Court Opinion

ID: 9439874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 06:47:54.248115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:26:38.081516
License: Public Domain

STAHL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree with the majority that a procedural default could have been argued in this case, and although I can see the logic behind raising such a default sua sponte in many circumstances, I find myself persuaded by Judge Oakes’s view that “the strength of petitioner’s case” also should be considered by courts deciding whether or not to raise the default sua sponte. See Washington, 996 F.2d at 1454 (Oakes, J., dissenting). And, because, in my view, a non-harmless error undermining the structural guarantee that the jury will make the requisite elemental determinations clearly was committed here, I would reach the merits of petitioner’s claim and grant the writ.
In my dissenting opinion in Libby v. Duval, 19 F.3d 733, 742 (1st Cir.1994) (Stahl, J., dissenting), I explain in detail why I believe that the whole-record harmless-error review prescribed by Brecht v. Abrahamson, — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 1722, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993) cannot and should not be utilized by courts reviewing instructional errors which have the effect of precluding juries from making the requisite factual findings in criminal trials.9 Instead, as I argue in Libby, habeas courts reviewing such errors for harmlessness should employ the test set forth in Justice Scalia’s concurring opinion in Carella v. California, 491 U.S. 263, 109 *718S.Ct. 2419, 105 L.Ed.2d 218 (1989). Because the error here — failure to charge the jury that it must find a joint venture to unlawfully carry a firearm in a motor vehicle in order to use the unlawful carrying charge as a predicate offense for felony murder — had exactly such an effect, see id. at 268-71, 109 S.Ct. at 2422-23 (explaining how instructions misdes-cribing (or failing to describe) elements of crimes and instructions setting up mandatory presumptions on elements of crimes tend to preclude juries from making requisite elemental determinations) (Scalia, J., concurring), I would review the error here according to the dictates of the Carella concurrence. That is to say, I would ask (1) whether the omitted charge was relevant only to an element of a crime of which petitioner was acquitted; (2) whether the omitted charge was relevant only to an element which petitioner admitted; or (3) whether no rational jury could have found what it actually did find and not also find the charged element. See id. at 271, 109 S.Ct. at 2423. Because prongs one and two of the Carella test clearly do not apply, I will focus on prong three in conducting my analysis.
While it is clear that the jury did find both a joint venture to commit the crime of attempted assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and that petitioner was unlawfully carrying a firearm in a motor vehicle (under an instruction that required it to find intent to exercise dominion and control over the firearm), it seems to me that a rational jury, having made these findings, would not necessarily also have found that there was a joint venture to commit the crime of unlawfully carrying a firearm in a motor vehicle. With regard to the impact of the finding that there was a joint venture to commit attempted assault and battery, the record reveals that petitioner and his brother had abandoned the attempted assault and battery pri- or to the killings. Thus, the intent underlying that charged crime must necessarily have vanished prior to the murders. (The jury’s special verdict form, which indicates that the attempted assault and battery felony was not a predicate offense for purposes of the felony murder conviction, implies as much.). This means, of course, that even if the two intents were somehow viewed as “functional equiva-lentes],” see id., in nature (and I do not think that they can be so viewed), the shared intent underlying the joint venture to commit the attempted assault and battery finding cannot be the very same as the shared intent which would underlie any (unmade) finding that there was a joint venture to unlawfully carry a firearm.
The fact that, in finding the petitioner guilty of unlawfully carrying the firearm, the jury found that petitioner “had joint dominion and control of the firearm with Eduardo and intended to exercise dominion and control” presents, for me, a closer question. As the majority opinion notes (and as the SJC observed on direct appeal), the missing joint venture finding encompasses a determination that petitioner “ ‘intentionally encouraged or assisted Eddie Ortiz in the commission of a felony and that he did so while sharing with Eddie Ortiz the mental state required for that crime.’ ” Ante at 713 (quoting Ortiz, 560 N.E.2d at 700.) In my view, the jury’s “joint dominion and control” finding is the functional equivalent of “the shared mental state” necessary for a joint venture finding. It is not, however, the functional equivalent of a finding that petitioner “intentionally encouraged or assisted” Eddie in the commission of the unlawful carrying of the weapon. Thus, the record is devoid of factual findings which are “ ‘so closely related to the ultimate fact [to be found] that no rational jury could find those facts without also finding th[e] ultimate fact.’ ” Id. Accordingly, the error here was not harmless. See id.; see also Libby, 19 F.3d at 744 (Stahl, J., dissenting).
I therefore would grant the writ.

. I therefore regard as misleading the majority’s citation to Brecht while indicating in dictum that it would not grant the writ even were it to reach the merits of petitioner’s claim. See ante at 715.