Court Opinion

ID: 9744806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:16:54.460023+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:51.953444
License: Public Domain

McDONALD, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the majority opinion to the extent it (1) concludes the trial court committed constitutional *220error by omitting CALJIC No. 2.90 or an alternative instruction on the reasonable doubt standard of proof and (2) reverses Stanley Raymond Flores’s convictions. I dissent from the majority opinion to the extent it concludes the harmless error standard of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 87 S.Ct. 824] applies to that federal constitutional error. As held in People v. Crawford (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 815 [68 Cal.Rptr.2d 546] and People v. Phillips (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 952 [69 Cal.Rptr.2d 532], the failure of a trial court in a criminal case to instruct the jury that the prosecution must prove each element of a charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt is federal constitutional error in noncompliance with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and requires reversal per se; the error cannot be considered harmless under Chapman.
A federal constitutional error in omitting an instruction that the prosecution has the burden to prove each element of a charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt is structural error under Sullivan v. Louisiana (1993) 508 U.S. 275 [124 L.Ed.2d 182, 113 S.Ct. 2078] (Sullivan), and is not subject to the harmless error analysis under Chapman. As the majority opinion notes, Sullivan stated: “Although most constitutional errors have been held amenable to harmless-error analysis, see Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 306-307 [113 L.Ed.2d 302, 111 S.Ct. 1246] (1991) . . . , some will always invalidate the conviction. [Citations.] The question in the present case is to which category the present error belongs. [][]... The inquiry ... is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. That must be so, because to hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact rendered—no matter how inescapable the findings to support that verdict might be—would violate the jury-trial guarantee. [Citations.]” (Sullivan, supra, 508 U.S. at pp. 279-280.) Because of the constitutionally deficient definition of the reasonable doubt standard of proof, Sullivan concluded there had been no jury verdict within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment. (Sullivan, at p. 280.) The court stated: “There being no jury verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, the question whether the same verdict of guilty-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt would have been rendered absent the constitutional error is utterly meaningless. There is no object, so to speak, upon which harmless-error scrutiny can operate. . . . The Sixth Amendment requires more than appellate speculation about a hypothetical jury’s action, or else directed verdicts for the State would be sustainable on appeal; it requires an actual jury finding of guilty. [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 280.) Sullivan explained: “[T]he essential connection to a ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ factual finding cannot be made where the instructional error consists of a misdescription of the burden of proof, which vitiates all the jury’s findings.” (Id. at p. 281, first italics added.)
*221In this case, Sullivan’s reasoning and holding apply to the omission of an instruction on the reasonable doubt standard of proof. Whether the instructional error is a “misdescription” of the burden of proof, as in Sullivan, or a “nondescription” (i.e., no description of or instruction on) the burden of proof, the same analysis applies. With either a misdescription or an absence of a description of that burden of proof, the jury has not found the defendant guilty based on the constitutionally required standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. As Sullivan noted, were the appellate court to apply the Chapman standard of prejudicial error, the wrong entity (i.e., a judge, rather than a jury) would be determining the defendant’s guilt. (Sullivan, supra, 508 U.S. at p. 281.) Furthermore, Sullivan concluded the harmless-error analysis could not apply in its case because the instructional error involved a “structural defect.” (Id. at pp. 281-282.) The court stated: “In Fulminante, we distinguished between, on the one hand, ‘structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism, which defy analysis by “harmless-error” standards,’ 499 U.S., at [page] 309, and, on the other hand, trial errors which occur ‘during the presentation of the case to the jury, and which may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented,’ id., at [pages] 307-308. Denial of the right to a jury verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is certainly an error of the former sort \i.e., a structural defect], the jury guarantee being a ‘basic protectio[n]’whose precise effects are unmeasurable, but without which a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function [citation].” (Sullivan, at p. 281, italics added.)1 Sullivan concluded: “The deprivation of that right [i.e., constitutional right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt], with consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate, unquestionably qualifies as ‘structural error.’ ” (Id. at pp. 281-282, italics added.) Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment without conducting a Chapman-style, analysis of harmless error. (Sullivan, supra, 508 U.S. at p. 282.) Therefore, Sullivan held that a structural error in violation of the United States Constitution (e.g., instructional error depriving a defendant of the right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt) requires reversal per se of the judgment. That holding applies to not only “misdescriptions” of the burden of proof, but also to “nondescriptions” (or lack of descriptions) of the burden of proof.
Like the courts in Crawford and Phillips, because in this case the trial court, in noncompliance with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution, did not instruct the jury that the prosecution had the burden to prove each of the elements of the charged offense(s) beyond a *222reasonable doubt, Sullivan’s holding applies to require reversal per se of Flores’s convictions. (People v. Crawford, supra, 58 Cal.App.4th at pp. 817, 821-823; People v. Phillips, supra, 59 Cal.App.4th at pp. 954, 956-958.) As Crawford stated: “Denial of the right to trial by jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, Justice Scalia concluded [in Sullivan], was a ‘structural defect’ in the trial mechanism, requiring reversal per se. [Citation.]” (Crawford, at p. 822, italics added.) Crawford further stated: “In our view, Sullivan compels the conclusion that the trial court, in the case before us, erred in failing to instruct, after presentation of the evidence, on the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and in failing to assign the burden of proof to the prosecution, in effect denying to appellant the most elementary and fundamental right provided by our system of justice, a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Crawford, at pp. 822-823, italics added.) The reasoning in Crawford is persuasive. Furthermore, Phillips rejected the contention that Sullivan’s reversal per se requirement should not apply to cases in which a trial court wholly omits any instruction on the reasonable doubt standard of proof (in contrast to instructing with a deficient definition of reasonable doubt, as in Sullivan). (Phillips, supra, 59 Cal.App.4th at pp. 957-958.)
People v. Vann (1974) 12 Cal.3d 220 [115 Cal.Rptr. 352, 524 P.2d 824] is no longer controlling precedent to the extent it held the Chapman standard of reversible error applies to the federal constitutional error of failing to instruct on the reasonable doubt standard of proof. Vann was issued in 1974, almost 20 years before the United States Supreme Court issued Sullivan in 1993. As both Crawford and Phillips expressly recognized, Sullivan requires that we now apply the reversible per se standard, rather than the Chapman harmless error standard, to such structural defects in violation of the United States Constitution. In so concluding, both Crawford and Phillips implicitly conclude Sullivan in effect overruled Vann to the extent Vann held the Chapman harmless error standard applies to those errors or defects. I expressly conclude Sullivan has overruled Vann to the extent it held the Chapman standard of harmless error applies to structural defects in violation of the United States Constitution (i.e., omission of an instruction on the reasonable doubt standard of proof). Accordingly, this court is not bound by Vann to apply the Chapman standard of harmless error and, instead, must apply to this case the reversible per se standard required by Sullivan. It is difficult to read the entire opinion of Justice Scalia in Sullivan and yet conclude a criminal defendant can receive his “right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” (Sullivan, supra, 508 U.S. at p. 281) in *223compliance with the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution when his or her jury has not been instructed that the prosecution must prove each element of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Because Flores was denied his federal constitutional right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (Sullivan, at p. 278), I agree with the majority that all of Flores’s convictions must be reversed, but disagree with the majority that a harmless-error analysis under Chapman applies.

 The majority omits the italicized language from Sullivan in concluding the Chapman standard applies to the federal constitutional error in this case. That language shows the United States Supreme Court believes the denial of a defendant’s right to a jury trial, including an instruction on the applicable reasonable doubt standard of proof, is structural error and not subject to harmless error analysis.