Court Opinion

ID: 9481667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:27:54.839506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:29.959750
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
with whom POSNER, Circuit Judge, joins, concurring.
I agree with Judge Coffey that the writ of habeas corpus should not have issued. Although he makes a strong argument that any error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, I believe that the state need not surmount such a high hurdle.
Hunter contends that Indiana violated the self-incrimination clause of the fifth amendment, applied to the states by the due process clause of the fourteenth. But Hunter was not compelled to be a witness against .himself, and no evidence was derived from a violation of the privilege. Hunter’s claim depends not on the Constitution but on a series of cases establishing rules that make exercising the privilege more attractive to defendants. The difference between the Constitution and extra-constitutional rules should affect the state’s burden.
Although the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination prevents the prosecution from calling the defendant as a witness, the accused may choose to speak. If he does, he waives the privilege with respect to all subjects covered on direct examination. Fear of cross-examination keeps many a defendant off the stand. Naturally the prosecutor wants to argue to the jury that an accused who elects not to testify must have something to hide. Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), reasons that an inference of this kind is a “price” on the privilege to remain silent and holds that the prosecutor may not make the privilege costly. Griffin does not enforce the privilege so much as it creates a prophylactic rule that makes it easier for a suspect to remain silent. Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241 (1981), in turn requires the judge on defendant’s demand to inform the jury about Griffin’s rule. Carter is at least two steps removed from the constitutional privilege (three if we count the incorporation doctrine applying the fifth amendment to the states; and there are more steps that I omitted in summarizing Griffin). We are dealing with a prophylactic rule Carter created to protect the prophylactic rule Griffin created, not with the constitutional right itself. And we are dealing with a collateral attack under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which extends federal judicial power well beyond the Great Writ established by the Constitution — the pretrial writ that prevents indefinite detention without trial.
Indiana violated the rule established in Carter. If, as the Supreme Court of Indiana believed, the trial judge offered Hunter a severance, that does not help the state. A judge may not compel the accused to choose between the right (established by the double jeopardy clause) to get things over with in a single trial and the right to the Carter instruction. Severance could have been granted before trial, or the court could have given Hatcher the mistrial he requested; either way both defendants could have received their due without sacrificing some other right. Yet we know from Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), that express comment on a defendant’s election not to testify may be harmless error. It follows that a violation of Carter also may be harmless. Cf. Arizona v. Fulminante, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1263-66, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991).
“Harmless beyond a reasonable doubt”, the standard of Chapman, is inappropriate here for three reasons. First, this is a collateral attack; Chapman was a direct appeal, as was Fulminante and all other cases in the Supreme Court using the “reasonable doubt” standard. Second, Carter is one step farther removed from the Constitution than is Griffin. Third, Carter is designed more to allow the defendant to choose which of two risks to take than it is to prevent the conviction of an innocent person. Informing the jurors about Griffin may remind them of an inference they otherwise would not have drawn, so a defendant might oppose the giving of such an instruction. At the same time, the instruc*866tion may arm conscientious jurors with information about their proper tasks. See United States v. Myers, 917 F.2d 1008 (7th Cir.1990). Neither giving nor withholding the instruction has a certain, powerful, effect on the jury’s work, which implies that the state need not bear the heavy burden of showing that an error could not conceivably have affected the outcome.
Only an error that has substantial influence on the course of the trial and produces actual prejudice justifies collateral relief. Cf. United States v. Lane, 474 U.S. 438, 449, 106 S.Ct. 725, 732, 88 L.Ed.2d 814 (1986); Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 776, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1253, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). The omission of a Carter instruction is not that serious. I made a similar argument in United States ex rel. Miller v. Greer, 789 F.2d 438, 448-54 (7th Cir.1986) (in banc) (dissenting opinion), and will not repeat myself. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on this question but reversed us on other grounds. Greer v. Miller, 483 U.S. 756, 761 n. 3, 107 S.Ct. 3102, 3106 n. 31, 97 L.Ed.2d 618 (1987). Justice Stevens, who alone considered the question on which review had been granted, concluded that a distinct standard of harmlessness applies on collateral review. Id. at 767-69, 107 S.Ct. at 3109-11 (concurring opinion).
Carter establishes a prophylactic rule, and there is much less need to enforce such rules on collateral attack than there is to enforce the core constitutional rules. Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976), holds that the exclusionary rule is not enforced at all on collateral attack; two Justices argued in Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U.S. 195, 207-13, 109 S.Ct. 2875, 2882-85, 106 L.Ed.2d 166 (1989) (O’Connor & Scalia, JJ., concurring), that Miranda should receive the same treatment. Cases such as McCleskey v. Zant, — U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 1469-70, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991); Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 308-09, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1073-74, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989); Kuhlmann v. Wilson, Mil U.S. 436, 452-55, 106 S.Ct. 2616, 2626-28, 91 L.Ed.2d 364 (1986); and United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1979), reinforce the conclusion that it takes more to succeed on collateral attack than on direct appeal. See also Henry J. Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U.Chi.L.Rev. 142 (1970); Paul M. Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv.L.Rev. 441 (1963).
If Justice O’Connor’s view in Eagan prevails, then Carter may well not apply at all on collateral attack. It certainly ought not be enforced with the same rigor as it would be on direct appeal. Eagan, 492 U.S. at 212, 109 S.Ct. at 2884 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Once the criminal appeal has run its course, the judgment is entitled to great respect from a federal court. McCleskey, 111 S.Ct. at 1469. The “reasonable doubt” standard, compelling the state to justify the judgment with the same burden it bears before the jury in the first instance, is out of place in the collateral enforcement of prophylactic rules.