Opinion ID: 466532
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Fear is Presumed Instruction

Text: 7 As stated, one instruction, to which no objection was made at trial, was to the effect that fear is presumed when a robbery is committed by use of a firearm. Though not an issue in the state trial court, on appeal to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Shaw argued that the fear is presumed instruction was unconstitutional under Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), in that, in practical effect, it required the jury to presume an essential element of the crime charged. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected this argument, noting that it was never raised in the trial court and observing that, in any event, fear is not an essential element of the crime of robbery with a firearm as provided for in Okla.Stat. tit. 21, Sec. 801 (1981) (amended by 1982 Okla.Sess.Laws ch. 173, Sec. 2). 8 The Oklahoma statutes define robbery as the wrongful taking of personal property in the possession of another by means of force or fear (emphasis added). Okla.Stat. tit. 21, Sec. 791 (1981). So, it would appear that under the statute, the State need only prove alternatively force or fear. In this regard, the information charged, inter alia, that Shaw and his co-defendants produced great fear of immediate injury in the mind of Jack Henderson, the pawnshop operator. While the information itself did not use the word force, nonetheless the information did charge that the defendants, armed with three small handguns and a sawed-off shotgun, made threats of immediate death which created fear in the mind of Jack Henderson, all of which is a way of charging that the defendants used force which caused fear. 9 In this federal habeas corpus proceeding, Shaw argues that the fear is presumed instruction is unconstitutional under Sandstrom. The trial court rejected this argument. We conclude that the trial court correctly ruled that Sandstrom does not require granting federal habeas relief to Shaw. 10 In Sandstrom, the defendant was charged in a state court of Montana with deliberate homicide. At trial, the defendant's counsel admitted the killing, but denied that it was deliberate. In this setting, the jury was instructed, at the conclusion of all the evidence, that the law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts. Defense counsel objected to this instruction on the ground that the instruction had the effect of shifting a burden of proof on the issue of deliberateness to the defendant and that such was impermissible under federal due process. This objection was overruled by the trial court. On appeal, the Supreme Court of Montana affirmed the conviction. On certiorari, the Supreme Court reversed and held that the instruction is unconstitutional inasmuch as the due process clause protects the accused in a criminal case from conviction unless there be proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. The Supreme Court declined to consider whether such error was harmless error under Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), noting that such had not been considered by the Supreme Court of Montana. Sandstrom, 442 U.S. at 526-27, 99 S.Ct. at 2460. We believe Sandstrom to be quite different from the instant case, however. Concerning Shaw's challenge of the fear is presumed instruction, our study of the matter leads us to conclude that any possible error, error which we fail to perceive, 2 is harmless error. 11 No objection was made to the trial court by counsel to the fear is presumed instruction. In point of time, Sandstrom was not announced until after Shaw's trial. Be that as it may, the unconstitutional instruction in Sandstrom concerned a material element of the crime charged. This element was the central, indeed the only, issue in the case, i.e., the defendant's state of mind at the time of the killing. In the instant case, the issue of force or fear was a non-issue. Shaw's defense was alibi, i.e., he did not participate in the robbery, not that he participated in the robbery but didn't use force and created no fear in the victim. That defense counsel did not make an issue of force or fear is not surprising in view of the uncontroverted evidence that both force and fear were employed in the commission of the crime: four persons, each with a loaded gun, took money and jewelry from the victim during the course of which two shots were fired, one going through the victim's coat. No defense counsel would, in the face of such evidence, even think of making force or fear an issue in the case. In this setting, any error in the fear is presumed instruction, in our view, is harmless error. 12 As indicated, in Sandstrom the Supreme Court left open the question of whether there can be harmless error even where the erroneous instruction bears on a material and controverted issue in the case. The Supreme Court in Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U.S. 73, 87, 103 S.Ct. 969, 977, 74 L.Ed.2d 823 (1983), recognized that where, for example, the defense is alibi, a defendant in a given case might, by so doing, admit an essential element of the crime charged to the end that an erroneous instruction relating to a non-contested issue might be harmless error. See also Francis v. Franklin, --- U.S. ----, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1977, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985) (the Supreme Court determined that it need not, in that case, resolve the question of whether an erroneous instruction that shifts the burden of persuasion to a defendant on an essential element of an offense can ever be harmless). As indicated, we believe any error in the instant case in this regard was patently harmless error.