Court Opinion

ID: 9662700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:15:45.956156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:41.447840
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN N. LIMBAUGH, JR., Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
I.
Preliminarily, I have great concern that the majority has effectively displaced the time-honored principle of finality by permitting Whitfield to challenge the constitutionality of Missouri’s death penalty statute for the first time in a motion to recall the mandate. In accordance with established procedures for collateral review of a procedurally defaulted claim, Whitfield instead must seek habeas relief on grounds of cause and prejudice. Brown v. State, 66 S.W.3d 721, 726 (Mo. banc 2002).
A.
As this Court recognized in State v. Thompson, 659 S.W.2d 766, 769 (Mo. banc 1983), an appellate court is divested of jurisdiction over a case upon issuance of its mandate, with only limited exceptions. One such exception, and the exception that convinces the majority of the propriety of reasserting jurisdiction over this case, is where “the decision of a lower appellate court directly conflicts with a decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the rights of the accused.” Id.
In its abbreviated discussion of the appropriateness of reasserting jurisdiction over Whitfield’s claims, the majority cites State v. McReynolds, 581 S.W.2d 465 (Mo.App.1979), and State v. Nevels, 581 S.W.2d 138 (Mo.App.1979), as “illustrative of a court’s power to recall its mandate when the mandate abridges constitutional rights that have been recognized by the United States Supreme Court.” The majority explains that in both McReynolds and Nev-els, “the court of appeals recalled its mandates affirming defendants’ convictions in trials in which voir dire had proceeded in a way not permitted under Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S.Ct. 664, 58 L.Ed.2d 579 (1979), after the Supreme Court held in Lee v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 461, 99 S.Ct. 710, 58 L.Ed.2d 736 (1979) that Duren was retroactive.” What the majority fails to acknowledge, however, is that the mandates that were recalled in both of these cases explicitly rejected the particular constitutional claim later recognized by the Duren Court. In this respect, the appellate courts’ affirming opinions “directly conflict[ed] with a decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the rights of the accused.” Thompson, 659 S.W.2d at 769.
By contrast, in this case, Whitfield did not argue on direct appeal that Missouri’s capital sentencing procedures are unconstitutional. See State v. Whitfield, 939 S.W.2d 361 (Mo. banc 1997). Thus, there is no incongruity between this Court’s earlier mandate and Ring’s subsequent holding. Because the mandate, and the opin*276ion on which it was based, does not uphold, or even address, the constitutionality of the capital sentencing statute, it cannot be said to “directly conflict with a decision of the United States Supreme Court,” Thompson, 659 S.W.2d at 769, and as such, a recall of the mandate is not appropriate.
Nor is a recall of the mandate appropriate, as the majority suggests, because this Court’s decision affirming Whitfield’s conviction and sentence resulted in a “deprivation of the federal constitutional rights of a criminal defendant.” Id. To hold that a prior mandate, that does not facially conflict with a United States Supreme Court decision upholding the rights of the accused, can nonetheless be recalled merely because it is later determined that the conviction or sentence should not have been affirmed in light of a constitutional claim that was not asserted, would be to completely eviscerate the time limitations imposed on raising claims of error on direct appeal and in post-conviction motions. I cannot support such a blatant overhaul of the rules of post-conviction practice.
B.
As the majority correctly notes, habeas relief is available to a defendant whose sentence is unlawful. State ex rel. Nixon v. Sprick, 59 S.W.3d 515, 519 (Mo. banc 2001). However, the majority incorrectly concludes Whitfield would be entitled to habeas relief, despite his procedural default, because “the court below imposed a sentence in excess of that permitted by law.” Unlike the cases cited by the majority, the error Whitfield asserts is not jurisdictional in nature. In both Merriweather v. Grandison, 904 S.W.2d 485 (Mo.App.1995), and State ex rel. Osowski v. Purkett, 908 S.W.2d 690 (Mo. banc 1995), the trial court had erroneously imposed sentences that exceeded the maximum sentence expressly provided by statute for the charged offenses. Although the defendants failed to timely challenge the unauthorized sentences, their claims of error were addressed, because- a jurisdictional defect cannot be waived. Merriweather, 904 S.W.2d at 489; Osowski, 908 S.W.2d at 691. In this case, however, the authority to sentence a defendant to death is expressly granted by statute; thus, the court did not impose a sentence in excess of that permitted by law. Rather, the claim of error asserted by Whitfield is grounded on the court’s failure to follow the procedures necessary to impose the death sentence under Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002).
In several different contexts, Missouri courts have recognized that procedural irregularities will not divest the court of authority to sentence a defendant within the range allowed by law. For instance, in Clay v. Dormire, 37 S.W.3d 214 (Mo. banc 2000), this Court noted that the defendant’s claim that he was improperly denied jury sentencing and that the sentencing court had erroneously considered an expunged prior conviction did not amount to a jurisdictional claim that “the sentence imposed exceeded that authorized by law.” Id. at 218. Similarly, in State v. Tincher, 797 S.W.2d 794 (Mo.App.1990), the court of appeals rejected the argument that the trial court’s departure from procedures mandated by statute for imposing enhanced punishment deprived the court of jurisdiction and held that such procedural errors warrant reversal only if the error was prejudicial. Id. at 797; see also State v. Jennings, 815 S.W.2d 434, 446 (Mo.App.1991); State v. Bryant, 658 S.W.2d 935, 940 (Mo.App.1983).
Although the alleged error did not deprive the sentencing court of jurisdiction to impose death, Whitfield nonetheless may be entitled to have his procedurally defaulted claim addressed in a habeas pro*277ceeding by demonstrating “cause for the failure to timely raise the claim at an earlier juncture and prejudice resulting from the error that forms the basis of the claim.” Brown, 66 S.W.3d at 726. But in any event, he should be required to follow the firmly established procedures set forth for collateral review. Whitfield “is bound to raise all challenges ... in accordance with the procedures established for that purpose,” and none of these procedures, including a motion to recall the mandate, are “designed for duplicative and unending challenges to the finality of a judgment.” State ex rel. Simmons v. White, 866 S.W.2d 443, 446 (Mo. banc 1993). Yet today this Court has chosen to depart from our established criminal review system by inventing an entirely new avenue for challenging untimely constitutional claims. I decline to follow the majority down this misguided path.
II.
I further decline to follow the majority’s application of Ring v. Arizona that mis-characterizes Missouri’s capital sentencing scheme. The mandate of Ring is simply that a jury must make a finding of “any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in [the] maximum punishment.” 536 U.S. at 589, 122 S.Ct. 2428. I would hold that step 3 of the capital sentencing statute, which directs that the trier conduct a balancing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, amounts to neither a factual finding, nor a finding that increases the maximum punishment.
A.
As noted, Missouri’s capital sentencing statute, section 565.030.4, RSMo 1994, requires a four-step process before a death sentence may be imposed:
The trier shall assess and declare the punishment at life imprisonment without eligibility for probation, parole, or release except by act of the governor:
(1) If the trier does not find beyond a reasonable doubt at least one of the statutory aggravating circumstances set out in subsection 2 of section 565.032; or
(2) If the trier does not find that the evidence in aggravation of punishment, including but not limited to evidence supporting the statutory aggravating circumstances listed in subsection 2 of section 565.032, warrants imposing the death sentence; or
(3) If the trier concludes that there is evidence in mitigation of punishment, including but not limited to evidence supporting the statutory mitigating circumstances listed in subsection 3 of section 565.032, which is sufficient to outweigh the evidence in aggravation of punishment found by the trier; or
(4) If the trier decides under all of the circumstances not to assess and declare the punishment at death.
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I agree with the majority that steps 1 and 2 — which require that the trier find beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least one statutory aggravator that warrants the death penalty — constitute factual findings subject to Ring’s proscriptions, and I further agree that step 4 — which gives the jury unfettered discretion to exercise mercy and reduce the sentence to life — involves a discretionary determination immune from the Ring holding. Step 3 is more akin to step 4 than steps 1 and 2.
By requiring the jury to weigh the evidence, that is, to balance and assess the relative degree of the evidence, step 3 entails a wholly subjective and discretionary analysis. See State v. Smith, 649 S.W.2d 417, 430 (Mo. banc 1983). In re*278viewing an earlier, but essentially similar version of the capital sentencing statute, this Court stated:
The purpose of the reasonable doubt standard is to reduce the risk of convictions and executions based on factual error.... In Missouri, before a jury can consider a sentence of death, it must unanimously find beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to establish guilt of a capital crime and the existence of at least one statutory aggravating circumstance, [section] 565.012, RSMo Cum.Supp.1982. Once these factual thresholds are crossed, however, the issue ceases to be one of proof and becomes one of discretion: will the jury, after considering all the evidence and aggravating and mitigating circumstances relevant to the crime and the defendant, recommend a sentence of death or life without eligibility for probation or parole for fifty years. The standard mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment for proof of ultimate facts does not control such an exercise of discretion.
Smith, 649 S.W.2d at 430 (emphasis in original). See also Ex Parte Waldrop, — So.2d —, —, 2002 WL 31630710, 2002 Ala. LEXIS 336, at *18 (Ala.2002) (“[T]he weighing process is not a factual determination or element of an offense; instead, it is a moral or legal judgment that takes into account a theoretically limitless set of facts that cannot be reduced to a scientific formula or the discovery of a discrete, observable datum.”); People v. Prieto, 30 Cal.4th 226, 133 Cal.Rptr.2d 18, 66 P.3d 1123, 1147 (2003) (“[T]he penalty phase determination ⅛ inherently moral and normative, not factual.’”) (citation omitted); Ford v. Strickland, 696 F.2d 804, 818 (11th Cir.1983) (“While the existence of an aggravating or mitigating circumstance is a fact susceptible to proof under a reasonable doubt or preponderance standard ... the relative weight is not.”).
Finally, there is a distinction, albeit a subtle one, between the legislature’s directions in these steps. The statute calls for a “finding” in steps 1 and 2, whereas the trier must arrive at a “conclusion” in step 3. These different requirements have different connotations. -A finding suggests the ascertainment of an observable fact, see WebsteR’s THIRD New InteRnational DictionaRY 852 (1986) (defining “finding” as “the result of a judicial or quasi-judicial examination or inquiry especially] into matters of fact as embodied in the verdict of a jury or decision of a court, referee, or administrative body-”), while a conclusion implies the exercise of judgment, see id. at 471 (defining “conclusion” as “a reasoned judgment or expression of one: inference .... ”). In short, Step 3 requires that the trier conduct a balancing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and reach a conclusion as to their relative weight. Such a determination necessarily involves the exercise of judgment, not fact-finding.
B.
Even if the majority is correct and step 3 does entail a factual finding, it cannot be construed as the kind of factual finding under Ring that increases the maximum punishment. Instead, a finding in favor of the defendant under step 3 acts only to decrease the punishment, subjecting an otherwise death-eligible defendant to life imprisonment. The language of the statute bears this out. The factual findings required under steps 1 and 2 — whether there exists at least one statutory aggravator and whether that aggravator warrants the death penalty — are findings that are necessary to increase the maximum punishment from life to death. State v. Worthington, 8 S.W.3d 83, 88 (Mo. banc 1999) (“The finding of a statutory aggravating *279circumstance serves the purpose of determining which defendants are eligible for the death penalty.”); State v. Shaw, 636 S.W.2d 667, 675 (Mo. banc 1982) (“The jury’s finding that one or more statutory aggravating circumstances exist is the threshold requirement that must be met before the jury can, after considering all the evidence, recommend the death sentence.”). However, unlike the language in steps 1 and 2, step 3 is not couched as a prerequisite to the imposition of the death penalty. The “finding” required under step 3 is not whether aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors in order to subject defendant to the death penalty, but whether mitigating factors outweigh aggravating factors in order for defendant to avoid the death penalty despite being death-eligible. See Brice v. State, 815 A.2d 314, 322 (Del.2003) (holding that “the weighing of aggravating circumstances against mitigating circumstances does not increase the punishment”); Torres v. State, 58 P.3d 214, 216 (Okla.Crim.App.2002) (holding that it is the “jury’s finding of the aggravating circumstance necessary to support a capital sentence, ... not the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, that authorizes jurors to consider imposing a sentence of death”).
Missouri’s system of proportionality review for death sentences lends further support for this conclusion. The object of this system is to ensure that the death penalty is warranted in any given case, and “to prevent freakish and wanton application of the death penalty.” State v. Black, 50 S.W.3d 778, 793 (Mo. banc 2001). Under section 565.035, this Court reviews all death sentences imposed within the state, and in doing so considers “[wjhether the evidence supports the jury or judge’s finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance ... and any other circumstance found.” It is telling, however, that the Court is not directed to consider the degree to which evidence in aggravation outweighs the evidence in mitigation. If a relative balancing of aggravators and miti-gators were necessary to impose the death penalty, it would seem as though this Court, as final arbiter of the propriety of capital punishment, would be obliged to undertake this crucial analysis.
III.
Having determined that Ring does not require a jury finding in step 3, the trial court was justified in imposing the punishment of death. The event that triggers judge sentencing is a jury’s inability to arrive at a decision on punishment. The judge is then required to independently repeat the four-step process, but the judge’s reconsideration of all four steps is not error. Although under Ring, steps 1 and 2 are fact-findings that the jury, not the judge, must make, the jury necessarily made those findings in accordance with the penalty-phase verdict directing instructions. And, as previously explained, once the jury has made these first two findings the defendant is eligible for the death penalty.
The majority, however, holds that the judicial determinations in steps 1 and 2 constituted error, and that the presumption that juries abide by the court’s instructions “is simply inadequate” to show that this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. But it is precisely because of this presumption that the judge’s finding was not error at all. The verdict directing instructions, which are based on section 565.030.4, RSMo 1994, explicitly provide that if a jury cannot decide unanimously on either step 1 or step 2, it must return a verdict of life without probation or parole. Thus, in the absence of a verdict of life without probation or parole, the jury necessarily found unanimously the ex*280istence of an aggravating factor that warrants the death penalty.
All this is dependent, of course, on the well-settled and indispensable presumption that juries act in accordance with the court’s instructions, a proposition that the majority now effectively rejects. In doing so, the majority tacitly overrules well-settled precedent in death cases. For instance, in State v. Smith, 944 S.W.2d 901 (Mo. banc 1997), this Court held that because the jury deadlocked on the issue of punishment, it necessarily found the existence of at least one statutory aggravating factor. Id. at 919-20. Similarly, in State v. Griffin, 756 S.W.2d 475 (Mo. banc 1988), this Court rejected the argument that a deadlocked jury should be required to delineate the statutory aggravators it has found in order to ensure that all the jurors agreed upon at least one aggravating circumstance before reaching an impasse. Id. at 488. In disposing of this argument, this Court held:
The jury instructions formulated to comply with the requirements of [section] 565.030.4(1), provide the assurance that the jury has found at least one aggravating circumstance. If the jury had not found the existence of any aggravating circumstance, it would have been required to impose a life sentence under MAI-CR 3d 313.40. Only if the jury had initially found the existence of an aggravating circumstance could it, under the instructions, return a verdict announcing that it was unable to agree upon punishment. It is presumed that juries follow their instructions. State v. Preston, 673 S.W.2d 1, 7 (Mo. banc), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 893, 105 S.Ct. 269, 83 L.Ed.2d 205 (1984). As there is already assurance that a jury returning a verdict announcing it cannot agree upon punishment has made the prerequisite finding of at least one aggravating circumstance, procedural due process does not require the jury to submit the aggravating circumstances it has found in writing.
Id. This assurance, however, is no longer enough for the majority, which refuses to acknowledge that, in accordance with the verdict directing instructions, the jury made the requisite findings under steps 1 and 2.
The majority’s rejection of the presumption that juries follow the court’s instructions is based, at least in part, on the perceived “confusion that the complex death penalty submission can cause even for a trial judge, much less a jury.” In that regard, the majority relies on this Court’s decision in State v. Thompson, 85 S.W.3d 635 (Mo. banc 2002), albeit in a footnote. Thompson, however, hardly demonstrates the necessity of abandoning the presumption that juries abide by the court’s instructions, as the confusion in Thompson stemmed from an ambiguous polling question. Here, on the other hand, the instructions are in no way ambiguous. Instruction No. 22, which corresponds to step 1, provided:
[I]f you do not unanimously find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one of the foregoing circumstances exists, you must return a verdict ' fixing the punishment of the defendant at imprisonment for life by the Division of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole.
Likewise, Instruction No. 24, which corresponds to step 2, provided:
If you do not unanimously find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that those aggravating circumstances you have found warrant the imposition of death as defendant’s punishment, you must return a verdict fixing his punishment at imprisonment for life by the *281Division of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole.
These instructions are neither complicated nor confusing, and there is simply no reason to believe that a jury — especially a capital jury — did not follow the law.
Our entire system of criminal jurisprudence is premised upon the notion that jurors perform their duties conscientiously and in accordance with the law. See Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U.S. 422, 438 n. 6, 103 S.Ct. 843, 74 L.Ed.2d 646 (1983) (quoting Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 73, 99 S.Ct. 2132, 60 L.Ed.2d 713 (1979)) (“[T]he ‘crucial assumption’ underlying the system of trial by jury ⅛ that juries will follow the instructions given them by the trial judge.’ ”); Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 434, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964) (“Unless we proceed on the basis that the jury will follow the court’s instructions where those instructions are clear and the circumstances are such that the jury can reasonably be expected to follow them, the jury system makes little sense.”). If we can no longer presume that a jury empanelled for the gravest of purposes — that of deciding whether a fellow human being deserves to die — strictly complied with the law while undertaking this solemn task, confidence in every capital sentence handed down in the state of Missouri will be seriously undermined. Accordingly, I am unwilling to disregard the presumption that juries entrusted with making life or death decisions follow the court’s instructions, and I will not indulge in the counter-presumption that jurors assigned to perform this grim duty proceed without regard for the strictures of the law.
IV.
Finally, I wish to address the majority’s rejection of the standards articulated by the Supreme Court in Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989), for determining whether a newly announced constitutional rule should be retroactively applied. Although I realize that this Court is not bound to adopt these standards, I see no reason to depart from Teague’s sound retroactivity analysis, as the finality considerations that dictated the Teague standards have equal force within the context of state court collateral proceedings. See Thompson, 659 S.W.2d at 768. Whether at the state or federal level:
[ajpplication of constitutional rules not in existence at the time a conviction became final seriously undermines the principle of finality which is essential to the operation of our criminal justice system. Without finality, the criminal law is deprived of much of its deterrent effect. The fact that life and liberty are at stake in criminal prosecutions “shows only that the ‘conventional notions of finality’ should not have as much place in criminal as in civil litigation, not that they should have none.”
Teague, 489 U.S. at 309, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (quoting Henry J. Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attacks on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L.Rev. 142, 150 (1970)).
Under the Teague standards, a new procedural rule will not be retroactively applied on collateral review, unless the rule implicates fundamental fairness or disallows the criminalization of certain conduct. This is a standard that strikes the proper balance between the state’s interest in finality and the criminal defendant’s right to procedures that ensure fundamental fairness. By contrast, the rule of law espoused by the majority, the Linkletter-Stovall test, does not give adequate deference to considerations of finality. It gives little guidance by using such vague standards as (a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the *282reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the administration of justice. Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293, 297, 87 S.Ct. 1967, 18 L.Ed.2d 1199 (1967). In this respect, the Linkletter-Stovall test is amorphous, largely unstructured, and has been rightly criticized-by its very own architects-as leading to “unfortunate disparities] in the treatment of similarly situated defendants on collateral review.” Teague, 489 U.S. at 305, 109 S.Ct. 1060; see also id. at 302, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (“The Linkletter retroactivity standard has not led to consistent results.”); State ex rel. Taylor v. Whitley, 606 So.2d 1292, 1297 (La.1992) (describing the Linkletter-Stovall test as unduly vague). “[T]he harm caused by the failure to treat similarly situated defendants alike cannot be exaggerated: such inequitable treatment ‘hardly comports with the ideal of administration of justice with an even hand.’ ” Teague, 489 U.S. at 315, 109 S.Ct. 1060 (quoting Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U.S. 233, 247, 97 S.Ct. 2339, 53 L.Ed.2d 306 (1977) (Powell, J., concurring)).
In addition, the imprecise standards employed by the Linkletter-Stovall test may lead not only to disparate treatment, but also to uncertainty and unnecessary confusion in the application of new constitutional rules. As the Supreme Court of Arizona aptly observed:
The law regarding retroactivity is complex enough, without requiring counsel and trial judges to apply different retro-activity rules, depending on whether the substantive decision is grounded on state law or federal constitutional principle — especially when many decisions are grounded on both.
State v. Slemmer, 170 Ariz. 174, 823 P.2d 41, 49 (1991).
I recognize that the federalist concerns that informed the Teague standard bear no relevance in state court proceedings, and principles of comity do not dictate application of Teague in state courts. However, I must agree that “[i]t would be a perversion [of these principles], not a service to them, to adopt rules of retroactivity ... that are broader than those adopted by federal courts, therefore according less respect to the finality of state court judgments than the federal courts themselves require.” Teague v. Palmateer, 184 Or.App. 577, 57 P.3d 176, 183 (2002) (emphasis in original). Because state court application of the Teague analysis would serve important jurisprudential purposes, and especially advance society’s considerable interest in finality, I would follow the overwhelming majority of our sister states in their well-reasoned adoption of the Teague standards. See, e.g., State v. Zuniga, 336 N.C. 508, 444 S.E.2d 443, 446 (1994); Taylor, 606 So.2d at 1297; Pailin v. Vose, 603 A.2d 738, 742 (R.I.1992); Slemmer, 823 P.2d at 49; Morgan v. State, 469 N.W.2d 419, 422 (Iowa 1991); People v. Flowers, 138 Ill.2d 218, 149 Ill.Dec. 304, 561 N.E.2d 674, 682 (1990); Daniels v. State, 561 N.E.2d 487, 489-90 (Ind.1990); Commonwealth v. Bray, 407 Mass. 296, 553 N.E.2d 538, 541 (1990).
Under these standards, Whitfield is not entitled to have Ring retroactively applied to his case. Determining whether a rule applies retroactively under Teague involves a multi-step analysis. First, the court must determine whether the petitioner’s case is final, for if it is not, Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314, 322, 107 S.Ct. 708, 93 L.Ed.2d 649 (1987), mandates retroactive application. Next, the court must determine whether the petitioner asserts a “new” procedural rule, for if the rule is not new, or if it is substantive, it must be retroactively applied. See Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 620, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998). However, if *283the rule is characterized as both procedural and new, it generally will not be applied retroactively in collateral proceedings. Teague, 489 U.S. at 310, 109 S.Ct. 1060.
Undisputedly, Whitfield’s case is final, and even the majority concedes that Ring did not create a substantive right, but instead announced a rule of criminal procedure. Moreover, there is no dispute that Ring constituted a new rule. “[A] case announces a new rule if the result was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant’s conviction became final.” Id. at 301, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Without question, precedent did not dictate Ring’s holding at the time that Whitfield’s conviction became final, as Ring expressly overruled Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990), in which the Court had specifically validated judicial findings of death eligibility.
Because Whitfield’s case is final, and Ring constituted a new rule of criminal procedure, the question of retroactivity turns on whether this new rule fits within one of “two narrow exceptions to the general rule of nonretroactivity.” Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656, 665, 121 S.Ct. 2478, 150 L.Ed.2d 632 (2001). Under the Teague framework, new procedural rules do not apply retroactively unless: (1) the new rule “places certain kinds of primary, private individual conduct beyond the power of the law-making authority to proscribe,” Teague, 489 U.S. at 307, 109 S.Ct. 1060, or (2) the rule announced is a “watershed rule” of criminal procedure that is “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” id. at 311,109 S.Ct. 1060.
The Ring rule clearly does not implicate the first exception: by requiring a jury determination of any fact that increases the maximum punishment, the Court did not purport to insulate certain conduct from the interdiction of the law. See State v. Towery, 204 Ariz. 386, 64 P.3d 828, 833 (2003); Colwell v. Nevada, 59 P.3d 463, 473 (Nev.2002); see also United States v. Sanchez-Cervantes, 282 F.3d 664, 668 (9th Cir. 2002) (stating that Apprendi the basis of the Ring holding, does not fall within the first Teague exception).
Nor did Ring announce a watershed rule of criminal procedure. To qualify as a watershed rule, “the rule must alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to the fairness of a proceeding,” and “[infringement of the rule must seriously diminish the likelihood of obtaining an accurate conviction.” Tyler, 533 U.S. at 665, 121 S.Ct. 2478. A violation of the Ring rule obviously does not impair the accuracy of a conviction, as the failure to require a jury finding of facts necessary to increase the punishment in no way affects the reliability of the jury’s determination of guilt. However, even if Teague’s second exception encompasses rules that improve the accuracy of a sentence, as opposed to a conviction, I cannot conclude that allowing a judicial determination of facts subject to Ring’s proscriptions would seriously diminish the likelihood of imposing accurate and fair sentences. As the Supreme Court of Arizona has recognized post-Ring, there is “no reason to believe that impartial juries will reach more accurate conclusions regarding the presence of aggravating circumstances than did an impartial judge.” Towery, 64 P.3d at 834.
But regardless of whether judicial determinations are indeed equally reliable, a rule must “also alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements essential to a fair trial” to come within the purview of Teague’s second exception. Tyler, 533 U.S. at 665, 121 S.Ct. 2478. In other words, the rule “must implicate the fundamental fairness of the trial.” Teague, 489 U.S. at 312, 109 S.Ct. 1060. Questions of *284fundamental fairness are not implicated by the rule announced in Ring, however, because the Supreme Court itself has acknowledged that the right to a jury trial, even as extended under Ring, “does not turn on the relative rationality, fairness, or efficiency of potential factfinders.” Ring, 536 U.S. at 607, 122 S.Ct. 2428.
This is the import of the Supreme Court’s holding in DeStefano v. Woods, 392 U.S. 631, 88 S.Ct. 2093, 20 L.Ed.2d 1308 (1968), Daniel v. Louisiana, 420 U.S. 31, 95 S.Ct. 704, 42 L.Ed.2d 790 (1975), and this Court’s holding in State ex rel. Nixon v. Sprick, 59 S.W.3d 515 (Mo. banc 2001). In DeStefano, the Court concluded that the basic Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial-as applied in criminal contempt actions-did not apply retroactively, and in doing so it refused to presuppose that “a defendant may never be as fairly treated by a judge as he would be by a jury.” Id. at 633, 88 S.Ct. 2093 (quoting Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 158, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968)). In Daniel, the Court held that the fair cross-section requirement of the Sixth Amendment was not to be given retroactive effect, as this requirement does not “rest on the premise that every criminal trial, or any particular trial, [⅛] necessarily unfair because it [is] not conducted in accordance with what we determined to be the requirements of the Sixth Amendment.” 420 U.S. at 32, 95 S.Ct. 704. Logically, if the Supreme Court has held that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial is not so fundamental as to require retroactive application, it follows that the ancillary right to a jury determination of facts that increases punishment is not a rule of such watershed magnitude as to warrant retroactive application under Teague’s second exception. Finally, this Court, citing Dukes v. United States, 255 F.3d 912, 913 (8th Cir.2001), an Eighth Circuit case utilizing the Teagm analysis, has explicitly rejected the argument that the holding of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), must be retroactively applied to cases on collateral review. Sprick, 59 S.W.3d at 520. Apprendi held that “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490, 120 S.Ct. 2348. If this holding is not to be retroactively applied in Missouri court collateral proceedings, it would seem as though Ring — which is nothing more than the logical extension of Apprendi — cannot justifiably be retroactively applied to cases on collateral review.
V.
In conclusion, I disagree with the majority’s disregard for established post-conviction procedures, I disagree with the majority’s application of Ring v. Arizona to Missouri’s capital sentencing statute, and I disagree with the majority’s rejection of Teague v. Lane’s reasoned retroactivity analysis. I would hold that there was no error, and refuse to recall the Court’s mandate. All that said, given the majority’s determination that error was committed, I concur in the separate opinion of Judge Price to the extent that it would hold that the proper remedy is a new penalty phase trial rather than commutation to a life sentence.