Court Opinion

ID: 9844664
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:06:24.774162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:39.810755
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting:
The majority correctly notes that the victim impact statements used in this case constitute exactly the type of statements prohibited by Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987), and it correctly concluded that the trial court erred in admitting them. But rather than remanding the case for resentencing, as Booth requires, the majority diverts itself with a harmless error discussion centering on its analysis and determination as to the extent the sentencing judge may (or may not) have relied upon the victim impact statements in concluding that defendant was a qualified candidate for the ultimate sentence of death. Nowhere in Booth is it suggested that a reviewing court make such a determination. The rule of Booth, which this court has heretofore declared itself required to follow, is that when a victim impact statement is introduced into the sentencing procedure which yields a death sentence, the eighth amendment is violated; the defendant must be resentenced at a subsequent proceeding which excludes such extraneous matters. Booth, 482 U.S. at 509, 107 S.Ct. at 2536.
Indiscriminate use of the harmless error doctrine poses a grave danger to the rights of a criminal defendant. In 1939, the Unit*676ed States Supreme Court commented on Section 269 of the Judiciary Code, the federal statute which instituted the harmless error doctrine: “[The] Act was intended to prevent matters concerned with the mere etiquette of trials and with the formalities and minutiae of procedure from touching the merits of a verdict.” Bruno v. United States, 308 U.S. 287, 294, 60 S.Ct. 198, 200, 84 L.Ed. 257 (1939). The scope of the harmless error doctrine has since been broadened to include constitutional errors. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Chapman took care to note that the California harmless error statute there at issue, like the federal harmless error statute, “emphasizes an intention not to treat as harmless those constitutional errors that ‘affect substantial rights’ of a party.” 386 U.S. at 23, 87 S.Ct. at 828.
Because the error in this case, the use of victim impact statements, impacted defendant Fain’s eighth amendment right against arbitrary punishment, the error cannot be deemed harmless.