Court Opinion

ID: 9479853
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:30:36.96672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:18.499388
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
This writer is compelled to take issue with the majority opinion in the instant case. By concluding that this Court is procedurally barred from reaching the merits of Russell’s claim that venireman Hoover was unconstitutionally excused, the majority effectively ignores the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncement in Harris v. Reed, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989). To my mind, the plain language and history behind Harris compel a conclusion that this Court is not foreclosed from reaching the merits. Quite simply, the last state court rendering a judgment on Russell’s petition, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, did so without a written order. Such denial cannot and does not constitute a clear and express statement that the state court based its denial on the procedural bar. Absent such a clear and express statement, this Court must proceed to the merits of the claim.
Upon examination of the substance of Russell’s claim, I am convinced that venireman Hoover was in fact excluded in violation of Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985), and Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 65 L.Ed.2d 581 (1980). I therefore must respectfully dissent.

PROCEDURAL BAR

Procedural default bars federal habeas review only if the last state court rendering judgment in the case clearly and expressly rests its judgment on the procedural default. Harris 109 S.Ct. at 1043. Because the last state court to render a decision on Russell’s habeas petition, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, did so without a written order, there are not sufficient indi-cia that this denial was based on the failure of Russell’s counsel to object to venireman Hoover’s exclusion. The procedural bar simply does not operate to prevent review by this Court. The majority, however, concludes that “it is absolutely clear that, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals applied the state procedural bar in rejecting all of petitioner’s Witherspoon claims.” Consequently, the majority concluded that this Court is foreclosed from considering the merits of the claim.
This “clear” invocation of the procedural bar to which the majority refers, is, in my view, murky at best.1 The Texas Court of *1218Criminal Appeals, on direct appeal, indicated that the objection to the venireman’s dismissal was not raised in compliance with Texas procedural rules. The court went on, however, and noted that “in the interest of justice, we shall review appellant’s complaint.” Russell v. State, 598 S.W.2d 238, 245 (Tex.Crim.App.1980). The court then proceeded to spend two and one-half pages discussing the merits of the federal claim. Consequently, the opinion does not clearly indicate that the procedural default rather than the merits of the federal claim constituted the ground for denial. At any rate, the basis of the denial on direct appeal is not significant in the context of the instant case. We are concerned with the language of the last state court rendering a judgment. That opinion, handed down by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the habeas petition, does not contain the clear and express statement of reliance on the procedural bar as required by Harris.
In Harris, the Supreme Court held that:
a procedural default does not bar consideration of a federal claim on either direct or habeas review unless the last state court rendering a judgment in the case “ ‘clearly and expressly’ ” states that its judgment rests on a state procedural bar.
Harris 109 S.Ct. at 1043 (citations omitted). The last state court to enter a judgment on Russell’s petition, the Court of Criminal Appeals, did so simply by entering a denial without a written order. This writer cannot agree that the action of the Court of Criminal Appeals in simply entering a denial without any kind of written order “clearly and ‘expressly’ ” stated “that its judgment rests on a state procedural bar.” Because of the absence of a written order, any determination that the state court relied on the procedural bar must necessarily be based on speculation. As the Court in Harris realized, to allow such second-guessing of the rationale behind a state court order would impose
substantial burdens on the federal courts_ [In] some circumstances, ... the federal habeas court would be forced to examine the state court record to determine whether procedural default [was presented].... Much time would be lost in reviewing legal and factual issues that the state court ... is better suited to address expeditiously. The “plain statement” requirement achieves the important objective of permitting the federal court rapidly to identify whether the federal issues are properly presented before it.
Harris 109 S.Ct. at 1044. This language is particularly pertinent to the instant case, Russell, where the last court to enter a judgment did so without written order. There is no clear and express indication that the denial was based on the procedural bar; this Court should proceed to the merits of the claim.
The position of the State during oral argument of the instant case is interesting; the State there indicated that “if all we had was a denial without written order, that would not be sufficient to satisfy Harris v. Reed.” The State then (and now) argued that this Court may presume the Court of Criminal Appeals’ reliance on the procedural default by examining the recommendation of the district court on the habeas petition as well as the opinion of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on direct appeal. This suggestion, upon which the majority apparently bases its conclusion that the claim is procedurally barred, misinterprets the history and rationale behind Harris. Harris and Long constitute component *1219parts of a body of jurisprudence designed both to lessen the burden placed on federal courts and to reduce the intrusiveness of federal review of claims originating in the state court system.
Moreover, the adoption of a presumption such as the one suggested by the State was specifically addressed and rejected by the Court in Harris. Harris 109 S.Ct. at 1043-44. The Supreme Court has indicated that in a situation where a decision by the last state court could potentially rest on either federal grounds or an amalgamation of state and federal law grounds, if
the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion, [then the] most reasonable explanation [is] that the state court decided the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to do so.
Long 103 S.Ct. at 3476. In order to avoid this presumption of a decision on the merits, the state court need only clearly and expressly indicate that the decision is based on state law grounds. I cannot agree that a denial without a written order constitutes such a clear and express statement.
Requiring a state court to explicitly state that it is relying on a procedural bar does not place an undue burden on state judicial decisionmaking. “As Long itself recognized, it would be more intrusive for a federal court to second-guess a state court’s determination of state law.” Harris 109 S.Ct. at 1044. This type of intrusive behavior is exactly what the State here advocates; the majority supports that position today. The majority’s approach in this case, however, has in my view been categorically foreclosed by Harris and Long.
There is a need for uniformity in federal law. The Supreme Court has recognized that the previously employed haphazard approach to construing ambiguous state court orders fails to sufficiently promote uniformity.
[T]his need goes unsatisfied when we fail to review an opinion that rests primarily on federal grounds and when the independence of an alleged state ground is not apparent from the four corners of the opinion.
Long 103 S.Ct. at 3476 (emphasis in original). The need to which the Supreme Court refers is most palpable in cases such as this where a life hangs in the balance. In such a case, strict adherence must be paid to the rules governing the use of the procedural bar doctrine. Absent a clear and express statement by the last state court rendering a judgment that the petition was denied because of adequate and independent state grounds, this Court is bound by Supreme Court precedent to review the merits of the claim. To misapply this principle is to do a serious injustice to both the petitioner and capital punishment jurisprudence.
For the foregoing reasons, I cannot agree that this Court is procedurally barred from reaching the merits of Russell’s first ground for habeas relief.

THE MERITS

Russell argues that venireman Hoover was excused in violation of Adams v. Texas. In Adams, the Supreme Court held that the Texas statute allowing a juror to be excused for cause “unless he states under oath that the mandatory penalty of death or imprisonment for life will not affect his deliberations on any issue of fact,” had been unconstitutionally applied. Tex. Penal Code § 12.31(b). The Adams Court concluded that, as applied, the Texas statute permitted the excusal of too broad a class of individuals because it “exclude[d] jurors whose only fault was to take their responsibilities with special seriousness or to acknowledge honestly that they might or might not be affected.” Adams 100 S.Ct. at 2529. The Court went on to note that there was no indication in the record that the individuals were so irrevocably stationed in opposition to the death penalty so as to frustrate the State’s legitimate interest in seeing the death penalty scheme administered. The Constitution prohibits the exclusion of jurors whose irrevocable opposition is not apparent. “The Constitution disentitles the State to execute a sentence of death imposed by a jury from *1220which such prospective jurors have been excluded.” Id.
Of course, Adams in no way indicates that a juror’s bias must be stated in an emphatic, straightforward manner before exclusion is proper. Rather, the Court indicated that a juror may not be challenged for cause unless his views “would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.” Id. 100 S.Ct. at 2526.
In the instant case, Russell was tried in 1977, three years before the decision in Adams, and two years before certiorari was granted in Adams. At the voir dire stage, the State made frequent use of the following question, or a similar version thereof:
Knowing that that is the two penalties, life and death — with that understanding, would that knowledge affect your deliberations on any issue of fact — your thinking in consideration of those fact questions? 2
Hoover voir dire, Record Yol. 4 at 808. Venireman Hoover was excused immediately after answering the above question affirmatively.3 Russell now argues that this exclusion violates Adams v. Texas.
The State and the concurring opinion have pointed to the presumption of correctness which this Court must afford a trial court’s determination that a prospective juror cannot perform his statutory function *1221faithfully and impartially and must therefore be excused. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d); Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985); Wicker v. McCotter, 783 F.2d 487 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1010, 106 S.Ct. 3310, 92 L.Ed.2d 723 (1986).
Notwithstanding the customary deference due the trial court’s determination, I cannot agree that in the instant case this Court must defer to the trial court’s determination that venireman Hoover was properly excused for cause because of his beliefs regarding the death penalty. While section 2254(d) does indicate that this Court should defer to a trial court’s determination, it cannot be forgotten that the trial judge made the determination of juror bias prior to the decision in Adams at a time when both section 12.31(b) and Witherspoon v. Illinois constituted adequate grounds for excusal of a veniremember. See Moore v. State, 542 S.W.2d 664 (Tex.Crim.App.1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 949, 97 S.Ct. 2666, 53 L.Ed.2d 266 (1977).
In Wainwright v. Witt, the Supreme Court discussed the amount of deference that a federal court reviewing a habeas petition must pay to a trial court’s determination of juror bias. Decided after Adams, the decision in Witt addressed the trial court’s conclusion that a juror’s views prevented or substantially impaired the performance of that juror’s duties in accordance with the juror’s oath. “The trial judge is of course applying some kind of legal standard to what he sees and hears, but his predominant function in determining juror bias involves credibility findings whose basis cannot be easily discerned from an appellate record.” Witt 105 S.Ct. at 855. At the time of Russell’s trial, the “prevent or substantially impair” legal standard of Adams and Witt had not yet been articulated as the exclusive grounds for excusal. The decision in Adams, indicating that the exclusion of a broader class of veniremember resulted in an unconstitutional jury panel, had not yet been handed down and section 12.31(b) stood as good law in Texas without any parameters on its application. Consequently, while it is true that this Court was able to personally observe Hoover’s demeanor, it is equally true that we are unable to discern whether the trial judge applied the correct legal standard. Considering the existence of a statute subsequently determined to be unconstitutional, it is highly likely that the standard applied by the judge was in error.
I cannot discern how the reasoning behind Witt can apply in the instant case; the Supreme Court rested the Witt decision on the proposition that the “judge is of course applying some kind of legal standard.”4 In the instant case, the judge was potentially applying the wrong legal standard; the amount of deference due his determination of juror bias is therefore lessened considerably.5
The State further points to the following question, a version which was asked of most, but not all, of the veniremembers:6
*1222In other words, you could answer the questions with the rest of the jury honestly without regard to the effect those answers might have on the sentence in this case? 7
The State argues that, through the use of this question, it equated section 12.31(b) with an inquiry into whether the prospective jurors could answer the punishment issues honestly based on the evidence presented and the court’s instructions.
Consequently, the State contends that the use of its follow-up question indicates that section 12.31(b) was applied in a manner consistent with the “prevent or substantially impair” rule of law. At oral argument, the State pointed out that of the fifty-three veniremembers, forty-seven were asked whether they would be “affected.” Forty answered “no” and were subsequently asked the previously set-out followup question. What the State fails to point out, however, is that of the jurors who said that they would be affected, none were asked the follow-up question. The State, for example, did not proceed to ask “so, you are saying that you would be unable to answer the questions with the rest of the jury honestly without regard to the effect those answers might have on the sentence in this case?
Consequently, it is fair to say that while the jurors who indicated that they would not be affected were asked to clarify their degree of self-removal, no such judicial yardstick was placed against the jurors who, like Hoover, said they would be affected. Pursuant to my interpretation of the Supreme Court cases in this area, this failure to explore how much the venire-member would be affected is fatal to the State’s argument.
The essential question is whether a potential juror will conscientiously apply the law to the facts. That a juror will be affected is not enough. Most potential jurors would in some way be affected by the prospect of participating in condemning another to die. “Every right-thinking man would regard it as a painful duty to pronounce a verdict of death upon his fellowman.” Witherspoon 88 S.Ct. at 1773 n. 8 (citation omitted). In order to determine if a juror will be prevented or substantially impaired in his ability to uphold his oath to apply the law, the questioning must indicate that by “affect” the veniremember intends to indicate more than that he “would be more emotionally involved or would view [the] task ‘with greater seriousness and gravity.’ ” Wainwright 105 S.Ct. at 850.
[To] exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way affected by the prospect of the death penalty or by their views about such a penalty would be to deprive the defendant of the impartial jury to which he or she is entitled under the law.
Consequently, while section 12.31(b) still exists in the Texas statutory scheme, in order to be constitutionally applied, there must be some indication that the judge has been able to gauge how much the juror would be affected. No such indication is present in the record. I am convinced that Hoover’s exclusion constitutes an Adams violation.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, I am convinced that Russell was unconstitutionally sentenced to death in violation of Adams v. Texas and Wainwright v. Witt. As the Supreme Court has indicated, if even one veniremember is unconstitutionally excused in this manner, the sentence must be reversed to the extent that it sustains the imposition of the death penalty. I therefore must respectfully dissent.

. Harris and its predecessors instruct that the mere existence of a basis for a state procedural bar, such as the contemporaneous objection rule, is not talismanic. Instead, in order for review in federal court to be inappropriate, “the *1218state court must actually have relied on the procedural bar as an independent basis for its disposition of the case." Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 327, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985). However, it is not always an easy task to discern whether the state court actually relied on the procedural bar or whether relief was denied on the merits. The problem of ambiguous state court orders is not a new one. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983). In Long, the Court adopted the "plain-statement" rule in order to eradicate the problems presented by ambiguous state court references to state law on direct appeal. Consequently, a federal court is presumed to have jurisdiction to review the merits of a federal claim unless the state court plainly states that the decision rests on an adequate and independent state ground. In Harris, the Court applied the Long "plain-statement” rule to habe-as review as well.

. This question summarizes the content of Tex. Penal Code § 12.31(b):
Prospective jurors shall be informed that a sentence of life imprisonment or death is mandatory on conviction of a capital felony. A prospective juror, shall be disqualified from serving as a juror unless he states under oath that the mandatory penalty of death or imprisonment for life will not affect his deliberations on any issue of fact.

. Hoover’s voir dire is as follows:
Q: Your name is Richard E. Hoover?
A: Yes.
Q: Mr. Hoover, I am Jack Salyer. X am the District Attorney over in Matagorda and Wharton Counties.
I, along with your good District Attorney, Bill Meitzen, will represent the State in this case that we are attempting to get a jury to try.
This is what is known as voir dire examination. It’s the opportunity that both sides have to visit with you and find out how you feel about some of our laws.
Let me assure you that there is no right or wrong answers. We are not going to argue with you or try to get you to change your mind about anything. We simply want to know how you feel about some of our laws. Okay?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Try to relax and I will try to be very speedily with you.
A: Okay.
Q: You are told that this Defendant is charged with the murder of a man by the name of Stearns.
It is further alleged that he is charged with he committed the murder while kidnaping [sic].
Now, one charged with the offense, if convicted, is guilty of capital murder, for which the mandatory penalty is life or death. It only carries two penalties.
Now, with this understanding let me ask you this:
Do you have any religious or conscientious scruples against the infliction of death as a punishment for crime?
A: I don’t have any religious, but I do have conscientious.
Q: All right, sir. Is this a long-held feeling? Have you felt this way for some time? A: Yes, I have.
Q: Now, I think I told you briefly Tuesday — I am sorry. I am getting kind of rum-dum
_ that today that you don’t have to decide specifically which penalty will apply. However, if you were sitting as a juror you would be asked certain fact questions and dependent upon how you answered those questions that would absolutely direct the Judge of which sentence he impresses. He doesn’t have any discretion.
If you answer them yes, he has to give him death.
If you answer them no, he has to give him life.
So let me go just a little bit further with you.
Knowing that that this is the two penalties, life and death — with that understanding, would that knowledge affect your deliberations on any issue of fact — your thinking in consideration of those fact questions?
A: Yes. Because the death penalty would enter into it.
MR. SALYER: All right, sir. We would challenge for cause, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr. Hoover. You may go and Mrs. Cole will mail your check.

. See also Witt 105 S.Ct. at 858. The Court there refers to the proposition that the trial court is correctly applying the law: "the trial court [is] hopefully imbued with a fair amount of common sense as well as an understanding of the applicable law.”

. This conclusion does not conflict with § 2254(d). Pursuant to that section, a trial judge’s findings of fact are presumed correct unless the factfinding procedure was not adequate or the material facts were not developed. Where, between the time of trial and the time of habeas review, the class of people who may be excluded has been narrowed due to the articulation of a different legal standard, I cannot agree that the material facts were necessarily developed. This is especially so in the case of venireman Hoover who was excused immediately after stating that he was in fact affected.
The State points to this Court’s decision in Brock v. McCotter, 781 F.2d 1152 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1153, 106 S.Ct. 2259, 90 L.Ed.2d 704 (1986), to support its proposition that a pre-Adams excusal must be upheld. However, Brock differs considerably from the instant case; there, the voir dire of the veniremember in question was quite extended. Consequently, there was a sufficient factual basis on which a trial judge could base a conclusion of juror bias.

.In addition to the arguments presented in the text, the State has argued that the failure of Russell’s counsel to attempt to rehabilitate Hoover is detrimental to his claim today. This argument is unpersuasive in light of the jurisprudential universe in which the judge and the attorneys were operating at the time of the trial. As the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted in Moore v. Texas, 542 S.W.2d 664 (Tex.Crim.App. *12221976), both 12.31(b) and the Supreme Court’s pronouncement in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), existed as separate viable grounds upon which to base a challenge for cause.

. Venireman Hoover was not asked the followup question.