMITH v. CURRY [12] In sum, the California Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the trial court’s comments on the evidence were “scrupulously fair” was objectively unreasonable, and its legal conclusion regarding jury coercion, based on that assessment, was consequently objectively unreasonable as well. In fact, the comments substituted the judge for the jury as to the man- ner and substance of deliberations and thereby denied Smith his constitutional right to the uncoerced verdict of the jury. We emphasize that it was the combination of factors, including the fact that the comments were directed to the known concern of the holdout juror, and the incomplete, onesided summary of the evidence related to those concerns, that makes the Court of Appeal’s conclusion an unreasonable application of Supreme Court law regarding jury coercion. Absent these factors, we might reach a different conclusion. With them, the case represents the most coercive instruction of any in the coercion cases we have reviewed. The California Court of Appeal was not only incorrect in determining that the trial court’s actions and comments were proper, but was objectively unreasonable in so concluding.
In his cross-appeal, Smith challenges the district court’s denial of habeas relief on his claim that the state trial court’s ex parte contact with a member of the jury, Juror 9, violated his right to counsel, his right to be present, and his right to a fair trial. We affirm the district court’s denial of relief on these claims. The trial court’s contact with Juror 9 occurred immediately after the court gave the final instruction in which it improperly commented on the evidence the court believed supported Smith’s guilt on the oral copulation charge. As the jury left the courtroom for lunch following this instruction, Juror 9 handed the bailiff a note expressing her frustration with the SMITH v. CURRY 12589 course of the deliberations, and stating that she wished to be excused for the day due to another commitment. The court had the bailiff instruct Juror 9 to return for deliberations after lunch, but did not inform either the prosecutor or defense counsel of this incident until they were in the courtroom waiting for the jury to return with a verdict on the oral copulation charge. Defense counsel made no objection at the time. On direct appeal, the Court of Appeal found Smith had waived any constitutional claims by failing to object in a timely manner. The court stated: A trial court may discharge a juror for good cause and substitute an alternate juror at any time before the jury has returned its verdict to the court. . . . [E]ven though the jury had reached a verdict by the time the trial court told counsel about the note from juror No. 9, defense counsel could still have demanded a hearing on whether that juror was fit to deliberate, and the court could still have discharged the juror on a showing of good cause and substituted an alternate. [13] The Court of Appeal’s determination was not contrary to or an unreasonable application of established federal law. The Supreme Court has expressly held that counsel’s failure to object at trial upon learning of the judge’s ex parte contact with a juror constitutes a waiver of any constitutional claims stemming from the contact. United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 528 (1985). Moreover, even if there were any constitutional error, Smith has not shown that the trial court’s ex parte contact with Juror 9 was prejudicial. See Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 117 (1983) (per curiam) (any constitutional error resulting from ex parte contact between a juror and the court is subject to harmless error analysis); United States v. Madrid, 842 F.2d 1090, 1093-94 (9th Cir. 1988) (defendant must demonstrate “actual prejudice” resulting from ex parte contact between the trial judge and a juror). 12590 SMITH v. CURRY [14] The contact between Juror 9 and the court pertained solely to the juror’s wish to be excused from deliberations, not to any factual or legal issue in Smith’s case. Although Juror 9’s communication reveals the extent of the jury’s frustration with the deliberations, strengthening Smith’s claim that the trial court’s instructions and comments on the evidence were coercive, the trial court’s ex parte contact with Juror 9 itself has not been shown to have affected the outcome. We agree with the district court that the state court’s ex parte contact with Juror 9 “did not impair [Smith’s] right to a fair trial” because there was no “reasonable possibility of prejudice from the exchange.”