Court Opinion

ID: 9836738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:14:55.735168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:18.708025
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
The majority resolves this case on the basis of the third prong of United States v. Powell, 49 MJ 460 (1998), i.e., plain error must be shown by an appellant to have materially prejudiced his substantial rights. Powell, however, only places a burden on an appellant to show a “substantive legal error” was committed without regard for its effect on the outcome of the case. (Maj. Op. at 59) It then places the burden on the Government to show such eiTor was harmless in view of the outcome of the case. Id. at 465. By seemingly embracing this dicta in United States v. Powell, supra, the majority establishes the most liberal plain error rule in our country. See 1 Wigmore on Evidence § 18 at 796 (Tillers rev.1983); see generally Christian Ferguson, Note, Pharo v. State: Plain Error By Any Other Name, 44 Ark. L.Rev. 799 (1991).
In adopting such a plain error rule, it:
1. Eliminates the well recognized burden of an accused to show unobjected to error prejudiced the outcome of his trial.
2. Places an unparalleled burden on the Government to show an unobjeeted to error did not prejudice the outcome of the case.
3. Eliminates the well recognized discretion of an appellate court to cure plain error if it “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”
Contra Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 467, 117 S.Ct. 1544, 137 L.Ed.2d 718 (1997); United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993); supra; see United States v. Fisher, 21 MJ 327 (CMA 1986)(similar plain error rule requirements as cited Supreme Court cases without discussion of burden). I strongly disagree with the majority’s new law. See United States v. Plaut, 18 USCMA 265, 272, 39 CMR 265, 272 (1969); United States v. Pond, 17 USCMA 219, 224, 38 CMR 17, 22 (1967); United States v. Stephen, 15 USCMA 314, 317-318, 35 CMR 286, 289-90 (1965) (applying Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b) to determine plain error).
I have previously disagreed with this Court’s holding, repeated in Poioell, that a Court of Criminal Appeals is not fully subject to the well-established law of plain error. See United States v. Claxton, 32 MJ 159, 165 (CMA 1991)(Sullivan, J., concurring in part and in the result). I have also disagreed with this Court’s attempt to fashion a plain error rule based on Article 59(a), UCMJ, 10 USC § 859(a), that is different from that delineated by the Supreme Court in Johnson and Olano. See United States v. Powell, supra at 466 (Sullivan, J., concurring in the result). The establishment of a per se plain *61error reversal rule for the Court of Criminal Appeals (one which does not allow that appellate court to determine whether prejudicial error “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings”) is contrary to our decision in United States v. Fisher, supra, and denigrates the status of the lower appellate court as a court of law. Article 66(c), UCMJ, 10 USC § 866(c); see Jackson v. Taylor, 353 U.S. 569, 576-80, 77 S.Ct. 1027, 1 L.Ed.2d 1045 (1957).
In addition, to further establish a plain error rule that shifts the burden to the Government to show unobjected to error did not prejudice the outcome of the case is unprecedented.1 See Wigmore, supra. Certainly, the language of Article 59(a), UCMJ, does not expressly delineate such a burden, nor does it dictate such a holding by our Court. Mil.R.Evid. 103, Manual for Courts-Martial, United States (1995 ed.), which is identical to Fed.R.Evid. 103 except that it has added language to conform to Article 59(a), UCMJ, also does not justify such burden shifting. Finally, United States v. Olano, supra, holds to the contrary, despite the majority’s citation in Powell to that Supreme Court decision.2
Finally, the majority’s suggestion in this case and in Powell, supra at 465, that the words “affecting substantial rights” in Fed. R.Crim.P. 52(b) and United States v. Olano, supra at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770, does not focus on the impact of the error on the outcome of the case is not well taken. 54 MJ at 59. Justice Brennan in his concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion in United States v. Lane, 474 U.S. 438, 455, 106 S.Ct. 725, 88 L.Ed.2d 814, said eontrarily:
For the reasons which follow, I conclude that the question whether a particular error “affects the substantial rights of the parties” does not entail a process of classification, whereby some rights are deemed “substantial” and errors affecting these rights are automatically reversible. Rather, an error “affects substantial rights” only if it easts doubt on the outcome of the proceeding. In other words, subject to the exceptions discussed in Part II (most importantly the exception for constitutional errors), I read § 2111 and Rule 52(a) to require harmless-error inquiry for all procedural errors. As none of these exceptions is applicable to misjoinder in violation of Rule 8,1 concur in the Court’s result on this issue.
Reference to whether error “affected the substantial rights of the parties” was not invented by Congress in 1919. The phrase was commonly used by courts throughout the 19th century to express the conclusion that particular claims of error did or did not warrant reversal. However, as used by these courts, error which “affected the substantial rights of the parties” was generally understood to refer, not to errors respecting a particular class of rights, but rather to any error which affected the fairness of the trial as a whole by calling into question the reliability of the result. See, e.g., Connors v. United States, 158 U.S. 408, 411, 414, 15 S.Ct. 951, 39 L.Ed. 1033 (1895); Maish v. Arizona, 164 U.S. 599, 602, 17 S.Ct. 193, 41 L.Ed. 567 (1896); Williams v. United States, 168 U.S. 382, 390-398, 18 S.Ct. 92, 42 L.Ed. 509 (1897); American Surety Co. v. Pauly, 170 U.S. 133, 159, 18 S.Ct. 552, 42 L.Ed. 977 (1898); *62McCabe & Steen Constr. Co. v. Wilson, 209 U.S. 275, 279, 28 S.Ct. 558, 52 L.Ed. 788 (1908); Holmgren v. United States, 217 U.S. 509, 523-524, 30 S.Ct. 588, 54 L.Ed. 861 (1910). In other words, the statement that an error did not “affect the substantial rights of the paiiies” was a way of stating the conclusion that the error was not prejudicial.
This separate opinion was subsequently cited in Olano in explaining that such language in Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b) means that plain error must also be prejudicial in terms of the outcome of the case. United States v. Olano, supra at 734, 113 S.Ct. 1770.
The bottom line in appellant’s case is that his plain error claim with respect to various defects in the post-trial recommendation must fail. In my view, he has not shown that any error in this review impacted the sentence approved in this case, nor is such prejudice manifest. As said in Olano, supra at 741, 113 S.Ct. 1770:
In sum, respondents have not met their burden of showing prejudice under Rule 52(b). Whether the Government could have met its burden of showing the absence of prejudice, under Rule 52(a), if respondents had not forfeited their claim of error, is not at issue here. This is a plain-error case, and it is respondents who must persuade the appellate court that the deviation from Rule 24(c) was prejudicial.
Moreover, he has not shown that affirmance of the approved sentence “seriously affected] the fairness, integrity or public reputation” of these military judicial proceedings, nor is such a situation manifest in this case. See Johnson v. United States, supra. Accordingly, I urge the majority to return to mainstream American jurisprudence and affirm this case on these bases.

. This Court’s recent decision in United States v. Finster, 51 MJ 185 (1999), does not hold that an accused under military plain error law has no burden to show unobjected to error prejudiced his case. It recognized that "the prejudicial impact of the error was manifest” in that case and held that the Court of Criminal Appeals can identify "prejudicial error without regard to the nature or quality of an accused’s submission on appeal.” (Emphasis added.) Moreover, it clearly stated that "Courts of Criminal Appeals in appropriate cases may rely on the failure of the accused to identify prejudicial error as a basis for denying relief...." Id. at 188.

. In United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 734— 35, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993), the Supreme Court discussed Congress shifting the burden on the question of prejudice from the Government under Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(a) (objected to error) to the accused under Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b) (unobjected to error). It does not suggest in any way that the burden on the question of prejudice from unobjected to error shifts back to the Government if the accused shows a certain type of right is violated.