Court Opinion

ID: 9483314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:16:45.550432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:32.907766
License: Public Domain

KRAYITCH, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority opinion affirming the denial of habeas relief on White’s claims relating to his conviction. I dissent, however, from that portion of the opinion that affirms denial of habeas relief on the sentencing claim.
Four aggravating factors and no mitigating factors were submitted to the jury during the penalty phase of White’s trial. On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court ■ struck two of these aggravating-factors:'' (1) the “cold, calculated and premeditated” factor because it was not supported by the evidence, and (2) the pecuniary gain factor because it constituted improper “doubling.” Two aggravating factors remained intact: (1) White’s previous felony conviction and (2) the fact that the homicide was committed during the course of a robbery.
Despite invalidating half of the aggravating factors charged against White, the Supreme Court of Florida upheld White’s death sentence because “death is presumed to be the appropriate penalty” when one or more valid aggravating factors remain and there are no mitigating factors. On habe-as, the Florida Supreme Court recognized the Clemons requirement that a reviewing court must either (1) reweigh the factors or (2) apply a harmless error analysis before upholding a death sentence based in part on invalid aggravating factors. The Court stated that “regardless” of the language in its prior opinion, it had nevertheless engaged, at that time, in an appropriate harmless error analysis. “[T]o remove any doubt,” however, the Court stated that it had reapplied the harmless error analysis and concluded that “the trial court’s ruling would have been the same beyond a reasonable doubt even in the absence of the invalid aggravating factors.”
The majority believes that these bare-boned statements by the Florida Supreme Court are sufficient to meet the requirements of Sochor and Clemons, supra at 1226. I disagree. In both of these opinions, the Supreme Court indicated that a reviewing court must do more than merely state the magic words “harmless error.” An individual’s Eighth Amendment rights to an individualized trial are not fulfilled unless a reviewing court engages in a thorough analysis which can only be exhibited by an explanation of a court’s reasons for finding harmless error.
In three recent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that, in a weighing state like Florida, a court reviewing a death sentence following an invalidation of one or more aggravating factors must explain its reasons for finding harmless error. In So-chor, the Court stated that:
Since the Supreme Court of Florida did not explain or even declare a belief that this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt ... the error cannot be taken as cured by the State Supreme Court’s consideration of the case.
— U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2123 (emphasis added). This excerpt indicates that a reviewing court’s upholding of a death sentence will only be appropriate where (1) the court makes the specific finding that the “error [of permitting an invalid aggravating factor to go to the jury] was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” and (2) the court explains why it made this finding.
Indeed, Justice O’Connor specially concurred in Sochor solely to stress this point. In her concise opinion she stated that:
before a, federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the reviewing court must find “beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.”... This is a justifiably high standard, and while it can be met without uttering the magic words “harmless error,” see ante [— *1229U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct.] at 2122-2123, the reverse is not true. An appellate court’s bald assertion that an error of constitutional dimensions was ‘harmless’ cannot substitute for a principled explanation of how the court reached that conclusion.
Id. — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2123 (O’Connor, J. concurring).
The Sochor opinion merely reiterated the standard already set forth in Clemons. In Clemons, the court held that upon invalidation of an aggravating factor, a reviewing court may engage in a harmless error analysis or reweigh the remaining aggravating and mitigating factors itself, rather than send the case back to a jury for resen-tencing. When the prosecution has stressed, however, the invalid factor during the sentencing hearing, a reviewing court must justify its finding of harmless error with a “detailed explanation based on the record.” Clemons, 494 U.S. at 753, 110 S.Ct. at 1451. As in Clemons, White’s prosecution stressed the invalid factor during sentencing, arguing that:
the defendant was convicted of a capital felony or homicide [which] was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner. Not only that it was premeditated murder, but that it was in a cold, calculated manner. I ask you to again consider the facts of the case that are before you. You have convicted the defendant of armed robbery and murder, I suggest the evidence clearly shows that it was committed in a cold and calculated manner, execution style, that both of these men were marched into the back room, and that the defendant did shoot those two men to death. You can consider the evidence also, the shooting of Mr. Alexander, as well as the gun being pointed at Pamela Tehani and her father, Henry Tehani, and the trigger being pulled on the gun twice on them. That shows how cold and calculated this crime was. I suggest to you the defendant planned it to the extent that he went in with a loaded revolver in his pants for the purpose of committing armed robbery, and he went in without a mask, and he had no intention whatsoever of having any eyewitnesses testify against him, including James Melson, who was shot to death.
Because the prosecution stressed the invalid “cold, calculating and premeditated” factor to the jury, the reviewing court was obligated by Clemons to justify a holding of harmless error with a “detailed explanation based on the record.” Clemons, 494 U.S. at 753, 110 S.Ct. at 1451.
In Stringer v. Black, — U.S.-, 112 S.Ct. 1130, 117 L.Ed.2d 367 (1992), as well, the Supreme Court indicated that Clemons does not allow reviewing courts to give cursory attention to a defendant’s sentence after an aggravating factor has been invalidated. Although Clemons holds that an appellate court in a weighing state need not send a case back for resentencing after an aggravating factor has been invalidated, the Supreme Court has “not suggested that the Eighth Amendment permits the state appellate court in a weighing State to affirm a death sentence without a thorough analysis of the role an invalid aggravating factor played in the sentencing process.” Id. — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1136 (emphasis added). To the contrary, the Court “require[s] close appellate scrutiny of the import and effect of invalid aggravating factors.” Id. Consequently, “a reviewing court in a weighing State may not make the automatic assumption that such a factor has not infected the weighing process.” Id. — U.S. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 1137.
In this case, even more than in Clemons and Stringer, “close appellate scrutiny” was required to determine whether the introduction of the invalidated factors was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, the “cold, calculated and premeditated” aggravating factor was invalidated due to insufficient evidence. In contrast, Clemons and Stringer involved death penalties based, in part, on an “especially heinous” factor found to be unconstitutionally vague under Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988). The complete inapplicability of the cold, calculated and premeditated factor, rather than an invalidation based on form, *1230makes the prosecutor’s error here worse than those in Clemons and Stringer. Whereas the reviewing courts in these cases could have justifiably upheld the sentence by finding that, “beyond a reasonable doubt the result would have been the same had the especially heinous aggravating circumstance been properly defined in the jury instructions,” Clemons, 494 U.S. at 754, 110 S.Ct. at 1451, the Florida Supreme Court here had the more difficult task of finding that the presentation of an unsupported and consequently irrelevant factor was harmless, a finding that required not only “close appellate scrutiny” but. a detailed explanation as well.
As evidenced above, Sochor, Clemons and Stringer indicate that in weighing states, a state supreme court’s review for harmless error must contain more than a mere assertion that the introduction of that factor was harmless. The reviewing court must provide some reasoning for its holding. In White’s case, the assertion of harmless error was particularly “bald” given the circumstances of the unsupported holding. The Florida Court failed the Clemons test by stating, in its first opinion, that death should be “presumed” to be the appropriate sentence because at least one aggravating factor remained. In its second opinion addressing this issue, the Florida Court again failed to explain its reasoning, baldly asserting that (a) the court properly applied the harmless error test in its first decision and (b) that in any case, re-analysis leads again to the conclusion that any error was harmless.
Because I believe that the state court did not make sufficient findings under Sochor, Clemons, and Stringer, I must dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion that affirms White’s sentence.