Court Opinion

ID: 9494136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:30:07.611859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:14.180454
License: Public Domain

BROWNING, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent. I agree with Judge Gould that Cooper adequately raised a claim of constitutional error under Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). I also believe the error may have had a substantial and injurious effect in determining the jury’s verdict within the meaning of Brecht v. Abra-hamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993), and Cooper should be granted relief.
The Supreme Court held in Beck that “when the evidence unquestionably establishes that the defendant is guilty of a serious, violent offense — but leaves some doubt with respect to an element that would justify conviction of a capital offense — the failure to give the jury the ‘third option’ of convicting on a lesser included offense would seem inevitably to enhance the risk of an unwarranted conviction.”. 447 U.S. at 637, 100 S.Ct. 2382. The Court held such a risk to be intolerable in a death penalty ease. Id.
The purpose of the Beck rule is not to afford special protection to either the defendant or the prosecution, but to protect the integrity of the jury’s fact-finding role and its deliberative process, recognizing that especially in a death penalty case, the reliability of the guilt determination is of crucial importance. Cases applying Beck reaffirm this rationale. See Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 455, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984) (Beck rule’s goal is “to eliminate the distortion of the factfind-*1116ing process that is created when the jury is forced into an all-or-nothing choice between capital murder and innocence.”); Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 646, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991) (“Our fundamental concern in Beck was that a jury convinced that the defendant had committed some violent crime but not convinced that he was guilty of a capital crime might nonetheless vote for a capital conviction if the only alternative was to set the defendant free with no punishment at all.”); Hopper v. Evans, 456 U.S. 605, 611, 102 S.Ct. 2049, 72 L.Ed.2d 367 (1982) (Beck rule ensures the “jury’s discretion is thus channelled so that it may convict a defendant of any crime fairly supported by the evidence.”).
The Court’s conclusion in Beck rested heavily on the fact that “[djeath is a different kind of punishment from any other which may be imposed in this country.” Beck, 447 U.S. at 637, 100 S.Ct. 2382 (citing Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 357-58, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977)). When the defendant’s life is at stake, the Beck rule attempts to ensure the guilt determination is based not on the choice between convicting the defendant of a capital offense or “letting him off,” but rather on whether the state has proved every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. As the Supreme Court noted, a jury convinced that the defendant is guilty of some crime, but unsure whether he is guilty of the charged crime, is likely to resolve its doubts in favor of conviction. Keeble v. United States, 412 U.S. 205, 212-13, 93 S.Ct. 1993, 36 L.Ed.2d 844 (1973). When death is the penalty, the price of this kind of compromise is unacceptably high.
Cooper’s jury was presented with only two options. It could either convict Cooper of first degree murder and attempted first degree murder, which would mandate a penalty phase and the possible imposition of the death penalty, or it could acquit Cooper and set him free. Given the facts of the case and the prosecution’s theory that Cooper acted alone, if the jury thought Cooper was guilty of some crime and should be punished, its only real choice was to convict him of the capital offense of four first degree murders and one attempted first degree murder. The fact that the jury deliberated seven days before returning the guilty verdict suggests it harbored serious doubts about whether the state had proved the elements of four first degree murders beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not difficult to believe the jury may have resolved its doubts exactly as the Supreme Court in Keeble feared — in favor of conviction. The dilemma presented here cannot be distinguished from that presented in Beck. The Beck rule should be applied.1
*1117The proper inquiry is whether the evidence would have supported second degree murder instructions. Hopper, 456 U.S. at 611, 102 S.Ct. 2049. As the majority points out, considerable evidence of premeditation and deliberation was presented at Cooper’s trial. The evidence is not so conclusive, however, as to “affirmatively negate” the possibility that Cooper could have been convicted of second degree murder on at least one count. See id. at 613, 102 S.Ct. 2049; see also Vickers v. Ricketts, 798 F.2d 369, 373 (9th Cir.1986) (second degree instructions warranted even when there was “abundant, clear and persuasive evidence of premeditation” and “evidence of lack of premeditation was not compelling.”).
Although the evidence did strongly suggest that Cooper brought the hatchet and buck knives, and perhaps other tools, to the Ryen house, the jury could have concluded that the prosecution failed to prove Cooper intended to use those tools as murder weapons. The jury could also have concluded that the prosecution failed to prove Cooper had a motive for murdering the Ryen family. The prosecution did not suggest a motive in its closing argument and there was no evidence of a prior relationship between Cooper and the family. Even if the jury considered theft the possible motive, it could have doubted the likelihood of this motive. The car keys were left in the Ryen cars, the house was not ransacked, and several valuable items of property in plain view in the house were left undisturbed. Finally, the jury could have concluded that the manner of killing, a brutal hatcheting of five people, which experts testified could have taken less than one minute per victim, suggested an explosion of rage rather than a deliberate execution.2 Under Beck, therefore, I believe the trial court was required to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of second degree murder and that it committed constitutional error in failing to do so.
The error had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” The analysis of “substantial and injurious effect” under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993), differs from the analysis of prejudice in an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. In determining prejudice in an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the inquiry is whether there is “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984) (emphasis added). In contrast, under Brecht’s substantial and injurious effect standard, which the Court borrowed explicitly from its earlier decision in Kot-teakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946):
[T]he question is, not were [the jurors] right in their judgment, regardless of the error or its effect upon the verdict. It is rather what effect the error had or reasonably may be taken to have had *1118upon the jury’s decision.... The inquiry cannot be merely whether there was enough to support the result, apart from the phase affected by the error. It is rather, even so, whether the error itself had substantial influence. If so, or if one is left in grave doubt, the conviction cannot stand.
Id. at 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239; Whelchel v. Washington, 232 F.3d 1197, 1206 (9th Cir. 2000).3 The Brecht standard looks to the effect of the error on the minds of the jurors during their deliberations, rather than to the effect of the error on the outcome of those deliberations. See Kot-teakos, 328 U.S. at 764, 66 S.Ct. 1239 (“The crucial thing is the impact of the thing done wrong on the minds of other men, not on one’s own, in the total setting.”).
In addition to being different in kind, the Supreme Court has specifically characterized the Kotteakos /Brecht harmlessness standard as lower in quantum of required proof than the Strickland prejudice standard. In Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 436, 115 S.Ct. 1555, 131 L.Ed.2d 490 (1995), the Court noted that the test for prejudice under Strickland “would recognize reversible constitutional error only when the harm to the defendant was greater than the harm sufficient for reversal under Kotteakos.”
Applying this standard, it is impossible to say that the lesser included instructions would not have had a substantial effect on the jury’s deliberation and ultimate decision. The jury deliberated seven days before returning the guilty verdicts. The jury’s deliberative process might well have been significantly affected if it had been permitted to consider convicting Cooper of the lesser offense. As suggested above, the evidence of premeditation and deliberation was not so conclusive that the jury could not have found that the state failed to prove prior planning and motive beyond a reasonable doubt. At the very least, it cannot be said “with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.” Coleman v. Calderon, 210 F.3d 1047, 1051 (9th Cir.2000) (citing Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239). Accordingly, I believe we should grant Cooper relief on this claim.

. Cooper’s "waiver” of second degree murder instructions should not bar consideration of his claim. In Spaziano v. Florida, the Supreme Court held that the defendant should be given the choice of whether he wants "the benefit of the lesser included offense instruction[s].” 468 U.S. at 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154. But this rule has no application where the validity of the defendant's waiver is in doubt. Unlike in Spaziano, the record here does not demonstrate that the defendant "knowingly chose” to waive instructions on the lesser offenses. Cooper’s attorney solicited his waiver by stating that "if you find two second degrees, then we’re into the penalty phase,” a patently incorrect representation of California law. We should not refuse to apply the Beck rule on the basis of a defendant’s unknowing waiver, solicited through a plainly incorrect statement of the law.
Beck is not distinguishable because the jury in Cooper’s case retained the discretion to sentence him to life imprisonment rather than to death. See Hooks v. Ward, 184 F.3d 1206, 1227 (10th Cir.1999). In the Beck case itself, the judge retained discretion to review the jury’s sentence of death to decide whether to change the sentence to life imprisonment. 447 U.S. at 629, 100 S.Ct. 2382. Similarly, in Spaziano, the jury was permitted to and did, *1117in fact, sentence the defendant to life in prison. 468 U.S. at 451-52, 104 S.Ct. 3154. The defendant was sentenced to death only after the judge overrode the jury's determination. Id. at 452, 104 S.Ct. 3154. In Schad, the Court considered the merits of the defendant’s Beck claim despite the fact that his death sentence was not automatically tied to his conviction by the jury. 501 U.S. at 629, 111 S.Ct. 2491. As these examples demonstrate, Beck applies even though the sentencing body retains discretion to sentence defendant either to death or life imprisonment.

. This conclusion would be entirely consistent with the prosecutor’s closing argument, in which he offered the following description of the crime: "It is a crime involving the frustrated lashing out, the exhibition of anger that virtually knows no bounds. There is no explanation. There can be no explanation for such a crime.”

. The concurrence ignores the distinction between the harmlessness inquiries under Strickland and Brecht and thus focuses improperly, I believe, on the question of whether the death penalty would nevertheless have been imposed had Cooper’s jury been instructed on second degree murder. The proper question is not whether second degree instructions might have altered the outcome of Cooper’s trial with respect to the necessity of the penalty phase and the eventual imposition of the death penalty, but whether the failure to give lesser included instructions had a substantial or injurious effect on the jury's deliberative process and verdict.