Court Opinion

ID: 9470454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:06:52.59278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:54.853251
License: Public Domain

BAILEY BROWN, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
I concur with the panel opinion that this habeas petitioner, Walker, was denied federal due process by allowing into evidence a great deal of totally irrelevant and highly prejudicial evidence. I recognize that such rulings on evidence must be egregious to amount to constitutional error, but this is such a case. I also agree with the panel opinion that, however, the state introduced enough evidence of guilt to allow the state to try Walker again.
On the other hand, I am concerned that the panel opinion, in dealing with “The John Appling affair” (at 964), assumes that there is a problem in the area of Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977) and uses this as a springboard for the tour de force that follows. In the course of this rather extended discussion, the opinion suggests, inter alia, that a federal habeas court may, under Wain wright, reach the merits of an issue where no cause and prejudice is shown, where there is a “technical state procedural bar” and there is “plain error.” (at 966, n. 10.) In fact, however, there simply is no Wainwright problem to be dealt with at all.
While it is true that the Ohio Court of Appeals did (App. at 6) rely on the failure of defense counsel to object to the procedure whereby Appling was placed on the stand before the jury and claimed his immunity not to testify, it did not rely on any alleged failure to object to questions put to other witnesses calculated to suggest to the jury that Appling’s testimony would have been favorable. The Ohio Supreme Court also did not rely on an alleged failure to object to the testimony of these other witnesses in reaching its decision. Moreover, respondent below, Engle, does not rely in his brief here on any such alleged failure to object to. the testimony of these other witnesses. It is this testimony that Walker complained about in district court and in this court. This part of the panel’s opinion is dictum and totally unnecessary.