Court Opinion

ID: 9479032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:06:18.396342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:47.087658
License: Public Domain

TROTT, Circuit Judge,
joined by Circuit Judge DAVID R. THOMPSON, concurring:
Peggy Lee Harstad was viciously murdered on July 4, 1974. That this case is still being litigated over fourteen years later does not speak well of our system of justice. The prolongation of such a matter can only have the effect of preventing her family, friends, and community from coming to peace with this horrendous event — if that is possible. Litigants, too, deserve speedier results. All of us responsible for the anemic pace of justice should reflect on every ramification of this delay and rededicate ourselves to doing everything within our power to make sure that the difficult and important decisions that are committed to us are made as expeditiously as possible. As Chief Judge Clark said in Brogdon v. Butler, 824 F.2d 338, 343 (5th Cir.1987) (Clark, C.J., concurring), “Justice requires that in each instance capital punishment be imposed with maximum assurance of scrupulous legality. But, justice equally demands an assurance that such punishment be imposed when the minds of men still retain memory of the crime committed.”
I agree with Judge Reinhardt’s assessment of the enormous and taxing death penalty workload that looms on the horizon. I respectfully disagree, however, that workload is a reason to rethink the social utility of the death penalty. Where it is the law, it represents the people’s views expressed through democratic institutions regarding the appropriate punishment for the most heinous of criminal acts. Rather than surrender to the challenge of handling these difficult cases with judicious alacrity, I find it preferable to expand or streamline the system to handle the load.
I also must take issue with my colleague’s statement that Montana’s prosecutors and courts necessarily committed “a series of errors that are extraordinary for their breadth and egregiousness.” It is useful to put this case in context to remember that Coleman at one point tried to plead guilty while simultaneously proclaiming he *1298was the innocent victim of racial bias. Then, after the administration of “truth serum,” a drug known on occasion to produce unreliable results, his attorney abruptly indicated Coleman was prepared to admit to his part in the kidnap, rape, and murder. With this series of events in mind, it is not appropriate to reject summarily a state prosecutor’s explanation for his reluctance to accept a plea of guilty from a man who first said he was innocent, then in an abrupt, about-face apparently said he was guilty (after being given sodium amytal), and finally went to trial on the theory that he was blameless. Many respected trial judges might well have declined to accept such a plea because of its obvious defects.
Had Montana accepted either of Coleman’s pleas, it is clear beyond cavil that Coleman would have eventually mounted a collateral attack against his conviction, claiming an innocent black man under the influence of drugs had been coerced into pleading guilty and sent to jail for life for a crime he did not commit. Had he been successful in invalidating such a plea, Montana would have had to try Coleman years later with evidence that might have deteriorated beyond resurrection. Had Nank died or escaped in the interim, Montana’s case might have been nonexistent, and Coleman might have escaped trial altogether. This would have been unacceptable. It is therefore not beyond understanding that the State refused to plea bargain and opted instead to go to trial.
Montana was under no obligation to plea bargain at all. See Weatherford v. Bursey, 429 U.S. 545, 561, 97 S.Ct. 837, 846, 51 L.Ed.2d 30 (1977). Also, a plea tendered pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S.Ct. 160, 27 L.Ed.2d 162 (1970) will not stand — nor should it — without a strong factual basis and a clear showing that it was the product of a free will. Montana’s Hobson’s choice under these difficult circumstances to put its case before a jury, therefore, is hardly conclusive grounds for castigation. As the Supreme Court noted in Singer v. United States, 380 U.S. 24, 36, 85 S.Ct. 783, 790, 13 L.Ed.2d 630, 638 (1965), our Constitution regards a trial by jury as the best way to produce a fair result. The cruel and savage facts in this case also make it evident that Montana’s selection of capital punishment falls short of shocking a reasonable person’s conscience. See Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 107 S.Ct. 3114, 97 L.Ed.2d 638 (1987).
I concur generally in Judge Thompson’s analysis of the due process problem in this case, but only as it relates to the issue of Coleman’s present sentence. Because of the procedures in place at the time of the commencement of Coleman’s trial in October 1975, his counsel was required to make important tactical decisions without being able to gauge their impact on a nonexistent post-conviction death penalty hearing. Anyone familiar with death penalty cases knows the issues confronting defense counsel highlighted by Judge Thompson are real. This is not a matter of speculation. The law in Montana had not yet provided for a separate hearing on the issue of punishment and did not do so until 1977. It is for this reason that Coleman’s sentence must be reversed.
Judge Wallace in his concurring and dissenting opinion makes a very strong case for an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether the due process violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Were it not for the fact that Coleman’s counsel himself brought Nank and Coleman’s involvement in a robbery to the attention of the jury. I might agree. But this makes it virtually certain in my judgment that the error cannot be said to have been harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
In one sense, this case is a victim of the turbulence generated in 1972 by Furman. New procedural guidelines for the administration of capital punishment were mandated. Virtually every state where capital punishment was on the books, including Montana, had to amend its laws to conform to the new rules. This took time. The choices were difficult, the drafting complex. The Supreme Court provided little guidance. Many cases, including this one, suffered as a consequence. That the path is difficult, however, is not sufficient reason to abandon a constitutional avenue cho*1299sen by the people. As an ancient Greek philosopher once said, “It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else had made it.” Sophocles, Ajax (c. 447 B.C.) (John Moore trans.).