Court Opinion

ID: 9599085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:14:21.03179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:43.922477
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — I concur with the following reservations. I believe the majority by necessity holds Sand*828strom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 61 L. Ed. 2d 39, 99 S. Ct. 2450 (1979) and State v. Caldwell, 94 Wn.2d 614, 618 P.2d 508 (1980) should be given retroactive effect. The majority adopts a sweeping new rule in the area of personal restraint petitions. It holds a petitioner must demonstrate prejudice on collateral attack of his conviction. Majority opinion, at 819. The rule is meant to apply to all personal restraint petitions: the majority asserts "we do not limit our holding that the petitioner must show actual prejudice to petitions raising an issue of retroactivity ..." Majority opinion, at 825. The implications of adopting such a rule in this case cannot be overlooked.
First, by applying its "prejudice" standard as a threshold consideration, the majority purports to avoid addressing the retroactivity of Sandstrom and Caldwell. I find this failure to address the retroactivity issue unsupportable. The requirement that a change in the law be material to the conviction, RAP 16.4(c)(4), is correctly a threshold question. It establishes the petitioner's standing to raise the claim. See In re Taylor, 95 Wn.2d 940, 632 P.2d 56 (1981). Prejudice has no such threshold character. It squarely involves a ruling on the merits. By ruling on the merits that the petitioners were not prejudiced, the majority implicitly finds the holdings in Sandstrom and Caldwell retroactive. Otherwise, the petitioners would not have anything to be prejudiced by. The majority cannot assume arguendo that which is essential to application of the rule of prejudice.
There is little question the Sandstrom/Caldwell rule must be given retroactive application. It is a new rule, the purpose of which is to enhance the truth-finding function of the jury. See Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U.S. 233, 53 L. Ed. 2d 306, 97 S. Ct. 2339 (1977); Brown v. Louisiana, 447 U.S. 323, 65 L. Ed. 2d 159, 100 S. Ct. 2214 (1980); In re Haverty, 94 Wn.2d 621, 618 P.2d 1011 (1980). The unconstitutionality of the jury instructions at issue is retroactive. The majority's new rule proceeds to impose the additional requirement of prejudice where a constitutional error such as the Sandstrom jury instruction has occurred. The retro-*829activity issue is not circumvented by the majority's application of the prejudice standard. It is adopted sub silentio through its resolution of the prejudice issue.
Second, the majority's new rule should not be understood as a grave departure from our previous collateral review case law. It has always been the petitioner's burden to prove by fair preponderance of the evidence the basis for his claim. State v. Angevine, 62 Wn.2d 980, 984, 385 P.2d 329 (1963). Moreover, the idea that prejudice must be demonstrated is not foreign to standards for collateral review. See Koehn v. Pinnock, 80 Wn.2d 338, 342, 494 P.2d 987 (1972) (Finley, J., concurring). But it must be borne in mind that prejudice is not a fixed standard, nor is it a concept altogether appropriate for all claims on collateral review. As Judge Friendly has indicated, the degree of prejudice required varies from case to case:
The conclusion we draw from all this is that the standard of how serious the probable effect of an act or omission at a criminal trial must be in order to obtain the reversal or, where other requirements are met, the vacating of a sentence, is in some degree a function of the gravity of the act or omission; the strictness of the application of the harmless error standard seems somewhat to vary, and its reciprocal, the required showing of prejudice, to vary inversely, with the degree to which the conduct of the trial has violated basic concepts of fair play. At one end of the range is the case where the defendant has simply, although excusably, not had the benefit of evidence that has later become available to him; there the Berry test [Berry v. State, 10 Ga. 511, 527 (1851)] requires a showing that the new evidence "would probably produce a different verdict." At the other end of the range is the case of a defendant being obliged to plead to a capital charge without benefit of counsel; there the court "does not stop to inquire whether prejudice resulted." Hamilton v. State of Alabama, 82 S.Ct. 157, 159 (1961). Between these extremes lie the other cases we have reviewed — newly discovered evidence that a witness has recanted, or had lied (without knowledge by the prosecutor); ordinary errors in the admission or exclusion of evidence; violations of statutory commands; and *830infringements of other constitutional guarantees.
The reason why the showing of prejudice required to bring down the balance in favor of a new trial will vary from case to case is that the pans contain weights and counterweights other than the interest in a perfect trial. Sometimes only a small showing of prejudice, or none, is demanded because that interest is reinforced by the necessity that "The administration of justice must not only be above reproach, it must also be beyond the suspicion of reproach," People v. Savvides [1 N.Y.2d 554, 556, 136 N.E.2d 853, 854, 154 N.Y.S.2d 885 (1956)], and by the teaching of experience that mere admonitions are insufficient to prevent repetition of abuse. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 650-653, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). In other cases, where the conduct of the trial has been less censurable, or not censurable at all, a greater showing of prejudice is demanded, because the interest in obtaining an ideal trial, with the trier of the facts considering all admissible evidence that has ever become available, and nothing else, is not thus supplemented and may be outweighed by the interest in avoiding a retrial unlikely to have a different outcome — an interest especially weighty when, as is normally true on collateral attack, the second trial will come long after the first.
(Footnote omitted.) Kyle v. United States, 297 F.2d 507, 514 (2d Cir. 1961).
Fundamental fairness is the key concern. Where a constitutional error goes to the truth-finding function of the jury we must provide collateral relief where the error might have affected the result in a criminal prosecution. Our concerns for finality of judgments simply have no force where a person who might be innocent is the subject of such finality. Time does not lend credibility to a judgment that is unfair. There is no reason, however, to believe an acquittal might have occurred in the cases before us had the unconstitutional instruction been omitted.
Finally, if the majority's rule is to have value, it must be the sole criterion to which we refer in evaluating personal restraint petitions. If it merely imposes an additional hurdle to petitioners, it will be exemplary only of the court's *831antipathy for personal restraint petitions. The majority's rule has the earmarks of a comprehensive replacement for the procedural bar rule of In re Myers, 91 Wn.2d 120, 587 P.2d 532 (1978), a rule the majority labels "too blunt". Majority opinion, at 826. Yet the majority avoids explicitly overturning Myers. In Myers, the court held:
we hold that the general rule — i.e., the failure to identify errors at trial or prosecute them on appeal precludes reliance thereon in subsequent proceedings — applies to alleged errors raised for the first time on collateral attack.
91 Wn.2d at 125-26.
Petitioner Hagler did not raise the Sandstrom/Caldwell issue on appeal. As the State itself argues, Hagler's case is factually similar to Myers. Brief of Respondent, at 20. By reaching the merits of Hagler's claim despite his procedural default, the majority by necessity disapproves of Myers. With the above reservations and qualifications, I concur.
Reconsideration denied November 16, 1982.