Court Opinion

ID: 9490845
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:56:15.777539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:20.969319
License: Public Domain

SUHRHEINRICH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
In general, a defendant asserting an ineffective assistance of counsel claim must demonstrate that counsel’s performance was deficient and also that this deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); McQueen v. Scroggy, 99 F.3d 1302, 1310 (6th Cir.1996), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 2422, 138 L.Ed.2d 185 (1997). To show prejudice, the defendant must demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, absent counsel’s unprofessional errors, the results of the proceeding would have been different. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. at 2068. A reasonable probability is one that is sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome. Id. The majority, like the district court below, acknowledges that Petitioner Rickman is unable to demonstrate actual prejudice resulting from Attorney Livingston’s representation.
*1161Nevertheless, relying principally upon dicta1 from United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), the majority concludes that Rickman need not show prejudice in this case. Instead, the majority presumes prejudice and affirms the district court’s grant of a writ of habeas corpus, which overturned the nearly twenty-year old conviction of an individual unquestionably guilty of a murder to which he voluntarily confessed and which was described by the Tennessee Supreme Court as “one of the most atrocious and inhuman conceivable.” State v. Groseclose, 615 S.W.2d 142, 145 (Tenn.1981). In my view, Rickman’s case does not fall within the narrow exception discussed in dicta in Cronic. Applying the traditional test for prejudice articulated in Strickland, I conclude that Rickman’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim must fail. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.
I.
In Cronic, the Supreme Court explained in dicta that certain circumstances are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect on a particular case is unjustified:
Most obvious, of course, is the complete denial of counsel. The presumption that counsel’s assistance is essential requires us to conclude that a trial is unfair if the accused is denied counsel at a critical stage of his trial.[25] Similarly, if counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing, then there has been a denial of Sixth Amendment rights that makes the adversary process itself presumptively unreliable.
Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659 & n. 25, 104 S.Ct. at 2047 & n. 25. The Court cautioned, however, that apart from circumstances of this magnitude, there generally exists no basis for finding a Sixth Amendment violation unless the defendant can show that counsel’s specific errors undermined the reliability of the finding of guilt. Id. at 659 n. 26, 104 S.Ct. at 2047 n. 26.
A.
Courts have been reluctant to apply the Cronic dicta broadly. See, e.g., Scarpa v. Dubois, 38 F.3d 1, 12-13 (1st Cir.1994) (discussing cases refusing to apply Cronic); Toomey v. Bunnell, 898 F.2d 741, 744 n. 2 (9th Cir.1990) (“We have applied the Cronic exception very sparingly.”) This circuit applied Cronic in Green v. Arn, 809 F.2d 1257 (6th Cir.1987), vacated on other grounds, 484 U.S. 806, 108 S.Ct. 52, 98 L.Ed.2d 17 (1987), reinstated, 839 F.2d 300 (1988) and Martin v. Rose, 744 F.2d 1245 (6th Cir.1984). In Green, the defendant’s counsel was absent during the cross-examination of a key government witness by an attorney for a co-defendant. Under these circumstances, we determined that there was prejudice per se, and a reversal of the defendant’s conviction was warranted without inquiry into whether the constitutional violation resulted in harmless error. Green, 809 F.2d at 1263.
Judge Boggs dissented from the majority’s holding to the extent it precluded the application of harmless error analysis. Judge Boggs would have upheld the defendant’s conviction, because defense counsel’s absence resulted in harmless error. Id. at 1264-65 (Boggs, J., dissenting). Judge Boggs rejected the majority’s reliance on the dicta in Cronic and its discussion of the denial of the right to counsel. He explained:
The cases cited in Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2047 ... and those cited in support of Cronic in this opinion, all involve instances where something having to do with the truth-seeking process was prevented by court ruling, or where the part to be played in that process by defense counsel was wholly absent.
*1162Here, there is no hint or even speculation that what went into the record or the ears of the jury would have differed if the error had not occurred. Nor is this an instance where counsel’s presence to object or take a strategic decision could have been crucial, nor where an opportunity has been irrevocably waived.
Id. at 1265 (Boggs, J., dissenting). Judge Boggs concluded: “[i]t elevates form over substance to equate what occurred here to the true denial of counsel cited in Cronic." Id.
I think that Judge Boggs had the better reading of the Cronic dicta. In any event, the majority opinion in Green provides no support for the present case. In Green, the majority opinion simply tracked the language of the Cronic dicta which “instructed that there is a ‘constitutional error without any showing of prejudice when counsel was ... totally absent ... during a critical stage of the proceeding.’ ” Id. at 1262 (quoting Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659 n. 25, 104 S.Ct. at 2047 n. 25). In addition, the decision in Green was a narrow one, as the majority cautioned that some absences by defense counsel might be “so de minimis” that they would not be constitutionally significant. Id. at 1261.
We also found prejudice per se in Martin, because defense counsel had “stood mute” during trial. Counsel’s only participation was to make a brief statement to the jury explaining that the defendant would be relying on certain pretrial motions and that defense counsel would not be taking part in the trial. Martin, 14A F.2d at 1247. Counsel did not participate in jury selection, gave no other opening statement, did not cross-examine any of the government’s witnesses, called no witnesses for the defense, and offered no closing argument. Id. Despite finding that the decision to remain silent was a strategic maneuver to which the defendant did not object, this circuit held that counsel’s performance constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. We concluded that there was prejudice per se, since counsel’s total lack of participation precluded the defendant from subjecting the government’s case to “ ‘the crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.’ ” Id. at 1250 (quoting Cronic, 466 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2045).
Like Green, our decision in Martin lends no support to the majority’s expansive reading of Cronic in the instant case. By refusing to participate at trial, counsel “entirely failed to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing....” Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2047; see Martin, 744 F.2d at 1250. The facts in Martin, therefore, fall within the language of the Cronic dicta.
B.
As support for its decision, the majority relies primarily upon two opinions from our sister circuits which contain overly expansive and, in my view, unwarranted interpretations of Cronic. I shall discuss each opinion in turn. In United States v. Swanson, 943 F.2d 1070, 1074 (9th Cir.1991), the Ninth Circuit found prejudice per se where defense counsel conceded in his closing argument to the jury that there was no reasonable doubt as to his client’s guilt regarding the only factual issues in dispute. The court concluded that the attorney’s conduct had tainted the integrity of the trial. Id. The court held that the attorney had abandoned his duty of loyalty to his client and utterly failed to subject the government’s case to meaningful adversarial testing. Id. at 1074-75.
Judge Wiggins dissented. In his view, defense counsel did the best that he could under the circumstances. Id. at 1080 (Wiggins, J., dissenting). Judge Wiggins explained:
It is easy to condemn from our vantage point. We are not before the jury, empty handed, yet charged with the duty of providing an honest defense. We should, I believe, view counsel’s performance less critically. He did not concede that his client was guilty. He did, however, admit that there was no reasonable doubt that one element of the government’s case was true, namely, that the bank clerks were intimidated by the robber. Such an admission did not cause a collapse in the adversarial system, it did not taint the integrity of the trial, nor was it an abandonment by counsel of his client’s defense. If it was *1163error at all, it was not of the fundamental sort necessary to trigger the Cronic exception.
Id. Applying the traditional Strickland analysis, Judge Wiggins concluded that counsel’s representation was not unconstitutional, because any errors made by defense counsel were not prejudicial. Id.
I agree with Judge Wiggins’ dissenting opinion, because defense counsel’s trial errors in Swanson were appropriate subjects for the traditional Strickland prejudice analysis. See Childress v. Johnson, 103 F.3d 1221, 1229 n. 12 (5th Cir.1997) (same); Scarpa, 38 F.3d at 12-13 (same). The Supreme Court has stated: “Conflict of interest claims aside, actual ineffectiveness claims alleging a deficiency in attorney performance are subject to a general requirement that the defendant affirmatively prove prejudice.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 2067. In addition, the Ninth Circuit’s expansive interpretation in Swanson of the Cronic dicta is at odds with its own observation approximately one year earlier in Toomey, 898 F.2d at 744 n. 2, that “[w]e have applied the Cronic exception very sparingly.”
Nevertheless, even if I were inclined to consider Swanson correctly decided, I would still find it inapplicable in the present case. Swanson can arguably be interpreted as falling within the Cronic dicta for the following reason: By conceding the lack of a reasonable doubt as to the only factual issues in dispute, defense counsel failed to subject the prosecution’s case to the “crucible of meaningful adversarial testing.” Cronic, 466 U.S. at 656, 104 S.Ct. at 2045. As I shall diseuss, Attorney Livingston’s representation in the present ease did not fall below that standard.
The majority also relies upon Osborn v. Shillinger, 861 F.2d 612 (10th Cir.1988). In Osborn, the defendant received the death penalty after pleading guilty to a series of crimes, including felony murder. The Tenth Circuit held that defense counsel was ineffective at both the guilty plea and sentencing stages. The court stated that defense counsel had “so abandoned” his duty to advocate on behalf of his client “that the state proceedings were almost totally non-adversarial.” Id. at 628. The court concluded that “[prejudice, whether necessary or not, is established under any applicable standard.” Id. at 629. The Osborn court based its decision finding prejudice per se on the following facts: (1) when the defendant decided that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea, defense counsel made statements to the press indicating that the defendant had no evidence to support his claims and that he was playing a game to attract attention; (2) defense counsel also made statements to the press during the sentencing stage which indicated that the defendant was not amenable to rehabilitation; (3) defense counsel knew or should have known that the prosecutor’s office had conveyed ex parte information to the sentencing court, yet never sought to discover its contents or counteract its effects; (4) defense counsel stressed the brutality of the crimes at the sentencing hearing and referred to the difficulty incurred in presenting mitigating evidence when the evidence against a client is so overwhelming; and (5) defense counsel informed the trial judge in a letter written subsequent to his client’s sentencing hearing that, in essence, counsel’s client deserved the death sentence. Id. at 628-29. Although he was in the process at that time of arguing his client’s appeal, counsel insisted that whether his statements helped his client “ ‘wasn’t my concern.’ ” Id. at 629 (internal citation omitted).
In Scarpa, 38 F.3d at 12-13, the First Circuit rejected the Osborn court’s application of the Cronic dicta. The First Circuit explained that the Supreme Court declined to accord presumptively prejudicial status to attorney errors particular to the facts of an individual case. Id. The Scarpa court stated: “Virtually by definition, such errors ‘cannot be classified according to likelihood of causing prejudice’ or ‘defined with sufficient precision to inform defense attorneys correctly just what conduct to avoid.’ Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693, 104 S.Ct. at 2067.” Id. at 12.2 The First Circuit also drew an analogy to the harmless error doctrine and the *1164distinction between trial errors and structural errors. See id. at 14-15. Trial errors must be analyzed under the particular circumstances of each case in order to determine whether actual prejudice, in fact, resulted. Id. at 14. Structural errors, on the other hand, “jar the framework in which the trial proceeds.” Id. Thus, “structural errors so undermine confidence in the fairness and reliability of the proceedings that prejudice is presumed.” Childress, 103 F.3d at 1230 (discussing Scarpa); see Scarpa, 38 F.3d at 14. The Scarpa court explained: “The ‘common thread’ connecting the numerous examples of trial error listed ... in Fulminante is that all such errors occur ‘during the presentation of the ease to the jury,’ and therefore may be ‘quantitatively assessed in the context of [the] evidence presented’ in order to gauge harmlessness.” Scarpa, 38 F.3d at 14 (quoting Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 307-08, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1264, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991)).
I find the Scarpa court’s analysis persuasive and agree that defense counsel’s errors in Osborn were amenable to the Strickland analysis. However, even if I were to follow Osborn, I would still find it distinguishable from the present case. Osborn dealt with an extreme situation where defense counsel abandons his client and “effectively joins the state in an effort to attain a conviction or death sentence.... ” Osborn, 861 F.2d at 629; cf. Davis v. Executive Director of Dep’t of Corrections, 100 F.3d 750, 759 (10th Cir.1996) (refusing to apply Osborn where defense counsel described the case as “one of the worst ones I have ever seen” and expressed his hatred for the defendant), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 1703, 137 L.Ed.2d 828 (1997). As I shall discuss, Attorney Livingston did not “join” with the prosecution in the present case to obtain either Rickman’s conviction or his death sentence. Attorney Livingston initially attempted, with Rickman’s approval, to obtain a plea bargain for his client. After this failed and Rickman was tried and convicted, Attorney Livingston spent nearly three hours arguing to the jury to spare Rickman’s life.
II.
A principal reason given by the Supreme Court for the presumption of prejudice in certain instances was the desire to avoid the cost involved in case-by-case inquiries. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 692,104 S.Ct. at 2067; Cronic, 466 U.S. at 658, 104 S.Ct. at 2046. Both Swanson and Osborn, as well as the majority opinion in the present case, frustrate this objective. Once it is necessary for a court to examine the trial record in order to evaluate counsel’s particular' errors, the resort to a per se presumption can no longer be justified by the goal of avoiding case-by-case litigation. Thus, “[a]n overly generous reading of Cronic would do little more than replace case-by-case litigation over prejudice with case-by-case litigation over prejudice per se.” Scarpa, 38 F.3d at 14. The majority in the present case is a perfect example. First, it spends sufficient time examining the record to allow it to conclude that Rickman could not prevail if he were required to show actual prejudice. The majority rejects Rick-man’s argument that there exists a reasonable probability that he would not have been convicted of first degree murder had Attorney Livingston investigated and presented a defense of lack of mens rea. It then undertakes a second review of the record, highlighting the particular conduct of Attorney Livingston which, in the majority’s view, justifies the application of Cronic. In doing so, the majority frustrates a principal policy underlying the Cronic dicta.3
An unnecessarily expansive reading of the Cronic dicta frustrates other substantial interests as well; i.e., comity, federalism, and the finality of judgments. In Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982), the Supreme Court observed that “[fjederal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States’ sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights.” Likewise, in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U.S. 880, 887, 103 S.Ct. 3383, 3391-92, 77 *1165L.Ed.2d 1090 (1983), superseded, on other grounds by statute, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2253(c)(2) (West Supp.1997), the Court explained:
[I]t must be remembered that direct appeal is the primary avenue for review of a conviction or sentence, and death penalty cases are no exception. When the process of direct review ... comes to an end, a presumption of finality and legality attaches to the conviction and sentence. The role of federal habeas proceedings, while important in assuring that constitutional rights are observed, is secondary and limited. Federal courts are not forums in which to relitigate state trials. Even less is federal habeas a means by which a defendant is entitled to delay an execution indefinitely.
III.
The majority has recounted the elements of Attorney Livingston’s representation which it believes warrant the application of the Cronic dicta in this ease, and I need not repeat them here. I do not condone Attorney Livingston’s performance, but that is not the issue. As the Supreme Court declared in Cronic, 466 U.S. at 665 n. 38, 104 S.Ct. at 2050 n. 38: “We address not what is prudent or appropriate, but only what is constitutionally compelled.” In Cronic, the Supreme Court explained that the Sixth Amendment is generally not implicated absent an effect on the reliability of the trial process. Id. at 658, 104 S.Ct. at 2046. The Court pointed out that “the right to the effective assistance of counsel is recognized not for its own sake, but because of the effect it has on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial.” Id. I am satisfied that Attorney Livingston did not breach his duty of loyalty to Rickman, create a conflict of interest with his representation, or entirely fail to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing, such that the trial’s outcome was presumptively unreliable. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 692, 104 S.Ct. at 2067; Cronic, 466 U.S. at 658-59, 104 S.Ct. at 2046-47.
The majority finds that Attorney Livingston’s representation amounted to a constructive denial of the assistance of counsel. However, the instant ease is unlike either of the two examples of constructive denial discussed in Cronic. See Woodard v. Collins, 898 F.2d 1027, 1028-29 (5th Cir.1990). First, the Supreme Court has consistently found constitutional error without any showing of prejudice where counsel was totally absent or prevented from assisting the defendant during a critical stage of the proceeding. Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659 n. 25, 104 S.Ct. at 2047 n. 25. Neither situation occurred here. Second, Attorney Livingston did not entirely fail to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing. Id. at 659, 104 S.Ct. at 2047.
At the beginning of his representation, Attorney Livingston received a copy of a nine-page confession given by Rickman to the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office. Attorney Livingston testified at Rickman’s post-conviction relief hearing that he went to the Shelby County jail and left the confession with Rickman to review. One week later, Attorney Livingston visited Rickman again. With respect to this meeting, Attorney Livingston testified:
A: I went back and asked him what part was true and what part was false.
Q: And he told you that it was true?
A: He said, “It’s all true.”
Q: But you didn’t discuss with him the contents of the statement and the implications of it, did you?
A: I went over the statement with him word for word.... He knew what was in it and I knew what was in it. I asked him if he had been advised of his Miranda rights and he said that he had. I asked him had he been forced or coerced in any way to give a statement and he said that the police had been nothing but exceptionally good to him.
J.A. at 838.
After Rickman informed him that the confession was accurate, Attorney Livingston determined that he would attempt to persuade the District Attorney to permit Rick-man to enter a plea of guilty, accept a life sentence, and thereby avoid Tennessee’s electric chair. Id. at 836. The District Attorney initially refused to accept the plea but eventually agreed on the condition that Rick-*1166man, Groseclose, and Britt would all plead guilty and accept life sentences. Attorney Livingston testified that the plea was acceptable to Rickman and Britt but not to Grosec-lose. As a result, the case proceeded to trial where Attorney Livingston attempted “to persuade the jury that Rickman was ‘abnormal and should not be judged as a normal person,’ .... and ‘to show the jury that we had a sick boy on trial, a subnormal, abnormal human being on trial.... That was my whole object of the whole defense, was try to convince the jury that we had a sick man on trial.’ ” Rickman v. Dutton, 864 F.Supp. 686, 694 (M.D.Tenn.1994) (internal citations omitted). After Rickman was convicted of first degree murder, Livingston argued for approximately three hours during the sentencing stage in an attempt to convince the jury to spare Rickman from the electric chair.
The district court found that Attorney Livingston devoted sixteen hours to pre-trial preparation. Id. Attorney Livingston testified that he explained to Rickman the elements of first degree murder in Tennessee and the punishment for a conviction. Attorney Livingston reviewed the statements incriminating Rickman which Britt and Mount had given following their arrests. Notwithstanding Rickman’s statement that his confession was voluntary, Attorney Livingston filed a pre-trial motion to suppress Rick-man’s confession. Attorney Livingston also filed a motion to sever Rickman’s ease from those of his co-defendants. Both motions were denied. Moreover, Attorney Livingston requested a psychiatric evaluation with respect to whether Rickman was competent to stand trial. The psychiatrist who examined Rickman determined that he was, in fact, competent.
From the moment Attorney Livingston learned that Rickman’s nine-page confession was accurate and lawfully obtained, Attorney Livingston’s sole purpose was to persuade the District Attorney to accept a guilty plea and life sentence for Rickman, thus sparing him from Tennessee’s electric chair. After the plea bargain failed, Attorney Livingston testified that he attempted to portray Rick-man to the jury as an abnormal human being. Attorney Livingston’s tactics must be understood precisely for what they were; i.e., a last ditch attempt to persuade the jury to spare Rickman from the electric chair. These are certainly not the actions of a defense counsel who was allegedly so hostile to his client’s interests that he functioned as a “second prosecutor.” Maj. op. at p. 1157.
In Strickland, the Supreme Court cautioned that courts must review the performance of an attorney with a “heavy measure of deference,” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 691, 104 S.Ct. at 2066, and make every effort “to eliminate the distorting effects of hindsight,” id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. at 2065. In addition, the Court explained that the reasonableness of an attorney’s actions may be determined or substantially influenced by the defendant’s own statements or actions. Id. at 691, 104 S.Ct. at 2066-67. In the instant ease, Attorney Livingston was representing a defendant on trial for one of the most atrocious murders imaginable. Attorney Livingston had been informed by Rickman that the nine-page confession he provided to the District Attorney detailing the murder was completely voluntary and entirely accurate. Moreover, Attorney Livingston had read the incriminating statements provided to the District Attorney by Britt and Mount. Under these circumstances, I do not find that Attorney Livingston’s representation amounted to a breach of his duty of loyalty to Rickman or that Attorney Livingston entirely failed to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing. We should recall Clarence Darrow’s famous statements in defense of Nathan Leopold, Jr. and Richard Loeb, who faced the death penalty after they pled guilty to the kidnap and murder of a fourteen-year-old boy: “I do not know how much salvage there is in these boys. I hate to say it in their presence, but what is there to look forward to? I do not know but that Your Honor would be merciful if you tied a rope around their necks and let them die.... ” Attorney for the Damned 84 (Arthur Weinberg ed., 1957). Although Attorney Livingston’s representation certainly did not equal that of Clarence Darrow, it nonetheless satisfied the minimum standard required by the Constitution.
*1167IV.
Since I agree with the majority, as well as the district court, that Rickman is unable to show that his defense was actually prejudiced by Attorney Livingston’s representation, I would reject Rickman’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. From the majority’s holding to the contrary, I respectfully dissent.

 The Court has uniformly found constitutional error without any showing of prejudice when counsel was either totally absent, or prevented from assisting the accused during a critical stage of the proceeding.

. The language in Cronic discussing the instances in which prejudice is presumed has been described as dicta by the First, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, see Scarpa v. Dubois, 38 F.3d 1, 12-15 (1st Cir.1994); Hammonds v. Newsome, 816 F.2d 611, 613 (11th Cir.1987); Takacs v. Engle, 768 F.2d 122, 124 (6th Cir.1985), as well as by Judge Boggs in his dissenting opinion in Green v. Arn, 809 F.2d 1257, 1264 (6th Cir.1987) (Boggs, J., dissenting).

. The First Circuit distinguished our decision in Green to presume prejudice because defense counsel was absent from the courtroom during a critical stage of the trial. See Scarpa v. Dubois, 38 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir.1994).

. In Cronic, 466 U.S. at 658, 104 S.Ct. at 2046, the Supreme Court stated: "There are ... circumstances that are so likely to prejudice the accused that the cost of litigating their effect in a particular case is unjustified.”