Court Opinion

ID: 9481069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:06:51.908587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:04.649070
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Because I am unable to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the unlawfully admitted confession did not contribute to the verdict and subsequent death sentence in this case, I cannot vote to affirm.
My reasons are those so well stated by Judge Nelson in his concurring opinion. I add, however, this additional thought:
One need only read the illegally admitted written confession, and then the defendant’s opening statement, to appreciate the stark contrast between the two. The written statement reads as a simple, direct, calm, and confident recitation of cold-blooded murder. It is entirely devoid of any reference to alcohol or drug use, any suggestion of hesitancy to act or confusion of purpose, or any hint of regret. The defendant’s opening statement at trial, on the other hand, is a detailed narrative of heavy and continuing drug and alcohol consumption immediately preceding the killing, an abbreviated description of the robbery and shooting in language conveying the impression of clouded thinking and uncertain purpose, and then an explicit denial of an intent “to shoot anybody.”
While the two statements are consistent in that, in both, the defendant acknowledges the robbery and killing, they are dramatically inconsistent in the important details concerning the clarity of the defendant’s thinking, his use of alcohol and drugs, and his criminal purpose; in a word, his state of mind, the vitally important single element that determines, in the last analysis, whether the defendant shall be put to death.
The illegally admitted confession is not only an explicit and damning admission of the killing, it is, by its language, tone and content, as well as the absence of any claim of diminished capacity or uncertainty of purpose, powerful circumstantial proof of a clearheaded intention to execute both victims. It is a complete and unqualified confession of premeditated murder, strikingly inconsistent with the defendant’s courtroom claim of diminished capacity. As such, it is the most powerful, although not the sole, evidence in the record of the defendant’s malice and premeditation. I cannot say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that *1136such evidence did not “contribute to the verdict.” Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 23, 87 S.Ct. 824, 827, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
I concur in Circuit Judge NELSON’S opinion in all other respects as well.