Court Opinion

ID: 9470929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:20:49.635363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:11.429302
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
I adhere to the views expressed in my dissenting opinion in Daye I, 663 F.2d at 1160-71. There I showed, by quoting from the transcript at considerable length, that the trial judge took over the trial, that he abandoned his role as a neutral arbiter for that of a prosecutor and that, as a result, Daye was deprived of his constitutional right to trial by jury. He received instead a trial by a biased judge.
Judge Newman’s opinion implies that a federal court of appeals exercising its supervisory powers would not countenance such conduct by a federal trial judge. However, he holds that here “the trial judge’s conduct approached but did not cross the line that permits us to rule that the Constitution has been violated.” In other words, a trial that would be unfair and unacceptable in federal court is good enough in the state courts.
Until the announcement of such a distinction, I had understood that in a criminal case involving murder or any serious crime, whether it be in state or federal court, the defendant was entitled to a fair trial. The constitutional limits of this entitlement are not well illuminated by the majority’s discussion of Davis v. Craven, 485 F.2d 1138 (9th Cir.1973) (en banc), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 933, 94 S.Ct 2645, 41 L.Ed.2d 236 (1974). Regardless of how we would decide a case like Davis where the state judge had told the jury that he believed the defendant had been proven guilty, the judge’s conduct here was much more prejudicial to the defendant. Here the judge engaged in a running argument with the defense, constantly emphasizing the prosecution’s evidence and undermining the defendant’s case. Thus, the jurors were constantly reminded of the judge’s opinion of Daye’s guilt. Indeed, the judge dominated the proceedings to such an extent that the jurors must have begun looking for his next interruption and affirmation of the defendant’s guilt, rather than independently assessing the evidence.
In any event I cannot agree with the majority’s calculation that the trial judge’s questioning went beyond “routine clarification” on “only 29 of the 478 pages of witness examination.” What matters in a case like this is not only those remarks that were prejudicial in and of themselves, but also the judge’s emphasis on crucial testimony which almost without exception underscored points favorable to the prosecution. As the following summary of a fraction of the court’s interruptions shows, the court interrupted constantly not for the purpose of “routine clarification,” but to build the prosecution’s case:
The judge interrupted on at least nineteen pages of transcript to emphasize that the robber wielded a gun, shot the cook, attempted to pull the trigger while pointing at others, and struck an old man on the head with the gun, Tr. 46-48, 54-55, 67,153, 156, 158-59, 199, 250, 300, 337-39, 341, 582, 586; on eight pages to emphasize laboratory evidence that the gun found near Daye was the gun that fired the fatal bullet, Tr. 503-07, 512, 514 — 15; on six pages to emphasize that the gun had an unusual appearance and that a mistaken identification was unlikely, Tr. 55, 279, 308-09, 493-94; on four pages to help a police witness explain why none of Daye’s fingerprints were found on the gun, Tr. 480-81, 484-85; on at least two pages to emphasize the police recovery of the gun in evidence, Tr. 406, 434; on four pages to emphasize the implausibility of, or to challenge directly, Daye’s claim that he had randomly picked the apartment to which he had run after the robbery, Tr. 570, 589-91; on five pages to emphasize evidence that a wallet stolen in the robbery was found near the same apartment, Tr. 65, 191, 276-77, 454; on ten pages to elicit testimony undermining a possible defense of intoxication or drug *1574overdose, Tr. 386-91, 574, 600-02; on nine pages to reinforce eyewitness identifications, Tr. 61-62, 115-16, 131-32, 134, 266, 330; on five pages to undermine the defense claim that another victim, Tr. 68,120, 257, 322, 476; on four pages to reinforce testimony that Daye was apprehended wearing the same clothing the robber had been seen wearing, Tr. 150, 266-67, 463; on two pages to argue the physical impossibility of Daye’s version of the robbery, Tr. 583-84; and on three additional pages to express his unveiled incredulity concerning Daye’s defense, Tr. 592-94, see also 598. On the remaining two hundred pages on which Judge Roberts interrupted, he asked no questions tending to support the defense.
Thus, on approximately 80 pages of transcript, the judge asked hundreds of questions adverse to the defendant. Against this relentless onslaught, defense counsel was powerless. He could do nothing but record his objections. It is absurd to suppose that such damage can be repaired by simply reminding the jury that the decision is theirs. Had anyone familiar with criminal trials entered the courtroom in June 1976 and tarried there for only fifteen minutes, he would have concluded that the judge was railroading the defendant to certain conviction. Today, this court decides that the Constitution is no protection against this mockery of a trial by jury.
No matter how despicable may be the record of a defendant; no matter how clear his guilt may seem, that defendant, like all of us, enjoys all the rights accorded by our Constitution to and throughout a trial by jury, as one presumed to be innocent until the jury has found him guilty. Thus, the question whether a defendant like Daye will be accorded a fair trial, as he faces possible life imprisonment, is a fundamental test of our commitment to due process under a Constitution administered according to law by impartial judges and unbiased juries. The question of guilt is not for this court, nor was it for Judge Roberts. The question was for the jury to decide after the defendant had had a fair trial. Believing as I do that Daye did not have a fair trial, I would grant the writ.