Court Opinion

ID: 9488631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:50:52.372788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:00.012539
License: Public Domain

LUTTIG, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment:
I join all of the majority opinion except for Part II.B.1-2. I cannot join Part II.B.1-2 because in that section the court addresses the merits of Townes’ principal claim under Simmons v. South Carolina, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994), in disregard of the Supreme Court’s recent directive in Caspari v. Bohlen, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 948, 127 L.Ed.2d 236 (1994), and our circuit’s decision only two months ago in Gray v. Thompson, 58 F.3d 59, 64 (4th Cir.1995). In Caspari, the Court squarely held that “if the State ... argue[s] that the defendant seeks the benefit of a new rule of constitutional law, the court must apply Teague before considering the merits of the claim.” — U.S. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 953 (emphasis in original); see also Gray, 58 F.3d at 64 (“[T]he Supreme Court made clear [in Caspari ] that federal courts must analyze whether a habeas petitioner seeks to extend the boundaries of existing law before considering the merits of the claim, if the state so argues.”) (citation omitted).
The reasons for the Supreme Court’s prohibition, and in turn our own circuit’s prohibition, on considering the merits until after retroactivity has been considered were well established even before Teague was decided:
We conclude ... that [it was] ... error [for] ... the Court of Appeals [to] ... reach[ ] out to decide that Almeida-Sanchez [v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 93 S.Ct. 2535, 37 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973) ] applied to checkpoint searches in a case that did not require decision of the issue.
This Court consistently has declined to address unsettled question regarding the scope of decisions establishing new constitutional doctrine in cases in which it holds those decisions nonretroactive. This practice is rooted in our reluctance to decide constitutional questions unnecessarily. Because this reluctance in turn is grounded in the constitutional role of the federal courts, the district courts and courts of appeals should follow our practice, when issues of both retroactivity and application of constitutional doctrine are raised, of deciding the retroactivity issue first. As the Court of Appeals correctly decided in this case that Almeidar-Sanchez did not apply to a 1971 search, it should have refrained from considering whether our decision in that case applied to searches at checkpoints.
Bowen v. United States, 422 U.S. 916, 920-21, 95 S.Ct. 2569, 2573, 45 L.Ed.2d 641 (1975) (citations omitted and emphasis added); see also Goeke v. Branch, — U.S. -, -, 115 S.Ct. 1275, 1278, 131 L.Ed.2d 152 (1995) (per curiam) (“We do not (and we may not, in the face of the State’s invocation of Teag-ue) reach the merits of that contention.” (emphasis added)).
Here, petitioner argues that he is entitled to the benefit of the rule announced in Simmons, a case that post-dates the finality of his conviction. The state in turn contends that the Simmons rule is “new” and therefore, under Teague, unavailable to Townes. Therefore, our first inquiry must be whether, under Teague, Simmons announced a new rule or whether that case instead was a mere application of an existing rule of law.
The majority circumvents the holdings of Caspari and Gray by introducing into the “new rule” analysis, and then answering, what it characterizes as an inquiry antecedent to the Teague inquiry, namely whether the case whose benefit petitioner seeks would actually govern disposition of petitioner’s case. See op. at 848. Transparently, this *856question is identical to that raised by petitioner’s claim on the merits; this is confirmed by the fact that had the majority concluded that Townes “really did” seek the rule of Simmons and that reliance upon Simmons was not barred by Teague, then its analysis of the merits of Townes’ claim would be precisely that undertaken in Part II.B.l-2. Indeed, in apparent recognition of this, in Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U.S. 227, 110 S.Ct. 2822, 111 L.Ed.2d 193 (1990), the Supreme Court considered and rejected exactly the same framework that the majority adopts in order to avoid the Teague inquiry:
At the outset we note that the parties dispute whether Caldwell [v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985) ], even if its rule applies, could support any claim for relief in petitioner’s ease. The State emphasizes that [Caldwell was narrower than petitioner asserts].... We need not address the significant questions concerning the merits of petitioner’s Caldwell claim on these facts, or the question whether application of Caldwell to the facts presented here would itself involve a new rule of law. Rather, we address only whether Caldwell is available to petitioner [under Teague ] as a ground upon which he may seek relief.
Sawyer, 497 U.S. at 233-34, 110 S.Ct. at 2827.
The implications of the majority’s approach for the disciplined decisionmaking that was purposely imposed by the Coleman and Gray rule are significant. Apart from further relegating the Supreme Court’s decision in Teague v. Lane in this circuit to a rule of little or no practical consequence, see also Turner v. Williams, 35 F.3d 872 (1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 1359, 131 L.Ed.2d 216 (1995), the methodology employed by the majority gives panels of this court license to issue what in essence are advisory opinions on significant constitutional questions which, because they are Teague-barred, are not even cognizable on federal habeas. Here, for example, our circuit is henceforth bound by the majority’s interpretation of Simmons — an interpretation with which, this time, I happen to agree — when the scope of that decision is not even properly before the court.
I would decide the question we are required by Caspari and Gray to decide, namely whether Simmons announced a new rule of constitutional law, and hold that Simmons is a new rule and thus unavailable to petitioner under Teague. Cf. Stewart v. Lane, 60 F.3d 296, 301 (7th Cir.1995) (holding that Teague bars application of Simmons to a conviction final in 1985).
It is implausible that a reasonable jurist, considering the matter in 1988, would have felt compelled to hold that petitioner had a constitutional right to have the jury instructed on his parole ineligibility. At that time, a jurist would have been confronted with California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983), which repeatedly emphasized that the decision about whether to inform the jury about such matters is to be left to the discretion of the states and, indeed, which cited “approvingly],” see Simmons, — U.S. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 2200 (O’Connor, J., concurring in the judgment), a Georgia statute “prohibiting argument as to possibility of pardon, parole, or clemency,” and the practice of “[m]any state courts” to likewise prohibit such instructions, Ramos, 463 U.S. at 1013 n. 30, 103 S.Ct. at 3460 n. 30. That jurist would also have faced our circuit’s decision in Turner v. Bass, 753 F.2d 342, 354 (4th Cir.1985), rev’d on other grounds, 476 U.S. 28, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 90 L.Ed.2d 27 (1986) (expressly holding that “while it is constitutionally permissible to instruct the jury on the subject of parole, such an instruction is not constitutionally required” (citing Ramos)) and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in O’Bryan v. Estelle, 714 F.2d 365, 389 (5th Cir.1983) (“[W]e cannot say that an instruction on parole is constitutionally mandated in a capital case.”). In the face of such strong contrary Supreme Court and circuit precedent, it would be baseless to claim that no reasonable jurist could have held — in 1988 — that the Constitution did not require a jury instruction on parole ineligibility.