Court Opinion

ID: 9797041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:11:53.247279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:29.025562
License: Public Domain

WEISBERG, Judge,
concurring.
¶ 55 I conclude that the trial judge’s finding of aggravated sentencing factors by a preponderance of the evidence constitutes structural error. Therefore, although I concur in the result reached by the majority, I respectfully disagree with their reasoning.
¶ 56 Structural error is a defect in the “constitution of the trial mechanism” rather than simply an error in the trial process. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 281, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). The United States Supreme Court has applied structural error in a limited class of cases because very few constitutional errors vitiate the basic protections of a criminal trial. See Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306-07, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). See also Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 468, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997) (citing Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963) (complete denial of counsel); Turney v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510, 47 S.Ct. 437, 71 L.Ed. 749 (1927) (biased trial judge); Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986) (racial discrimination in selection of grand jury); McKaskle v. Wiggins, 465 U.S. 168, 104 S.Ct. 944, 79 L.Ed.2d 122 (1984) (denial of self-representation at trial); Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 104 S.Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (1984) (denial of public trial); Sullivan, 508 U.S. 275, 113 S.Ct. 2078 (erroneous reasonable-doubt instruction to jury)). Consequently, those constitutional violations that have little, if any, effect upon the jury’s judgment are reviewable for harmless error. See, e.g., Rushen v. Spain, 464 U.S. 114, 117-19 and n. 2, 104 S.Ct. 453, 78 L.Ed.2d 267 (1983) (denial of defendant’s right to be present at trial subjected to harmless error).
¶ 57 On the other hand, structural error is appropriately applied to those constitutional errors that “deprive defendants of ‘basic protections’ without which ‘a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt or innocence ... and no criminal punishment may be regarded as fundamentally fair.’ ” Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8, 9, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) (quoting Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 577-78, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986)). The leading structural error case is Sullivan, which I find to be similar to the instant case. In Sullivan, a defective “reasonable doubt” instruction violated the defendant’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to have the charged offense proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 508 U.S. at 280, 113 S.Ct. 2078. The Supreme Court concluded that such error was not subject to harmless-error analysis because it “vitiates all the jury’s findings,” id. at 281, 113 S.Ct. 2078, and produces “consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate,” id. at 282, 113 S.Ct. 2078.
*316¶ 58 In our case, there were two constitutional errors. First, similar to the jury-related error in Sullivan, the trial judge here found sentence-related facts under a burden of proof less than beyond a reasonable doubt, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Second, the judge meted out an aggravated sentence based on facts not decided by the jury, in violation of the Sixth Amendment requirement that the maximum sentence allowed for an offense be that which is based solely on the facts reflected in the jury’s verdict. Blakely v. Washington, — U.S. —, — - —, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 2536-38, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). The issue before us, then, is whether the combination of these constitutional errors constitute structural error. I conclude that they do.
¶ 59 Clearly, the use of a lesser burden of proof in the sentencing phase is the equivalent of the use of a lesser burden of proof in the guilt phase. However, while the majority recognizes the seriousness of this error, see ¶ 23, it likens the error here to the error in Neder and concludes that harmless error review is proper because the subject error “is certainly closer to failing to properly instruct on one element of an offense (which casts doubt on that one element) than it is to failing to properly instruct on the burden of proof as to every element of the offense (which casts doubt on the entire verdict).” With that conclusion, I disagree.
¶ 60 In Neder, the error was the failure to instruct the jury on one element of the crime charged. The Court noted, however, that the defendant had not contested that element at trial. Furthermore, the defendant did not even suggest that at retrial he would introduce any evidence bearing on materiality. The Court declined to extend the reasoning of Sullivan because the subject constitutional error would not have been contested upon retrial. Instead, such a retrial would focus only on those contested issues that had not been infected by error. Neder, therefore, stands for the proposition that an uncontested, isolated error that would not change the verdict is subject to harmless error review rather than automatic structural error reversal. The Neder court clearly stated its reasons for this practical approach.
It would not be illogical to extend the reasoning of Sullivan from a defective ‘reasonable doubt’ instruction to a failure to instruct on an element of the crime. But, as indicated in the foregoing discussion, the matter is not res nova under orn-ease law. And if the life of the law has not been logic but experience, see O. Holmes, The Common Law 1 (1881), we are entitled to stand back and see what would be accomplished by such an extension in this case. The omitted element was materiality. Petitioner underreported $5 million on his tax returns, and did not contest the element of materiality at trial. Petitioner does not suggest that he would introduce any evidence bearing upon the issue of materiality if so allowed. Reversal without any consideration of the effect of the error upon the verdict would send the ease back for retrial-a retrial not focused at all on the issue of materiality, but on contested issues on which the jury was properly instructed. We do not think the Sixth Amendment requires us to veer away from settled precedent to reach such a result.
527 U.S. at 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827.
¶ 61 This practical approach also explains the subsequent federal circuit court cases cited by the majority.15 Those cases may be described as fitting into one of two categories. In the first group, consisting primarily of drug cases, the jury heard the evidence at trial, yet failed to make a specific finding.16 *317Importantly, the evidence was uncontested by the defendant in those cases. Matthews, 312 F.3d at 665 (“evidence at trial was extensive, overwhelming, and essentially uneontra-dicted”). In the second group of cases, the sentence aggravating factor, though not found by the jury, was implicit in the jury’s verdict. Friedman, 300 F.3d at 128 (jury finding beyond a reasonable doubt on one crime implicit in the guilty verdict of the other crime).17 Thus, like Neder, a retrial in those cases would have focused on contested issues that had been properly tried, and would not have focused on the single issue that was infected by error.
¶ 62 In its reliance upon Neder, the majority mistakenly assumes that the error in this case, as in Neder, infected only one element among many. In doing so, the majority views the guilt and sentencing phases of a trial as being one proceeding. The appropriate approach, however, requires that the sentencing phase of the trial be reviewed as being separate from the guilt phase. See Blakely, 124 S.Ct. at 2538 (holding that only sentence is invalid where sentencing procedure is invalid); Presnell v. Georgia, 439 U.S. 14, 16-17, 99 S.Ct. 235, 58 L.Ed.2d 207 (1978) (in analyzing whether there was procedural fairness, the guilt and sentencing phases are treated as separate proceedings); Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 166, 67 S.Ct. 645, 91 L.Ed. 818 (1947) (verdict not invalid if error only occurred during sentencing). Moreover, the two phases are viewed separately for purposes of structural error analysis. See United States v. Salemo, 61 F.3d 214, 221-22 (3rd Cir.1995)(deprivation of counsel during sentencing hearing is structural error); United States v. Mohammad, 53 F.3d 1426, 1438-39 (7th Cir.1995)(court abdicating judicial role during sentencing phase is structural error). Here, the reasonable doubt error infected the entire sentencing phase, just as the similar error in Sullivan infected the entire guilt phase.18
¶ 63 The majority’s reliance on United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 122 S.Ct. 1781, 152 L.Ed.2d 860 (2002), is also misplaced. In Cotton, the Court did not decide whether the indictment error was structural error. See United States v. Jordan, 291 F.3d 1091, 1096 (9th Cir.2002). Several co-conspirators testified at trial to the amount of drugs involved. Cotton, 535 U.S. at 633, 122 S.Ct. 1781. The evidence of the amount was “uncontroverted.” Id. The Court stated that “[m]ueh of the evidence implicating respondents in the drug conspiracy revealed the conspiracy’s involvement with far more than” the amount necessary to enhance the sentence. Id. The reasoning is clearly in line with the Neder practical approach because a retrial would not have focused on the uncontested quantity issue that was infected by error at sentencing.
¶ 64 Unlike the eases cited for support by the majority, in the present case, Appellant contested the error-infected sentencing issues and is likely to do so again upon re-sentencing. Therefore, I conclude that this case is far closer to Sullivan than to Neder.
¶ 65 As for the Blakely error, I agree with the majority that, standing alone, such error would be subject to harmless error review. In reaching this conclusion, however, I do not denigrate the seriousness of a Blakely error in depriving the jury of its role in our system of justice. As the Supreme Court stated:
There is not one shred of doubt, however, about the Framers’ paradigm for criminal justice: not the civil-law ideal of administrative perfection, but the common-law ideal of limited state power accomplished by *318strict division of authority between judge and jury.
Blakely, — U.S. at —, 124 S.Ct. at 2543.
¶ 66 Moreover, in the instant case, the Blakely error has exacerbated the Sullivan error. In Sullivan, the Supreme Court held that where a jury applies an incorrect reasonable doubt instruction, the verdict is unreliable because it lacks one of the basic protections of our criminal justice system, and the consequences of the error are “necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate.” Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 282, 113 S.Ct. 2078. The Blakely error in this case makes the sentencing error even more “unquantifiable and indeterminate” than the error in Sullivan because the trial court, rather than the jury, applied the incorrect burden of proof. If the Sullivan court could not determine what the jury would have done had it applied the correct burden of proof, how can we determine what the jury would have done had the trial court applied the correct burden of proof?19 Thus, the addition of the Blakely error here aggravates the error that the Supreme Court found to be structural in Sullivan.
¶ 67 For all these reasons, I conclude that the error in this case is structural and, therefore, resentencing is required.

. See, e.g., United States v. Perez-Ruiz, 353 F.3d 1, 17 (1st Cir.2003); United States v. Friedman, 300 F.3d 111, 127-28 (2d Cir.2002); United States v. Henry, 282 F.3d 242, 252 (3rd Cir.2002); United States v. Strickland, 245 F.3d 368, 379-80 (4th Cir.2001); United States v. Matthews, 312 F.3d 652, 661-67 (5th Cir.2002); United States v. Stewart, 306 F.3d 295, 308-26 (6th Cir.2002); United States v. Trennell, 290 F.3d 881, 890 (7th Cir.2002); United States v. Frazier, 280 F.3d 835, 855-56 (8th Cir.2002); United States v. Velasco-Heredia, 319 F.3d 1080, 1085-86 (9th Cir.2003); United States v. Lott, 310 F.3d 1231, 1240 (10th Cir.2002); United States v. Suarez, 313 F.3d 1287, 1293-94 (11th Cir.2002); United States v. Lafayette, 337 F.3d 1043, 1049-50 (D.C.Cir.2003).

. E.g., Perez-Ruiz, 353 F.3d at 18; Friedman, 300 F.3d at 128; Matthews, 312 F.3d at 665.

. The majority also unavailingly relies on dicta from a footnote in State v. Sepahi, 206 Ariz. 321, 324, ¶ 19 n. 3, 78 P.3d 732, 735 (2003). Like the federal circuit cases, the aggravating factor found by the judge was implicit in the verdict found by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

. While both Neder and Esparza state that Sullivan applies only where the error “vitiates all the jury’s findings,” Neder, 527 U.S. at 11, 119 S.Ct. 1827; see also Mitchell v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 124 S.Ct. 7, 11, 157 L.Ed.2d 263 (2003), in the present case, the trial court’s use of the incorrect burden of proof tainted every finding on every issue in the sentencing proceeding. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a basic protection necessary to maintain the reliability of the sentencing process, was glaringly absent from the entire sentencing proceeding. See Sullivan, 508 U.S. at 281, 113 S.Ct. 2078.

. Allowing this court to substitute our judgment for that of the jury, in the circumstances of this case, is tantamount to trial by appellate court,