Court Opinion

ID: 9472126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:50:16.913117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:45.478501
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I fully concur in light of the fact that the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reached the merits of the challenge to the instruction to the jury, notwithstanding the failure of Hux’s counsel to lodge a contemporaneous instruction as required by Oklahoma law. If the state appellate court on direct appeal does not reach the merits of the federal constitutional claim and, instead, refuses to consider the issue for want of a trial court contemporaneous objection, our opinion in Runnels v. Hess, 713 F.2d 596 (10th Cir.1983) demonstrates that absent a contemporaneous objection the Supreme Court opinions in Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982) and United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982) have, in the context of a federal habeas corpus case involving a challenge to a state court criminal conviction, strictly required a state habeas corpus petitioner to demonstrate both “cause” for failure to lodge a contemporaneous objection and actual “prejudice” resulting therefrom. While the Supreme Court did observe that “In appropriate cases those principles must yield to the imperative of a fundamentally unjust incarceration,” Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. at p. 135, 102 S.Ct. at p. 1575, the court nevertheless expressed confidence that prisoners falling victims of such a miscarriage of justice “will meet the cause- and-prejudice standard ...” 456 U.S. at p. 135, 102 S.Ct. at p. 1575. Thus, the “cause” and “prejudice" standard is a difficult one to hurdle in terms of proof.