Court Opinion

ID: 9472452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:00:28.914587+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:56.510122
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Upon reconsideration of the procedural issue presented by this appeal, I am in substantial agreement with the majority’s result. I write separately, however, to emphasize that our decision to avoid the merits of this case is not in any way based upon the doctrine of exhaustion.
28 U.S.C. § 2254 generally requires a prisoner to exhaust available state remedies before proceeding in federal court. Under Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2953.21(A) (1975), petitioners may not raise claims in state court which could have been litigated before judgment or on direct appeal. See Keener v. Ridenour, 594 F.2d 581 (6th Cir.1979). Because Lockett’s substantial constitutional challenge to the jury instructions might have been raised at trial or on direct appeal, she is now unable to avail herself of any “state corrective process.” Lockett, therefore, has fully exhausted her state remedies in regard to her constitutional challenge to the state court’s jury instructions. The exhaustion doctrine, thus, does not preclude us from addressing Lockett’s contention that those instructions unconstitutionally shifted to her the burden of proving the essential element of “intent” in the crime of aggravated murder. See Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2903.01.
We are precluded from addressing that contention, however, by Lockett’s failure to object contemporaneously to the jury charge as she is required to do under Rule 30, Ohio R.Crim.P. After careful review of this record, I can find neither cause nor prejudice for the failure to comply with that rule. See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 129, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982). Furthermore, I agree with the majority that at this particular moment in the Supreme Court’s understanding of “comity,” we are unable to find that the Ohio state courts “had a chance to mend their own fences” with respect to any erroneous jury charge. Engle, 456 U.S. at 129, 102 S.Ct. at 1572.
Although federal courts may reach otherwise procedurally barred claims where the “petitioner’s failure to comply with the contemporaneous objection requirement was [not] a substantial basis for the state court’s denial of petitioner’s claims,” see County Court of Ulster v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979); Hockenbury v. Sowders, 620 F.2d 111 (6th Cir.1980), or where the state court “chooses to ignore in its opinion a federal constitutional claim” the substance of which was “squarely presented,” see Wiley v. Sowders, 647 F.2d 642 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1091, 102 S.Ct. 656, 70 L.Ed.2d 630 (1981); Butler v. Rose, 686 F.2d 1163 (6th Cir.1982), I agree that under the particular facts of this case the Ohio courts were not presented with the essence of Lockett’s current constitutional claim. As such, the Ohio courts did not have ample opportunity *414to “mend their own fences.” Engle, 456 U.S. at 129, 102 S.Ct. at 1572.
We, therefore, return the question of the constitutionality of the jury charge employed in this case to the Ohio courts in the hope that they might indeed mend their own fences.
I note that the Ohio legislature has begun such a fence-mending operation. The legislature amended its aggravated murder statute to insure that the jury charge issued in this case will not be issued again. In keeping with the constitutional requirements of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 512, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 2453, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), Ohio Rev.Code Ann. § 2903.01(D) now states:
No person shall be convicted of aggravated murder unless he is specifically found to have intended to cause the death of another. In no case shall a jury in an aggravated murder case be instructed in such a manner that it may believe that a person who commits or attempts to commit any offense listed in division (B) of this section is to be conclusively inferred, because he engaged in a common design with others to commit the offense by force and violence or because the offense and the manner of its commission would be likely to produce death, to have intended to cause the death of any person who is killed during the commission of, attempt to commit, or flight from the commission of or attempt to commit, the offense. If a jury in an aggravated murder case is instructed that a person who commits or attempts to commit any offense listed in division (B) of this section may be inferred, because he engaged in a common design with others to commit the offense by force or violence or because the offense and the manner of its commission would be likely to produce death, to have intended to cause the death of any person who is killed during the commission of, attempt to commit, or flight from the commission of or attempt to commit the offense, the jury also shall be instructed that the inference is nonconclusive, that the inference may be considered in determining intent, that it is to consider all evidence introduced by the prosecution to indicate the person’s intent and by the person to indicate his lack of intent in determining whether the person specifically intended to cause the death of the person killed, and that the prosecution must prove the specific intent of the person to have caused the death by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
I applaud the Ohio legislature’s compliance with the requirements of due process and trust that the Ohio courts will follow suit.