Court Opinion

ID: 9493957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:24:44.968119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:08.091265
License: Public Domain

E. GRADY JOLLY, Circuit Judge,
Concurring:
I concur in the conclusion reached by the majority. Respectfully, however, I am unable to subscribe to its reasoning. I believe that ultimately the correct result in this case can be reached swiftly, without a prolix effort to further define “unreasonable.”
Succinctly stated, this is the way I see this case: Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981), requires that, before undergoing a psychiatric examination concerning future dangerousness, a defendant must be “informed ... that he has a right to remain silent and that anything he says can be used against him at the sentencing proceeding.” Powell v. Texas, 492 U.S. 680, 681, 109 S.Ct. 3146, 106 L.Ed.2d 551 (1989). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals applied this legal principle in Gardner’s case. The record shows that Gardner was advised of his right to remain silent and told that his statements during the psychiatric exam could be used for or against him in the courtroom to determine dangerousness.1 These statements constitute the undisputed facts to which the court of criminal appeals applied the Estelle legal principle. The court of criminal appeals determined that the warnings given Gardner were sufficient to comply with the requirements of Estelle.
Under Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 1523, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000), we are to grant the habeas writ only if the court of criminal appeals’ determination was “an unreasonable application” of the Estelle principle. While Estelle requires that a defendant be warned that his statements could be used against him in a sentencing proceeding, Gardner was only told that his statements could be used “in the courtroom” to determine his dangerousness. As a matter of law, I believe the warnings given Gardner failed to convey the express message specifically required by Estelle as applied in death cases — that any statement a defendant makes could be used against him for the purposes of sentencing. The warning given Gardner only conveys that the statements could be used during the course of *565the trial, at whatever point in the trial dangerousness may become relevant. This broad warning does not convey the admonition that specifically addresses the sentencing phase so as to inform a reasonably minded defendant that what he says can be used against him to put him to death. Such specificity is required, as a matter of law, under Estelle. The court of criminal appeals, therefore, unreasonably applied the law when it determined that Gardner’s warnings complied with Estelle.
Thus, I fail to see the relevance of the majority’s repeated reference to Gardner’s alleged status as an “uninitiated layman” and “unsophisticated and undereducated member[] of society.” Is the majority saying that at some point a defendant’s education renders a warning under Estelle unnecessary, or that the law applies differently to defendants based on their socioeconomic and intellectual status? Or is the majority’s emphasis on the fact that Gardner was not “experienced defense counsel” or “well-versed in jailhouse legalese” suggesting that the failure to give proper warnings under Estelle is subject to a harmless error exception if the defendant is an experienced attorney? In my view, the socio-economic and intellectual status of the defendant is irrelevant in a case like this, where the express statements fail, as a matter of law, to convey the warnings required under Estelle.
In sum, deciding the case in the way I suggest obviates the need to try further to define “unreasonable application” — a task undertaken by the majority with little success when it suggests that “we must reverse when we conclude that the state court decision applies the correct legal rule to a given set of facts in a manner that is so patently incorrect as to be ‘unreasonable.’ ” The majority’s analysis here is a tautology — it simply substitutes one protean phrase (patently incorrect application) for another (unreasonable application). In the end, the majority’s lengthy journey to define “unreasonable” is a circular one, and we are left at the point at which we started. In my opinion, here we are better off not wandering down this road, especially when the excursion is unnecessary. Although I cannot subscribe to the majority’s “unreasonable application” analysis, I respectfully concur in the conclusion reached by the majority.

. This characterization of the warnings given Gardner is extracted from a combination of the testimonies of both Dr. Griffith and Dr. Grigson.