Court Opinion

ID: 9477456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:23:55.156594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:53.310194
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:
Ernest Ruff, a Washington state prisoner, appeals from the district court’s denial of his habeas corpus petition. Ruff claims that three jury instructions tainted his 1975 trial for murder and arson, violating his fourteenth amendment rights. Ruff contends, in addition, that the district court was unable to evaluate his habeas petition properly because the record it relied on was incomplete.
Ruff was charged with setting fire to his brother’s house by pouring gasoline on the house and lighting it. The fire resulted in the death of the brother’s two children. A jury convicted Ruff on two counts of first degree murder and one count of first degree arson. He is currently serving a prison term of twenty years to life.
Ruff filed, pro se, a petition for habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Ruff challenged, among other matters, three jury instructions used in his 1975 trial: first, the instruction that “the law presumes that every man intends the natural and probable consequences of his own acts,” see Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979); second, the instruction that “the state is not required to prove to you affirmatively that no ... cause or justification exists” as a defense to the charge of first-degree murder, see Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975); and third, the trial court’s instruction on aiding and abetting. Neither party supplied the district court with the complete state court trial transcript or the clerk’s record.1 On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted the state’s motion and entered judgment for the state. The district court held that the trial court erred with respect to at least one of the jury instructions, but that any errors were harmless.
On appeal, Ruff reasserts his challenge to the trial court’s jury instructions, and he also claims that the record before the district court was insufficient for it to decide his petition. Since we decide on the basis of the Sandstrom issue that the district court’s judgment must be reversed and the case remanded, we do not reach the legality of the other two jury instructions.
The State admits that the Sandstrom instruction was unconstitutional, but contends that the instruction was harmless error. In Sandstrom v. Montana, the Supreme Court held that the instruction, “the law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts,” violated the fourteenth amendment’s requirement that the prosecution prove every element of a criminal offense, including intent, beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court held that the instruction created a presumption that shifted the burden of proof on the issue of intent to the defendant. 442 U.S. at 524, 99 S.Ct. at 2459. In Sandstrom, the Court expressly declined to decide whether the giving of this instruction would ever constitute harmless error. Id. at 526-27, 99 S.Ct. at 2460-61.
The Supreme Court has recently held that this particular constitutional error “is not ‘so basic to a fair trial’ that it can never be harmless.” Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3107, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986). The question in a harmless error inquiry is whether the error complained of “might have contributed to the conviction,” Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87, 84 S.Ct. 229, 230, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963). In other terms, the inquiry is whether the instruction “possibly influenced the jury adversely to the litigant,” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
The issue we must consider is under what conditions the district court could find *1242that the constitutional error at Ruffs trial was harmless. It is clear from Supreme Court decisions that a constitutional error can only be found harmless after review of the entire record. See United States v. Hasting, 461 U.S. 499, 509 n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 1974, 1981 n. 7, 76 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983) (“Chapman mandates consideration of the entire record prior to reversing a conviction for constitutional errors that may be harmless....”); id. at 510, 103 S.Ct. at 1981 (“We turn, then, to the question whether, on the whole record before us, the error identified by the Court of Appeals was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”); see also Rose v. Clark, 106 S.Ct. at 3109; Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. at 23-24, 87 S.Ct. at 828. If, once constitutional error is found, a court must look at the entire record to decide that the error was not harmless, it would seem obvious that the court would have to be at least as thorough before deciding that such an error was harmless.2 We accepted this position in Herd v. Kincheloe, 800 F.2d 1526, 1528 (9th Cir.1986), where we explicitly stated that in deciding whether a Sand-strom error is harmless, a district court “must review the entire record”.
The state argues that it was not necessary that the district court have the entire record before it in order to decide the issue of harmless error, as long as it had the relevant portions of the record. That position is no longer available after United States v. Hastings, supra, and Herd v. Kincheloe, supra. The state further asserts that “the court had [at least] some of the relevant portions of the record before it,” and that the petitioner had not certified any further sections of the record for the court’s scrutiny.3 The state cites Austad v. Risley, 761 F.2d 1348 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 856, 106 S.Ct. 163, 88 L.Ed.2d 135 (1985), and Reiger v. Christensen, 789 F.2d 1425 (9th Cir.1986), for the proposition that a petitioner in a habeas corpus proceeding bears some of the responsibility of bringing the relevant material before the court.
The state misreads our prior cases. In Austad, we concluded that under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), (e), the district court had no duty sua sponte to obtain and examine state court exhibits unless the habeas petitioner is unable to produce the record. Austad, 761 F.2d at 1351-54. However, in subsequent cases, we limited the holding in Aus-tad to cases which involved only review of state court factual determinations. Chaney v. Lewis, 801 F.2d 1191, 1194 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 107 S.Ct. 1911, 95 L.Ed.2d 516 (1987); Reiger, 789 F.2d at 1428-29, 1435 n. 7. The statute governing federal habeas petitions requires that when a petitioner challenges a trial court’s factual determinations, those factual determinations shall be presumed to be correct and the petitioner carries the burden of production. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), (e). Both Reiger and Chaney held, however, that those provisions do not apply when the petitioner’s challenge relates to a legal question or a mixed question of law and fact. Chaney, 801 F.2d at 1193-95; Reiger, 789 F.2d at 1428-29, 1435 n. 7.
The legal issue — the constitutionality of the Sandstrom instruction — has been conceded by the state. The issue of whether the constitutional error committed by giving the Sandstrom instruction was harmless error is a mixed question of law and fact. Herd v. Kincheloe, 800 F.2d at 1528. We have held that when considering mixed questions of law and fact, a district court has a duty sua sponte to obtain the state *1243court record and to conduct a complete and independent review” of that record. Chaney, 801 F.2d at 1194-95.
The statement that a district court should review “relevant portions of the state court record” for mixed questions of law and fact in habeas petitions, Reiger v. Christensen, 789 F.2d 1425, 1429 (9th Cir.1986), does not support a contrary conclusion. First, Reiger, which involved an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, defined “relevant portions” as including “the trial transcript.” Id. at 1428. Second, Reiger did not involve the issue of whether a constitutional error was harmless. Where a constitutional error has been found to exist and the issue is whether the error is harmless, the question of what parts of the record are relevant must be answered in the identical manner as in Reiger: at least the whole trial transcript. United States v. Hastings, supra. That is certainly the conclusion we reached in Herd v. Kincheloe, 800 F.2d at 1528.
To summarize, the following is required by the rulings of the Supreme Court and this court: 1) before the district court can determine whether the constitutional error in Ruff’s trial was harmless, it must review the entire state court record4; and 2) if the entire record is not supplied by the parties, the district court has a duty to obtain that record itself.5 It is undisputed that the district court did not have the entire trial transcript before it when it considered Ruffs habeas petition. Therefore, the district court’s entry of judgment for the state must be reversed and the case remanded.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

. The state supplied the district court with some parts of the record: transcripts of parts of Ruffs trial testimony, the testimony of an eyewitness, and the closing remarks of counsel.

. Even if this conclusion were not correct, as a matter of procedure it would seem logical that a district court which can only find that an error was not harmless if it had the entire record before it should review the entire record whenever it considers the issue of whether a constitutional error was harmless. As the court does not know in advance whether it will conclude that the error was harmless, it makes no sense for the court not to have the entire record. A court with less than a full record would be forced to rule for the government or face certain reversal.

. The dissent assumes that all portions of the state-court record relevant to the issue of intent were before the district court, dissent op. at 1244-45, and that also appears to be the position of the state. However, Ruff contests that conclusion.

. The dissent mischaracterizes our holding. We do not conclude that review of the entire record is required for "all habeas cases raising a constitutional claim subject to harmless error analysis,” dissent op. at 1243, but only for those cases in which a constitutional error has been established.

. By "the entire record”, we mean that the court must at least have the entire trial transcript. The only way to determine whether an unconstitutional jury instruction is harmless is to consider that instruction in the context of the other jury instructions and all of the testimony presented at the trial.