Opinion ID: 200045
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Effect of the Error.

Text: 33 The next step in the pavane requires that we determine whether the discerned error invalidates the petitioner's sentence. On this point, the petitioner faces an uphill climb. The fact that Apprendi is available to him in theory (because his conviction was not yet final when Apprendi was decided) does not mean that he can take advantage of that decision in practice; the rub is that he failed either to object to the jury instructions or to contest the trial court's sentencing determination on direct appeal. These omissions transgress the general rule that a criminal defendant must seasonably advance an objection to a potential constitutional infirmity in order to preserve the point for collateral attack. 5 See Burks v. Dubois, 55 F.3d 712, 716 (1st Cir.1995). 34 The rationale behind the rule is straightforward: 35 A contemporaneous objection enables the record to be made with respect to the constitutional claim when the recollections of witnesses are freshest, not years later in a federal habeas proceeding. It enables the judge who observed the demeanor of those witnesses to make the factual determinations necessary for properly deciding the federal constitutional question. 36 Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 88, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). Moreover, the rule prevents `sandbagging' on the part of defense lawyers, who may take their chances on a verdict of not guilty in a state trial court with the intent to raise their constitutional claims in a federal habeas court if their initial gamble does not pay off. Id. at 89, 97 S.Ct. 2497. 37 The petitioner concedes that he failed to raise and preserve an Apprendi objection at his trial, but he nonetheless seeks to avoid any penalty for this procedural default on the ground that Apprendi changed the traditional method of determining drug quantity for sentencing purposes, and, thus, constituted a watershed decision. Whether or not this characterization of Apprendi is apt, the petitioner's argument is misguided. The inquiry into the applicability of the procedural default rule is, for the most part, black or white: either the defendant proffered a timely objection or he did not. While there are a few exceptions, see, e.g., Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 621-22, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998) (discussing exception for claims that could not be presented without further factual development, e.g., a claim that a guilty plea was coerced), the subsequent announcement of a Supreme Court ruling — whether or not it blazes new trails — is not one of them. 6 38 Bousley illustrates this point. That case involved a habeas application prosecuted by an individual who had pleaded guilty to a federal firearms offense that was later circumscribed by the Court. Id. at 616-18, 118 S.Ct. 1604 (citing Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 143-50, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995)). Even though the defendant entered his plea without knowing that the Court subsequently would curtail the statute in a way that might have affected the outcome of his case, the Court performed an archetypical procedural default analysis when it considered his habeas petition. See id. at 621-22, 118 S.Ct. 1604. We see no principled distinction here. 39 We thus proceed to the question of whether the petitioner's procedural default is excused. A defendant can surmount this hurdle in one of two ways. First, he can offer evidence sufficient to prove that he is actually innocent of the underlying charge. Id. at 622, 118 S.Ct. 1604. The petitioner makes no such claim. 40 The second way in which a defendant can clear the procedural default hurdle is by showing good cause for the default and actual prejudice resulting therefrom. Burks, 55 F.3d at 716. We use the conjunctive purposefully because the defendant must carry the devoir of persuasion as to both cause and prejudice. Id. Because the petitioner in this case has not sufficiently demonstrated prejudice, see text infra, we need not inquire into the question of cause. 7 41 The showing of prejudice needed to cure a procedural default generally requires a habeas petitioner to demonstrate that `there is a reasonable probability' that the result of the trial would have been different absent the error. Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 289, 119 S.Ct. 1936, 144 L.Ed.2d 286 (1999) (quoting Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 433, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995)). The question is not whether the petitioner, qua defendant, would more likely have received a different verdict had the error not occurred, but whether he received a fair trial, understood as a trial worthy of confidence, notwithstanding the bevue. See Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434, 115 S.Ct. 1555; see also Prou v. United States, 199 F.3d 37, 49 (equating the prejudice standard for ineffective assistance cases with the standard for showing case and prejudice under United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982)). 42 To be sure, the Supreme Court has not elaborated the precise definition of the cause and prejudice standard for all claims. See Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214, 221, 108 S.Ct. 1771, 100 L.Ed.2d 249 (1988). 8 Still, any error that results in unfairness so patent as to violate the Due Process Clause will necessarily satisfy the Strickler and Kyles standards. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 494, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986). 43 We analyze the issue of prejudice based on an examination of the record as a whole. See Frady, 456 U.S. at 169, 102 S.Ct. 1584. Here, our inquiry focuses on the likelihood that the jury, had it been asked the question, would have found that the underlying conspiracy involved the manufacture and distribution of at least fifty marijuana plants. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C); see also Harris v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 122 S.Ct. 2406, 2418, 153 L.Ed.2d 524, ___ (2002). The burden rests with the petitioner to show that there is a reasonable probability that the jury would have reached a different, more favorable conclusion. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); Burks, 55 F.3d at 716. 44 This inquiry need not detain us. The evidence is commanding that the conspiracy of which the appellant was a member involved far more than fifty plants, and that any rational jury would have found as much. After all, during the course of the trial the government presented detailed evidence about the size, scope, and inner workings of the criminal cabal. During the seven years that the coconspirators operated the underground greenhouse on the petitioner's property, marijuana was grown in three rooms. Two rooms were 104 feet long and 36 feet wide, and the other 72 feet long and 38 feet wide. The facility was equipped with special air-conditioning and heating systems, and was powered by an independent generator. At its high point, the underground greenhouse housed as many as 20,000 plants. Individual harvests yielded as many as 5,000 plants. The alternate site was on the same order of magnitude; the government seized 5,600 plants when it raided the premises in 1995. 45 In a nutshell, no reasonable juror could have found that the conspiracy involved fewer than several thousand marijuana plants. The evidence of the size and duration of the operation was copious. So too was the evidence of the petitioner's participation in the enterprise (indeed, he does not now contest that the government adequately tied him to the marijuana-growing operation). Fairly viewed, the record as a whole does not lend credence to the petitioner's plaint that the outcome might have been different but for the Apprendi error. 46 In an effort to blunt the force of this conclusion, the petitioner argues that, had the district court consigned the drug-quantity issue to the jury, he would have contested that issue more vigorously. This argument rings hollow. The indictment explicitly stated that the petitioner was charged with conspiracy in the manufacture and distribution of 1,000 or more marijuana plants, and he was thus on notice that he faced a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years unless he could cast doubt upon that allegation. That was incentive enough to mount as robust a challenge as possible. And to cinch matters, the petitioner has alluded to no evidence upon which he could have based a credible claim that the conspiracy involved only a small number of marijuana plants. 47 The petitioner also posits that he did not know of the breadth of the conspiracy, and, thus, could not have foreseen the number of plants attributed to him at sentencing. That argument is moot. As we have said, once it was established that the petitioner was a participant in a conspiracy that involved at least fifty marijuana plants, the district court was free, under Edwards and Apprendi, to determine foreseeability and sentence the petitioner within the elevated statutory maximum. The court did so — and the petitioner eschewed a timely challenge to that determination. 9