Court Opinion

ID: 9490773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:54:27.144154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:18.788197
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
While I agree with the majority that we should affirm Darrick Gerlaugh’s conviction, I do not agree that we can ignore his counsel’s failure to make any argument as to why the death penalty should not be imposed— indeed to make any closing argument at all during the penalty phase of Gerlaugh’s capital proceeding. Gerlaugh simply did not receive the constitutionally required effective assistance of counsel at the most critical stage of the proceeding — at a time when he most needed that assistance. Under United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), reversal is required. Accordingly, I dissent from the majority’s decision affirming the death sentence.
In its opinion, the majority makes two fundamental mistakes. First, the majority erroneously characterizes counsel’s comments to the court during the presentencing hearing as an argument on Gerlaugh’s behalf — an argument regarding whether Ger-laugh ought to live or die. In fact, counsel was merely addressing a procedural question; he was simply trying to call the court’s attention to inadequacies in the presentence report and to request that the probation office conduct a further investigation before it submitted its final report. Thus, the majority erroneously concludes that Gerlaugh’s counsel made a closing argument when in plain fact he did not. Second, the majority incorrectly asserts that we cannot consider the closing argument at the penalty phase as a separate stage of the proceeding for purposes of Cronic, when it is clear that we must. As a result, the majority fails to recognize that Gerlaugh did not receive effective assistance of counsel at “a critical stage of the proceeding,” and that under Cronic, reversal of his sentence is mandated.
I. Counsel Failed to Make a Closing Argument
There can be no doubt that, although counsel may have performed his functions in *1046some manner or other during the first part of the presenteneing hearing — whether effectively or ineffectively — when the time came to make a closing argument he simply abandoned his responsibility to his client and remained silent.1 Gerlaugh was thus left alone and unaided during the final and, as is frequently the case, the most critical stage of his capital proceeding. No one challenged on Gerlaugh’s behalf the government’s position that he ought to be executed. No one urged the court to take into account his youth or intoxication or lack of prior criminal history or other extenuating circumstances. No one asked the court to impose a lifetime sentence. No one argued that Gerlaugh did not deserve to die for his crime.2
Apparently because they believe strongly that Gerlaugh deserves to be executed, my colleagues in the majority advance the peculiar argument that requiring counsel to argue against the imposition of a capital sentence is equivalent to requiring him to plead for leniency. Whether or not one may properly so characterize the requirement that a capital defendant’s counsel present whatever argument can be made to counter the state’s request that he be sentenced to death, that requirement simply reflects a basic tenet of the adversarial process — that the defendant’s interests be represented before the court. That is precisely the obligation of defense counsel, particularly when the issue is his client’s right to live.
By its half-hearted efforts to defend counsel’s comments during the presentencing hearing and portray them as a closing argument, and in its ultimate conclusion that the Constitution does not require counsel to plead for his client’s life, the majority reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of counsel’s role in the adversarial process. What Ger-laugh was clearly entitled to, and what he did not have, was a lawyer who took a position opposite to the government’s — a position favorable to Gerlaugh’s interests — an advocate for his right to live. When the state argued for death, defense counsel was supposed to argue for life. Yet at no point in his confused and maundering dialogue with the court at the presentencing hearing did counsel make any attempt (even an ineffective one) to challenge the government’s position that Gerlaugh deserved to die. That was neither counsel’s purpose nor his intent during that hearing. Because, as it turned out, the presentencing colloquy was the only colloquy that counsel ever engaged in that related in any way to what sentence should be imposed,3 Gerlaugh was worse off than if counsel had not been present at all. Had there been an actual absence of counsel at the presentencing hearing (and at the sentencing hearing), Gerlaugh would at least have recognized that he needed to plead for himself.
The transcript of the presentencing hearing makes clear that counsel never intended to present a closing argument at that hearing; that he never intended to explain at that hearing why his client did not deserve the death penalty. One need only read counsel’s rambling colloquy with the court, which is quoted almost in full by the majority, to understand that the only point counsel ever intended to make at that hearing, and the only subject he actually discussed at that time, was his contention that the presentence report was inadequate and that further investigation was necessary before the final report was submitted. At no point did Ger-laugh’s counsel challenge the government’s desire to have Gerlaugh executed, nor did he purport to discuss how the factors the court was required to consider should be weighed or what concerns should influence the court in reaching its ultimate decision. He made no effort to influence the court with respect to its task of weighing the aggravating factors against the mitigating circumstances and *1047of making a life-or-death judgment in the exercise of its discretion. He sought only to complain about the presentence report and to obtain a more thorough and more helpful supplemental report for use in connection with the ultimate sentencing process.
Notwithstanding the clear record to the contrary, the majority represents that counsel made several arguments in an effort to save his client’s life. My colleagues are not correct: there’s simply no there there. The statements to which the majority refers did not constitute and were not intended to constitute an argument regarding whether or not Gerlaugh should die, and none of them constituted or was intended to constitute any sort of argument for the imposition of a lifetime sentence. Although counsel spoke of mitigating factors that were absent from the presentence report, the clearly expressed purpose of his entire presentation was not to convince the court that the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors, but rather that the presentence report inadequately treated those subjects and that the probation department needed to do more work before the sentence could be determined properly.
From the very beginning of counsel’s comments to the court, he made it clear that he did not conceive of the presentencing hearing as the time for closing argument. Immediately after the conclusion of witness testimony, counsel expressed his intent to comment specifically on the report’s shortcomings. He stated to the court: “At this time, Your Honor, I have no further witnesses to present to the Court. I have some comments that I would make.” The court reminded counsel that he would have the opportunity to make comments during the sentencing hearing. However, counsel then explained the purpose of the remarks he intended to make, stating: “One of the basic reasons I wanted to make some comments today as opposed to waiting is because I have had an opportunity to talk with Ed Delci who is doing the presentence report.” After the court observed that Mr. Delci was present in the courtroom, counsel stated: “I’m not sure what all is going to be in the supplemental report, but there [are] a couple of things that struck me as I read through the report.” Counsel then proceeded to present his analysis and criticism of the report that had been submitted and to voice his concerns about the sort of information that should be included in the supplemental report Mr. Delci was in the process of preparing.
Counsel questioned, for example, whether the initial report was as thorough as it should be with respect to his client’s apparent lack of remorse. While the majority would have us believe that “counsel vigorously took exception to the conclusions” in the presen-tence report, even if he had that would not change the fact that he was simply addressing the quality of the report and what remained to be done in the supplemental report. The fact is, however, that the only exception counsel took to the report’s conclusions was that they were premature — counsel did not, as the majority asserts, “argue directly ... that his client did accept responsibility for what he had done, and that [Ger-laugh] did demonstrate remorse in his own way.” Counsel never even told the court that the presentence report was inaccurate; instead, he made clear in his bumbling way that his purpose in commenting was limited to persuading the court that obtaining further information was desirable:
[T]hose are the only comments I have at this time as far as just making the Court aware of my feelings as to whether or not the Court might want farther information on this particular case based on the fact that I think that, you know, reading the probation report, it seems to be a terrible crime in that I have never seen anything this bad before.
Counsel’s admission that he, an experienced capital trial lawyer, had never seen anything this bad before could not have been part of an attempt to convince the court to impose a life sentence. Moreover, although he mentioned possible mitigating factors that were absent from the report, counsel did not ask the court to consider these factors in determining the sentence to be imposed. What he was interested in was a different subject entirely — what further information might be brought before the court.
The majority, in arguing that counsel did not abandon his client, clings to counsel’s *1048reference to Gerlaugh’s age and argues that he raised youth as a mitigating factor. Indeed, the majority would have us believe that counsel “emphasized his client’s age.” Op. at -. There can be no doubt that if Ger-laugh’s attorney had made a closing argument, he would have relied in significant part on his client’s age — it is an important mitigating factor. But that’s not what happened here. Instead, counsel simply pointed to his client’s age, and he did so for an entirely different purpose. Counsel did not argue that Gerlaugh’s youth was a mitigating factor; rather he pointed out that age was the only obvious mitigating factor in order to demonstrate the report’s inadequacy — because age was the only factor the report identified. As counsel noted in discussing the presentence report:
And, it seems to me a little superficial just to say that I see the facts of this case.... We know, obviously, one large mitigating circumstance that Mr. Gerlaugh has is his age. The Court can take that into consideration, but I think that is the only obvious one, that I have a young client. And, he was young at the time of the commission of this act. But, I really found nothing [in the report], and, again, I don’t know if the Court wanted more, but it disturbed me to the point to where I wanted to address myself to it. That I think there should be something more before this Court.
Counsel was clearly referring to the report and what should be, but was not, in it. He was not trying to persuade the court that Gerlaugh’s youth should preclude a death sentence, nor was he urging the court to take his client’s youth into account in the sentencing decision. He was simply saying that there should be more than that about the mitigating factors in the report.
When counsel suggested that the “something more” in the report should be a psychiatric evaluation, the court explained to him that “I would be happy to listen to anything you have to say regarding your opinions or expressions on remorse you[ ] certainly want to inform the Court of.” Counsel made a stuttering attempt to respond to the court’s invitation to argue about his client’s remorse, but quickly begged off: “Today I don’t have anything that I am going to say to the Court about that.” The natural implication of counsel’s refusal to speak on the subject of remorse, like the natural implication of the rest of his remarks, was that he was saving his arguments for another day, that he was saving them for the sentencing hearing when the supplemental report would have been prepared and submitted to the parties and the court.
The entire colloquy between Gerlaugh’s counsel and the trial court during the presen-tencing hearing makes it abundantly clear that counsel did not intend to present his closing argument to the court until he had the supplemental report in hand. It is therefore astonishing that at the sentencing hearing, after the supplemental report had finally been completed and filed, counsel still failed to present any closing argument on his client’s behalf. The following reflects the entirety of defense counsel’s comments preceding Gerlaugh’s sentencing:
COURT: [Counsel], do you have anything to say?
COUNSEL: Your Honor, I have reviewed both presentence report and the supplemental report, and I think they contain all the matters this Court should consider at this time, and I have nothing further to say.
Incredibly, counsel made no attempt whatsoever to challenge the apparent presumption on everyone’s part (possibly even his own) that Gerlaugh deserved a death sentence; nor did he explain what the mitigating circumstances were (and there were several). Rather, at the crucial point in the proceeding, counsel said absolutely nothing on his client’s behalf.
In sum, at the presentencing hearing, counsel chose to discuss only what further work needed to be done on the supplemental presentence report, and that’s all. At the sentencing hearing, he said nothing whatsoever. As a result, no closing argument was ever made on behalf of Gerlaugh during the penalty phase of the proceeding.4
*1049The majority’s conclusion that counsel did not abandon Gerlaugh during closing argument is obviously influenced by its view that any effort at a closing statement would have been useless. In effect, the majority argues that counsel did not desert his client because there was no argument to be made on the Ghent’s behalf. I strongly disagree, both practically and legally. In any case there are arguments to be made on both sides. In this case there were several significant mitigating factors that counsel could have urged upon the court as reasons for deciding not to impose the ultimate punishment. He could have explained why these factors warranted the exercise of judicial discretion in favor of sparing Gerlaugh’s life. Instead, he said nothing. See also Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 860, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 2554, 45 L.Ed.2d 593 (1975) (discussed infra at Part H.A.).
Balancing the factors — mitigating and aggravating — involves the exercise of judicial discretion and judgment. When such balancing is required, it is the duty of defense counsel to argue why the balance should be struck in his client’s favor. No matter how great the odds may seem to be against winning the argument, counsel must make the best case he can. It is not counsel’s role to act as judge as well as advocate, any more than it is the district court’s or this court’s role to say, “Oh well, his client would have lost anyway. He had a bad argument, so there’s no need for him to make any argument at all — no need to advocate — no need for representation by counsel.” That kind of reasoning is squarely contrary to the elementary precepts of the adversary system.
That counsel misunderstood the nature and importance of his role in the adversarial process and the extreme consequences that flow from abandoning one’s client at a critical stage of the proceeding is further demonstrated by his actions after the death sentence was imposed. On appeal, counsel once again failed to make any argument that Ger-laugh should not have been sentenced to death. This could not have been a strategic decision by counsel. He could not reasonably have decided to focus exclusively on the obviously losing issues related to Gerlaugh’s underlying conviction, particularly as the appellate court was required to reweigh the mitigating and aggravating circumstances irrespective of whether Gerlaugh actually raised the issue. Thus, unlike most deficient counsel, Gerlaugh’s counsel had a second clear chance. Indeed, on appeal, the validity of the sentence was the only issue that the law specifically required the court to consider. Nevertheless, counsel continued to remain silent — to refrain from making any argument. As in the trial court, counsel did not act as an advocate for his client on the sentencing issue, but instead persisted in the belief that he had no responsibility to question the sentencing judge’s determination to impose the ultimate punishment on Gerlaugh. By doing so, he again accepted a death sentence for his client without engaging in the adversarial process and again assured that his client would be put to death — unless, of course, a later court was careful enough in its analysis and committed enough to applying the law properly to recognize that he had abandoned his obligations as counsel.
II. Counsel’s Silence Constitutes a Cronic Violation
A.
Counsel’s failure to make a closing argument during the penalty phase of the trial denied Gerlaugh representation by counsel at a critical stage of the sentencing proceeding in violation of the basic constitutional principles set forth in United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984). Such a violation necessarily calls into question the reliability of the proceeding; under Cronic we must presume that Ger-laugh suffered prejudice as a result and are required to reverse his death sentence. According to the majority, however, counsel’s abandonment of his client by failing to make a closing argument at the penalty phase cannot by itself establish a Cronic violation because it is not “appropriate to segregate counsel’s oral presentation on behalf of his *1050client at the sentencing stage of the proceeding from the other measures taken on his behalf.” Op. at 1036. My colleagues’ position is directly contrary both to established law and to basic Sixth Amendment requirements. Instead of viewing the second half of Gerlaugh’s bifurcated trial as an inseparable whole for the purposes of Cronic, as the majority insists upon doing, the law requires us to treat closing argument as a critical stage of the proceeding in and of itself. It does not matter that the absence of closing argument occurred at the penalty phase of the proceeding as opposed to the guilt/innocence phase. Both phases provide the opportunity for closing argument, and closing argument is essential both times; counsel’s abandonment of his client during that critical stage of either phase constitutes a violation of Cronic.
As we plainly stated in United States v. Swanson, 943 F.2d 1070, 1074 (9th Cir.1991), counsel’s abandonment of his client during closing argument causes “a breakdown in our adversarial system of justice ... that compels an application of the Cronic exception to the Strickland [prejudice] requirement.” If a defendant is effectively without the benefit of counsel during closing argument, a fundamental breakdown in the adversarial process has occurred and it simply does not matter what counsel may have done prior to that point or what effect or lack of effect the reviewing court thinks that a closing argument might have had on the outcome of the proceeding.
Swanson’s conclusion that an attorney’s abandonment of his client during closing argument constitutes a fundamental error that in and of itself requires reversal is in keeping with the fact that the requirement of adversarial advocacy extends not only to counsel’s presentation of exculpatory evidence, but also to his presentation of a closing argument. Herring v. New York, 422 U.S. 853, 858, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 2553-54, 45 L.Ed.2d 593 (1975). As the Swanson court concluded, there is a constitutional obligation on defense counsel “to function as the Government’s adversary” at the time of that argument. Swanson, 943 F.2d at 1074.
In Herring, the Supreme Court made clear that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel encompasses the right to have defense counsel present a closing summation, thus recognizing the extraordinary significance of counsel’s closing argument in the adversarial process. If a defendant has been denied the opportunity to make a closing argument, his criminal conviction cannot stand, regardless of whether such an argument would have succeeded in persuading the factfinder of the defendant’s position. Id. “ ‘The constitutional right of a defendant to be heard through counsel necessarily includes his right to have his counsel make a proper argument on the evidence and the applicable law in his favor, however simple, clear, unimpeached, and conclusive the evidence may seem.’” Id. at 860, 95 S.Ct. at 2554 (quoting Yopps v. Maryland, 228 Md. 204, 178 A.2d 879, 881 (1962)) (emphasis added).
The Swanson decision is likewise consistent with the heightened need for reliable proceedings in capital cases. Not every person who has been convicted of murder deserves to be executed. One of the principal purposes of a capital trial is to identify those who should be sentenced to death for their crimes, and those who should not. See Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991-92, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976) (plurality opinion). There is no more important hearing in law or equity than the penalty phase of a capital trial. In a process already plagued by arbitrariness, the right to counsel ensures that the results of penalty-phase proceedings are as reliable as possible. The determination of who should live and who should die is arrived at by means of an adversarial hearing in which the government’s position that the defendant should be sentenced to death is put to the test by defense counsel. Closing argument is an essential part of that proceeding, a part at which vigorous advocacy is the sine qua non. “The very premise of our adversary system of criminal justice is that partisan advocacy on both sides of a case will best promote the ultimate objective.... In a criminal trial, which is in the end basically a factfinding process, no aspect of such advocacy could be more important than the opportunity finally *1051to marshal the evidence for each side before submission of the case to judgment.” Herring, 422 U.S. at 862, 95 S.Ct. at 2555.
Herring makes clear that regardless of the fact that counsel presented evidence or made legal objections during a proceeding, the absence of a closing argument in itself requires reversal. The majority’s attempt to rely on the presentation of witnesses or the advancement of legal objections is thus simply irrelevant. The flaw that renders Gerlaugh’s sentencing unconstitutional is the failure of counsel to provide representation at a critical stage of the proceeding — closing argument. That failure alone requires reversal under Cronic,. regardless of what else may have transpired.
The adversarial process is simple, and it works when it has two sides. But when there is only one side to the argument, the truthfinding purpose of the trial breaks down and the results are presumptively unreliable.
B.
The majority carries its inability to distinguish Cronic from Strickland error to its logical conclusion. It applies a harmless error test to counsel’s performance. Not only is this harmless error analysis in conflict with Cronic and Sivanson, but it is also at odds with the more basic proposition that certain kinds of error are so fundamental that we must presume prejudice. It is apparent that an attorney’s abandonment of his client at a critical stage in the proceeding constitutes a structural error as defined in Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 310, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 1265, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991). Such an error not only alters the basic framework of a criminal trial, it also undermines values that are fundamental to our system of justice. See United States v. Olano, 62 F.3d 1180, 1207-10 (9th Cir.1995) (Reinhardt, J., dissenting) (elaborating on the nature of structural errors), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 303, 136 L.Ed.2d 221 (1996). Thus, the majority has seriously erred in subjecting to harmless error analysis counsel’s abandonment of Gerlaugh at a critical stage of his capital trial.5
Closing argument is one of the most important stages in a criminal trial. It is the moment at which the parties tie all of the evidence together, illuminate the significance of the evidence to the factfinder, and argue why the evidence supports their respective positions. It is the time at which the parties emphasize certain facts and explain away others. It is an opportunity for the parties to remind the factfinder of things that might have been forgotten along the way. For a defendant in a capital trial, it is “the last clear chance to persuade the trier of fact” that he should not be executed. Herring, 422 U.S. at 862, 95 S.Ct. at 2555. And it is no less a part of a trial’s basic framework if the evidence is presented in the context of a bench trial instead of a jury trial. See id. at 863 n. 15, 95 S.Ct. at 2556 n. 15 (flatly rejecting the contention that “there is insufficient justification” for the right to make a closing argument in bench trials, and suggesting that summations may be even more important if there is only one factfinder).
Additionally, final arguments further one of the most significant values in a criminal trial, the adversarial process itself. Without question, the adversarial process is the hallmark of our system of justice. An attorney’s desertion of his client at a critical stage of the proceeding undermines the very premise of this process — that the issues and the evidence will be clarified and sharpened by vigorous presentations from both sides. When a defendant is abandoned at this moment, as Gerlaugh was, there has not been simply an error in the presentation of evidence: there has been an alteration in the very framework of the trial. When that alteration occurs in a capital trial, the unacceptable and unconstitutional consequences are at their most egregious.
Because Gerlaugh was denied the benefit of counsel at a critical stage in his capital trial and because we are required to presume resulting prejudice, I do not reach the other *1052sentencing issues. I simply dissent from the imposition of the death penalty on the ground that Gerlaugh lacked effective assistance of counsel at a critical stage of the proceeding.

.I do not consider here whether counsel provided effective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), when he conducted his investigation and questioned the witnesses he called during the penalty phase. That question is wholly irrelevant to the issue on which I base my dissent.

. While the closing argument could have been made either at the presentencing hearing or at the following hearing, the actual sentencing, counsel did not make an argument on either occasion.

. But see infra note 4.

. During the sentencing hearing, alter the court began to impose Gerlaugh's sentence, counsel *1049interrupted and raised a weak, indeed frivolous, double jeopardy argument, which the sentencing judge immediately and correctly brushed off.

. The majority makes this error because it mistakenly treats counsel's performance as Strickland rather than Cronic error. Wisely, my colleagues do not suggest that Cronic error may be subjected to a harmless error test.