Court Opinion

ID: 9479677
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:25:19.868386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:11.882565
License: Public Domain

LOGAN, Circuit Judge,
with whom Chief Judge HOLLOWAY and Judges McKAY and SEYMOUR, join, dissenting:
I agree with the majority opinion that we have a “new” rule within the contemplation of Teague v. Lane, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), and Penry v. Lynaugh, — U.S. -, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). I would add, because I differ with the majority on the standard of review contemplated by Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 341, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 2646, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985), that it is Caldwell’s, “greatly heightened intolerance of misleading jury argument,” Sawyer v. Butler, 881 F.2d 1273, 1291 (5th Cir.1989) (en banc), which clearly makes it a new rule.
Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974), had been settled law for over ten years before Caldwell was decided. Donnelly held that due process does not require the reversal of a conviction based on alleged improper remarks of the prosecutor unless the remarks constituted fundamental unfairness to the defendant. Thus, if Caldwell applied that or a significantly similar standard (even in the context of an Eighth Amendment challenge), it would be difficult to say that Caldwell was not dictated by Donnelly precedent. Cases dictated by precedent cannot espouse “new” rules under Teague. 109 S.Ct. at 1070. Thus, it is the standard of review articulated in Caldwell that makes it “new,” under the Teag-ue analysis.
I also agree with the majority that Caldwell error falls within the second exception of Teague and Penry. The jury’s perception of its position in the criminal justice system, when it has discretionary power to put a defendant to death, is central to the reliability of the sentence — hence it is a procedure “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Teague, 109 S.Ct. at 1075. The majority’s analysis on this issue is better than that of the Sawyer majority which found to the contrary. 881 F.2d at 1292-94.
We are equally divided on the issue whether there is Caldwell error in the case at bar. I remain persuaded that the prosecutor’s remarks in the rebuttal part of his closing argument immediately before the case was submitted to the jury constituted Caldwell error. I can add little to my analysis in my dissent to the panel opinion, Hopkinson v. Shillinger, 866 F.2d 1185, 1233-37 (10th Cir.1989), and do not repeat it here.
Where I differ from the majority is on the standard of review that we must apply to Caldwell error. The Supreme Court concluded in Caldwell, “[bjecause we cannot say that this effort [prosecutor’s improper argument] had no effect on the sentencing decision, that decision does not meet the standard of reliability that the Eighth Amendment requires.” 472 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 2646 (emphasis added). The majority here says essentially that the Supreme Court did not mean what it said in Caldwell, and did not intend to create such a tough standard of review. The majority equates a “no effect” standard with a per se reversal rule and then discusses a number of cases it considers analagous in which the Supreme Court used different words to describe the review standards in those situations.
I do not agree that the Supreme Court inadvertently used the “no effect” words or intended something different than the high standard of review indicated by those words. The writer of the majority opinion in Caldwell, in dissenting to a denial of certiorari in Moore v. Blackburn, 476 U.S. 1176, 106 S.Ct. 2904, 90 L.Ed.2d 990 (1986) *1298(denying cert. to 774 F.2d 97 (5th Cir.1985)), stated that under the court’s recent Caldwell decision the petitioner’s sentence could not stand unless the error “had no effect on the sentencing decision.” 476 U.S. at 1176, 106 S.Ct. at 2904 (Marshall, J., dissenting). The dissenters in Caldwell itself were fully aware that a “no effect” standard was being articulated in the majority opinion. Justice Rehnquist, writing for the dissenters, objected to two facets of the majority opinion: (1) the majority’s conclusions about the misleading effect of the prosecutor’s statements, taken in context, and (2) the imposition of the “no effect” test (what the dissent saw as the exaggeration of the likelihood of actual prejudice). In speaking to the second objection, the dissent criticized the majority’s failure to apply the “fundamental fairness” test of Donnelly. The dissent further clarified its disagreement with the majority stating, “[although the Eighth Amendment requires certain processes designed to prevent the arbitrary imposition of capital punishment, it does not follow that every proceeding that strays from the optimum is ipso facto constitutionally unreliable.” Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 350-51, 105 S.Ct. at 2650-51 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).1
I believe the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986), recognized and reinforced the “no effect” standard as applied to Caldwell error in the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. Darden, which involved prosecutor’s comments during the guilt phase, distinguished Caldwell, stating:
“The principles of Caldwell are not applicable to this case. Caldwell involved comments by a prosecutor during the sentencing phase of trial to the effect that the jury’s decision as to life or death was not final, that it would automatically be reviewed by the State Supreme Court, and that the jury should not be made to feel that the entire burden of the defendant’s life was on them....
... In this case, the comments were made at the guilt-innocence stage of trial, greatly reducing the chance that they had any effect at all on sentencing.... Caldwell is relevant only to certain types of comment — those that mislead the jury as to its role in the sentencing process in a way that allows the jury to feel less responsible than it should for the sentencing decision. In this case, none of the comments could have had the effect of misleading the jury into thinking that it had a reduced role in the sentencing process.”
477 U.S. at 183 n. 15, 106 S.Ct. at 2472 n. 15 (emphasis added).
All fourteen of the active judges in the Fifth Circuit agree that the Supreme Court, in Caldwell, intended to adopt a “no effect” test. In the Sawyer opinion on en banc rehearing, that court extensively analyzes why Caldwell sets out such a high standard, when the Supreme Court considers the fundamental fairness standard sufficient to protect the defendant’s rights in other situations. After that analysis the Sawyer court concludes:
“The state cannot resist the conclusion that it improperly diminished a jury’s sense of responsibility in its sentencing role with the argument that a jury with such diminished responsibility nonetheless did not render the proceedings fundamentally unfair.
[Caldwell ] instructs that if the State seeks ‘to minimize the jury’s sense of responsibility for determining the appropriateness of death’ and ‘we cannot say that this effort had no effect on the sentencing decision,’ then ‘that decision does not meet the standard of reliability *1299that the Eighth Amendment requires.’
In sum, we reject [the State’s] proffered definition of Caldwell. We do so after noting that its core is diminishing the responsibility of the jury by misdes-cribing its role under state law and after rejecting the suggestion that its elements include showings of fundamental unfairness, a contemporaneous objection or trial court participation.”
Sawyer, 881 F.2d at 1285-86 (quoting Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 2646).
The “substantial possibility” test the majority in the instant case adopts smacks too much of preponderanee-of-the-evidence.2 While I said in my dissent to the panel opinion that the “no effect” test approaches a per se rule of reversal, I did not mean that it is a per se reversal rule. Rather the test seems to be akin to a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard.
In Caldwell, the Court did not require the petitioner to prove actual prejudice; indeed, the limitations of the appellate process and the rules against polling jurors would effectively preclude any such proof. Rather, Caldwell evaluated, in the context of the prosecutor’s argument and the court’s instructions to the jury, the inherent tendency of the improper remarks “to minimize the jury’s sense of responsibility for determining the appropriateness of death.” 472 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 2646. When that Court said that violations can be overlooked only if a reviewing court can conclude with confidence that they had “no effect on the sentencing decision,” id., it meant, I believe, that reviewing judges should ask themselves if they are convinced beyond reasonable doubt, considering the context, admonitions of the trial judge and other circumstances, that the improper remarks did not affect the sentencing decision.
If I ask myself whether there is a “substantial possibility” the prosecutor’s Caldwell remarks affected the jury’s decision to sentence Hopkinson to death I must say no — they probably did not affect the jury’s decision. But if I ask myself whether I am so convinced beyond a reasonable doubt my answer is not the same. I cannot say with confidence that the prosecutor’s remarks had no effect on the jury’s sentencing decision. Therefore, I would hold that Hopkin-son’s death sentence was imposed in violation of the Eighth Amendment and must be vacated.

. The majority in the case at bar suggests that although Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 8, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 1673, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986), uses the "no effect” language it also does not adopt that as a standard. It does use other language including "under any standard.” But I believe it adopts a "no effect” standard of review for errors in the admission of mitigating evidence in a death sentencing proceeding by stating, in the crucial paragraph of the opinion: "Nor can we confidently conclude that credible evidence that petitioner was a good prisoner would have had no effect on the jury's deliberations.” Id. at 8, 106 S.Ct. at 1673 (emphasis added).

. Additionally, it seems to me that the issue of the likelihood of the prosecutor’s remarks actually having affected the sentencing decision is largely subsumed in the initial determination of whether Caldwell error has, in fact, occurred. A close evaluation of the entirety of the prosecutor's argument and the statements and instructions of the trial judge are necessary to determine whether the prosecutor’s remarks, taken in context, would tend to provide the jury with a misleading perception of its role. When viewed in this light, it becomes apparent that many objections to the no effect standard (including those of the Caldwell dissent) are actually better analyzed as objections to finding the presence of Caldwell error at all.