Court Opinion

ID: 9470397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:05:18.580331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:53.040964
License: Public Domain

POOLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Again I must dissent as I did originally in Myers v. Washington, 646 F.2d 355 (9th CSr.1981) (Myers I).
In Myers I, I thought and said that the majority was wrong in its insistence that the objection which Myers had not presented at his trial (that the instruction of which he complains violated the due process clause) was not barred by Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72,97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). The majority proclaimed, and now reiterates, that in the decade of the Sixties lawyers who tried criminal cases in state courts were generally not aware that a jury instruction which shifted to the defendant in murder cases the burden of negating malice aforethought raised serious constitutional problems. This is simply not so, as any veteran lawyer who tried such cases during that time can attest. The professional skill and concern which clients have a right to expect from lawyers who undertake representation in the gravest of felonies most certainly included the understanding that such constitutional issues were at hand and needed to be asserted for the sake of the person on trial. I repeat, it is not true that competent counsel were mainly unaware of the constitutional implications.1
*770Trial lawyers of the Sixties knew about constitutional objections, and competent— not just visionary — lawyers voiced those and all other possible objections in order to preserve their record. The fact is that such objections were indeed made, but the bar did not resort to eventual federal habeas relief so frequently as is now routine. The failure to follow up does not mean that the knowledge was absent.
In Myers I this panel’s majority supported its holding by reference to Isaac v. Engle, 646 F.2d 1129 (6th Cir.1980), wherein a majority of that court en banc held that Isaac’s late constitutional claims were not barred under Wainwright. The Supreme Court reversed that case. Isaac v. Engle, 456 U.S. 107,102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982). The Supreme Court also vacated the decision in Myers I and remanded to us “for further consideration in light of Isaac v. Engle * * * and United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152 [102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982).”
The majority seems now to have concluded that Isaac v. Engle, which it cited and upon which it placed reliance in Myers I, is after all not even relevant to the issue. This is a convenient if not exceedingly enlightened sort of rationalization. But it cannot justify dispensing with the Supreme Court’s direction to us — a direction which did find both Engle and Frady on point— and I believe we are bound by the clear intimations of that court’s mandate. It simply will not do for us to review and conclude that the Supreme Court engaged in an idle act. It may well be that we know a better rule, but I thought that had been settled since the days of John Marshall.

. A prime collection in the historical lore appears in the discussion by Justice Brennan in In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 361-362, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1071, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), the decision referred to extensively in Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975):
The requirement that guilt of a criminal charge be established by proof beyond a reasonable doubt dates at least from our early years as a Nation. The “demand for a higher degree of persuasion in criminal cases was recurrently expressed from ancient times, [though] its crystallization into the formula ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ seems to have occurred as late as 1798. It is now accepted in common law jurisdictions as the measure of persuasion by which the prosecution must convince the trier of all the essential elements of guilt.” C. McCormick, Evidence § 321, pp. 681-682 (1954); see also 9 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2497 (3d ed. 1940). Although virtually unanimous adherence to the reasonable-doubt standard in common-law jurisdictions may not conclusively establish it as a requirement of due process, such adherence does “reflect a profound judgment about the way in which law should be enforced and justice administered.” Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 155 [88 S.Ct. 1444, 1451, 20 L.Ed.2d 491] (1968).
Expressions in many opinions of this Court indicate that it has long been assumed that proof of a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt is constitutionally required. See, for example, Miles v. United States, 103 U.S. 304, 312 [26 L.Ed. 481] (1881); Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 488 [16 S.Ct. 353, 358, 40 L.Ed. 499] (1895); Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 253 [31 S.Ct. 2, 6, 54 L.Ed. 1021] (1910); Wilson v. United States, 232 U.S. 563, 569-570 [34 S.Ct. 347, 349, 58 L.Ed. 728] (1914); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 174 [69 S.Ct. 1302, 1310, 93 L.Ed. 1879] (1949); Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790, 795 [72 S.Ct. 1002, 1005, 96 L.Ed. 1302] (1952); Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 138 [75 S.Ct. 127, 136, 99 L.Ed. 150] (1954); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 525-526 [78 S.Ct. 1332, 1342, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460] (1958). Cf. Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432 [15 S.Ct. 394, 39 L.Ed. 481] (1895). Mr. Justice Frankfurter stated that “[i]t is the duty of the Government to establish * * * guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This notion — basic in our law and rightly one of the boasts of a free society — is a requirement and a safeguard of due process of law in this historic, procedural content of ‘due process.’ ” Leland v. Oregon, supra, [343 U.S.] at 802-803 [72 S.Ct., at 1009] (dissenting opinion). In a similar vein, the Court said in Brinegar v. United States, supra [338 U.S.] at 174 [69 S.Ct., at 1310], that “[g]uilt in a criminal case must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt and by evidence confined to that which long experience in the common-law tradition, to some extent embodied in the Constitution, has crystallized into rules of evidence consistent with the standard. *770These rules are historically grounded rights of our system, developed to safeguard men from dubious and unjust convictions, with resulting forfeitures of life, liberty and property.” Davis v. United States, supra [160 U.S.] at 488 [16 S.Ct., at 358], stated that the requirement is implicit in “constitutions * * [which] recognize the fundamental principles that are deemed essential for the protection of life and liberty.” * * *