Court Opinion

ID: 9488946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:00:32.286469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:12.505788
License: Public Domain

D.W. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges JAMES R. BROWNING, SCHROEDER, FLETCHER, and DAVID R. THOMPSON, join, dissenting:
In Snyder v. Massachusetts, Justice Cardozo established that a state court cannot violate any constitutional right “ranked as fundamental” by “the traditions and conscience of our people.” 291 U.S. 97, 105, 54 S.Ct. 330, 332, 78 L.Ed. 674 (1934). The majority claims that state and federal case law give little reason to believe that a court violates a fundamental constitutional right when it allows a jury to render its sentence in the defendant’s absence. I respectfully disagree.
Courts throughout the nation have repeatedly held that allowing a jury to announce its decision in the absence of the defendant violates fundamental and inviolable constitutional rights. While this court now indicates that the defendant’s presence at sentencing is nothing but meaningless procedure, the consensus of federal and state precedent is that
[t]he presence of the accused is not a mere form. It is of the very essence of a criminal trial not only that the accused shall be brought face to face with the witnesses against him, but also with his triers.... And at no time in the whole course of the trial is this right more valuable than at the final step when the jury are to pronounce that decision which is to restore him to the liberty of a citizen, or to consign him to the scaffold or to a felon’s cell in the state prison.
Temple v. Commonwealth, 77 Ky. 769, 771 (1879); see also, e.g., United States v. Villano, 816 F.2d 1448, 1452 (10th Cir.1987) (en bane) (sentence imposed in defendant’s absence violates fundamental constitutional and human rights); State v. Levato, 183 Ariz. 558, 905 P.2d 567 (App.1995) (review denied in part, granted in part) (return of jury decision in absence of defendant is equally structural eiTor in conviction and in return of sentence) (quoting Temple, 77 Ky. at 771) (citing United States v. Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 526, 105 S.Ct. 1482, 1484, 84 L.Ed.2d 486, reh’g denied, 471 U.S. 1112, 105 S.Ct. 2350, 85 L.Ed.2d 865 (1985); Snyder, 291 U.S. at 105-6, 54 S.Ct. at 332; Kentucky v. Stincer, 482 U.S. 730, 745, 107 S.Ct. 2658, 2667, 96 L.Ed.2d 631 (1987)); Kimes v. United States, 569 A.2d 104, 111 (D.C.App.1989) (quoting Temple, 77 Ky. at 771); People v. Robertson, 48 Cal.3d 18, 255 Cal.Rptr. 631, 767 P.2d 1109 (1989) (en banc), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 879, 110 S.Ct. 216, 107 L.Ed.2d 169, reh’g denied 493 U.S. 985, 110 S.Ct. 525, 107 L.Ed.2d 525 (1989), 498 U.S. 926, 111 S.Ct. 309, 112 L.Ed.2d 262 (1990) (defendant has constitutional right to be present at imposition of sentence under Snyder, 291 U.S. at 105-08, 54 S.Ct. at 332-33); Carver v. Commonwealth, 256 S.W.2d 375, 377 (Ky.1953) (defendant’s right to face jury at time of polling is “ ‘the most substantial right of the accused in a felony case’ ”) (citation omitted).

*1147
“TRANSCENDS THE CRIMINAL PROCESS”

1

Courts have long recognized the defendant’s fundamental due process right to face those who will deprive him of his life or liberty. To hold that a defendant is practically irrelevant to the process that deprives him of life or liberty is to declare that the individual has no “basic constitutional protections” before the absolute power of the state. In re Klein, 197 Cal.App.2d 58, 68, 67, 17 Cal.Rptr. 71 (Cal.App. 1 Dist.1961) (“[b]asic constitutional protections attach” to “so grave a pronouncement” that “deprives the defendant of status, liberty and sometimes property;” imposition of sentence in absentia reversed on grounds that it denied defendant’s “fundamental constitutional rights”).
Because of the core constitutional and human values at stake, a sentence imposed in the defendant’s absence must be reversed. See Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 577, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3106, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986) (“some errors necessarily render a trial fundamentally unfair” and “require reversal”). As the Tenth Circuit declared in United States v. Villano, “[t]he imposition of punishment in a criminal case affects the most fundamental human rights: life and liberty.” 816 F.2d 1448, 1452 (10th Cir.1987) (en banc). Accordingly, a sentence imposed in absentia requires reversal, since the defendant’s right to be present at the imposition of sentence is central to the rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and is thus “fundamental to the entire law of criminal procedure.” Id. (citing Gagnon, 470 U.S. 522, 105 S.Ct. 1482; Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 372, 13 S.Ct. 136, 137, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1892) (“dictates of humanity require defendant’s presence”)); see also Warrick v. United States, 551 A.2d 1332, 1334 (D.C.App.1988) (defendant’s right of presence when sentence imposed is a “fundamental” due process right under Gagnon, Snyder, and Villano; absence at sentencing requires reversal).

“A FAIR AND JUST HEARING WOULD BE THWARTED BY HIS ABSENCE”

2

State and federal case law also make clear that the public has an interest in protecting this right: requiring jurors to face the defendant preserves the integrity and fairness of the American justice system. As the D.C. Circuit noted in United States v. Curtis, “the requirement that the defendant be present when sentence is passed” does not merely serve the defendant; “the state has an independent interest in requiring a public sentencing in order to assure the appearance of justice.” 523 F.2d 1134, 1134 (D.C.Cir.1975). Likewise, the First Circuit in Thompson v. United States found that the defendant’s absence at sentencing “affects seriously the fairness, integrity and public reputation of judicial proceedings.” 495 F.2d 1304, 1306 (1st Cir.1974); see Rose, 478 U.S. at 578, 106 S.Ct. at 3106; see Lee v. State, 31 Ala.App. 91, 13 So.2d 583, 586-7, cert. denied, 244 Ala. 401, 13 So.2d 590 (1943) (“ ‘The public has an interest in every case involving the life or liberty of a citizen’ ”) (citation omitted).
CANNOT BE “QUANTITATIVELY ASSESSED”3
Bypassing the fundamental nature of the interests at stake when a jury renders its decision, the majority instead chooses to focus on eases involving the psychological impact of the defendant upon jurors at the return of the verdict. The implied argument is that if the defendant’s presence has merely a “gossamer” effect at the determination of guilt or innocence, it certainly has little to no effect on sentencing. Yet the very cases that the majority cites to show that the defendant’s presence is irrelevant to the outcome of the trial proceedings actually show its immeasurable significance.
I do not dispute that some courts have applied the harmless error test to the defen*1148dant’s absence when the jury returned its verdict. However, what is important is not the fact that the test was used, but the conclusions the court reached after applying it. For example, prior to Wade v. United States the D.C. Circuit had not made any determination as to the constitutional dimensions of this issue, 441 F.2d 1046, 1049, (D.C.Cir.1971), and so the court applied harmless error analysis to determine whether there was any reasonable possibility of prejudice. Id. at 1050.4 The Wade court ruled that the jury’s verdict had to be reversed, because the effect of a defendant’s absence when a jury renders its verdict is impossible to calculate. See Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 308-9, 111 S.Ct. at 1264-65 (unlike trial error, structural error cannot be “quantitatively assessed” and therefore defies harmless error analysis). The court determined that to hold the defendant’s absence to be
harmless would be too speculative. It would assume to reconstruct what might have eventuated had he been present, when that cannot truly be reconstructed with a degree of certainty essential to avoid the reasonable possibility of prejudice.
Wade, 441 F.2d at 1051; see also People v. Williams, 186 A.D.2d 161, 587 N.Y.S.2d 704 (1992) (defendant’s absence at verdict violates a longstanding “fundamental right” under Snyder and requires reversal); Shaw v. State, 282 A.2d 608 (Del.1971) (defendant’s absence at verdict violates fundamental constitutional right and requires reversal under Snyder).
Other courts have followed the Wade court’s reasoning. The Tenth Circuit in Larson v. Tansy found that the defendant’s absence at the return of the jury’s verdict violates a “ ‘substantial’ ” due process right under Snyder, since the “defendant’s mere presence, aside from any assistance defendant could have given to his counsel, would have been useful and would have provided more than a shadow of benefit.” 911 F.2d 392 (10th Cir.1990) (quoting Lee v. State, 509 P.2d 1088 (Alaska 1973)); see also 911 F.2d at 394 (quoting Snyder, 291 U.S. at 105-6, 54 S.Ct. at 332). The Larson court explicitly agreed with the Wade court that when the defendant is absent when the jury renders its decision, not only is the defendant “deprived of his due process right to exert a psychological influence upon a jury,” but there is also “ ‘a reasonable possibility that the jury speculated adversely to the defendant about his absence from the courtroom.’ ” 911 F.2d at 396 (quoting Wade, 441 F.2d at 1050). See also Levato, 905 P.2d at 570 (quoting Kimes, 569 A.2d at 111; Lee, 509 P.2d at 1094); Kimes, 569 A.2d at 111 (“(t)he psychological influence of the eye-to-eye contact between juror and defendant may be significant enough to cause a juror to change his or her mind when outside the pressure of the jury room;” defendant’s absence “could cause adverse speculation”) (citing Wade, 441 F.2d at 1050; Lee, 509 P.2d at 1094).
A long tradition of cases prior to Wade and Larson also testify to the unquantifiable impact of a defendant’s presence on jurors as they render their decision. For example, the Alaska Supreme Court in Lee noted that the defendant’s absence “cannot be regarded as harmless,” since the “psychological distinction” between a jury poll with the defendant present and one in the defendant’s absence “is not a minor one.” Lee, 509 P.2d at 1093. Likewise, the Milewski court observed that
(t)he words ‘Prisoner look upon the jurors; jurors look upon the prisoner’ is (sic) of great significance, (citation omitted) Not only has the prisoner the right to have a polling of the jury but his very presence may move some of the jury to have compassion on him.... In our examination of this question we have not found a single jurisdiction in which the absence of a defendant in a felony case from the courtroom at the time the jury renders its verdict ... is not a fatal error.
*1149Milewski, 70 A.2d at 625; see also Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 454, 32 S.Ct. 250, 254, 56 L.Ed. 500 (defendant has Sixth Amendment right to be present at trial, “especially at the rendition of the verdict”); Temple, 77 Ky. at 771 (defendant has “a right to be present not only that he may see that nothing is done or omitted which tends to his prejudice, but to have the benefit of whatever influence his presence may exert in his favor”).
“MORE THAN A SHADOW"5
If the “mere presence” of the defendant has a significant effect on jurors at the guilt phase of the trial, the impact of the defendant’s presence on jurors is even greater at sentencing, especially when jurors must decide whether to impose the death sentence. The majority Opinion itself testifies to this when it notes that “during voir dire, (the prosecutor) repeatedly asked potential jurors whether they would be able to look the defendant in the eye and return a verdict of death.” As another Washington prosecutor noted, the presence of the defendant at sentencing has an undeniable effect on the outcome: “Jurors have to look a defendant in the eye and return a verdict; real human beings are involved in this every step of the way.” Christy Scattarella, “Prosecutor Wants to See Execution of Triple Murderer,” Seattle Times, May 6,1994, at Bl.
Washington jurors are not the only ones affected by the defendant’s presence when they pronounce sentence. A lawyer in the New Jersey Attorney General’s office has observed that juries traditionally have a hard time imposing the death penalty, since “(i)t’s one thing to be in favor of the death penalty; it’s another to look a defendant in the eye and say, ‘You should die.’ ” Jeffrey Kanige, “Death Amendment Seen as Having Slight Effect,” N.J.L.J., Nov. 30, 1992, at 5 (quoting Deputy Chief of the Appellate Division). Likewise, as Connecticut jurors recalled after a sentencing hearing,
they had a difficult time listening to their decision being read. Dal Zin remembers shaking.
Garen says, “I had to look at the defendant in the eye, knowing that my personal feelings were true and right.”
Elaine Song, “Weighing Death,” Conn. L.Trib., Apr. 24, 1995, at 1.
“THE TRADITIONS AND CONSCIENCE OF OUR PEOPLE”6
In Hays v. Arave, the Ninth Circuit joined courts throughout the land in holding that a defendant has a fundamental constitutional right to be present when the jury pronounces its sentence in felony trials. 977 F.2d 475 (9th Cir.1992). Nothing the Hays court said was new; the effect of the defendant’s presence upon jurors, the inability to quantify the impact of his absence, and the abhorrence of in absentia sentencing to democratic conceptions of justice are themes resounding throughout federal and state case law. Hays, 977 F.2d at 481.
Even if ono were to have any doubts about the right to be present at the imposition of a non-capital sentence, the fundamental due process right to be present at critical stages of the trial unquestionably applies to death penalty proceedings. Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 746, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 1447, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990) (“capital sentencing proceedings must of course satisfy the dictates of the Due Process Clause”) (citing Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 358, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 1205, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1976) (plurality opinion) (sentencing a “critical stage” of criminal proceedings in death penalty cases)). The pronouncement of the death sentence is the most solemn moment in the lives of both the jurors and the defendant; to say that the person facing death has no connection to the people and proceedings charged with deciding his fate is to say that we are no longer human. Villano, 816 F.2d at 1452 (“dictates of humanity” demand defendant’s presence, since “the imposition of punishment in a criminal case affects the most fundamental human rights: life and liberty”); Harris v. State, 632 So.2d 503, 511 (Ct.Cr.App.Ala.1992) (“the capital defendant’s interest in attending his sentencing *1150hearing is as great as his interest in being present at the guilt determining stage”) (citing Gardner, 430 U.S. at 358, 97 S.Ct. at 1204-05); Kimes, 569 A.2d at 111; Powell v. Commonwealth, 346 S.W.2d 731, 734 (Ky. 1961) (defendant’s absence at jury’s imposition of sentence requires reversal of sentence; in absentia sentencing violates fundamental Fourteenth Amendment right and is per se prejudicial in capital case) (quoting Temple, 77 Ky. at 771).
Today, this court overrules Hays and in so doing silences the voice of history. Court after court has ruled that the defendant’s absence when a jury renders its decision violates fundamental constitutional rights and requires reversal. The majority now tells us that instead of the consensus of case law, we must follow the hypothetical preferences of a hundred imaginary lawyers. When Justice Cardozo told us to look to “the traditions and conscience of our people,” Snyder, 291 U.S. at 105, 54 S.Ct. at 332, that is not what he had in mind.
“AN ESSENTIAL CONDITION OF DUE PROCESS”7
As Justice Cardozo wrote, a “criminal, however shocking his crime, is not to answer for it with forfeiture of life or liberty till tried and convicted in conformity with law.” People v. Moran, 246 N.Y. 100, 158 N.E. 35, 37 (1927). “Fundamental” rights must “be kept inviolate and inviolable, however crushing may be the pressure of incriminating proof.” Snyder, 291 U.S. at 122, 54 S.Ct. at 338. Today the majority declares that in the Ninth Circuit this established principle of American law no longer holds true.
The majority’s decision will have another unavoidable effect on felony trials and sentencing hearings. For decades, jurors have known that they would have to look into the eyes of the person whose fate was in then-hands. This inevitable moment of truth forced jurors to think seriously about whether they could in good conscience deprive a fellow citizen of his life or liberty. Now jurors no longer have to tremble at the thought of facing the man they judge, since the presence of the defendant is merely one quantifiable piece of evidence among many.
The majority’s ruling in this case is the ultimate triumph of procedure over substance: the person is now irrelevant to the process. This is the nightmare world of The Trial; it is not American justice. Like Josef K, David Lewis Rice was sentenced to death in absentia, and, like Josef K, Rice will go to his grave asking, “Where is the judge whom I have never seen?” Franz Kafka, Der Pro-zess 194 (1935,1979).

. Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 311, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1265-66, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991).

. Stincer, 482 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. at 2667 (quoting Snyder, 291 U.S. at 108, 54 S.Ct. at 333).

.Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 308, 111 S.Ct. at 1264.

. Another case from which the majority mistakenly infers a finding of trial error is United States v. Friedman, 593 F.2d 109, 121 (9th Cir.1979). The court did not have to reach the question of whether a fundamental right was involved, bc-cause Friedman had "voluntarily waived his right to be present” by leaving the courthouse area at the time the verdict was to be rendered. Id.

. Larson, 911 F.2d at 395.

. Snyder, 291 U.S. at Í05, 54 S.Ct. at 332.

. Snyder, 291 U.S. at 119, 54 S.Ct. at 337; see Stincer, 482 U.S. at 745, 107 S.Ct. at 2667.