FRY v. PLILER, WARDEN
No. 06-5247
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 20, 2007-Decided June 11, 2007
551 U.S. 112
Victor S. Haltom, by appointment of the Court, 549 U. S. 1165, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was John R. Duree, Jr.
Ross C. Moody, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Donald E. de Nicola, Deputy Solicitor General, and Peggy S. Ruffra, Supervising Deputy Attorney General.
Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. On the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General
JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
We decide whether a federal habeas court must assess the prejudicial impact of constitutional error in a state-court criminal trial under the “substantial and injurious effect” standard set forth in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993), when the state appellate court failed to recognize the error and did not review it for harmlessness under the “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” standard set forth in Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967).
I
After two mistrials on account of hung juries, a third jury convicted petitioner of the 1992 murders of James and Cynthia Bell. At trial, petitioner sought to attribute the murders to one or more other persons. To that end, he offered testimony of several witnesses who linked one Anthony Hurtz to the killings. But the trial court excluded the testimony of one additional witness, Pamela Maples, who was
Following his conviction, petitioner appealed to the California Court of Appeal, arguing (among other things) that the trial court‘s exclusion of Maples’ testimony deprived him of a fair opportunity to defend himself, in violation of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284 (1973) (holding that a combination of erroneous evidentiary rulings rose to the level of a due process violation). Without explicitly addressing petitioner‘s Chambers argument, the state appellate court held that the trial court had not abused its discretion in excluding Maples’ testimony under California‘s evidentiary rules, adding that “no possible prejudice” could have resulted in light of the “merely cumulative” nature of the testimony. People v. Fry, No. A072396 (Ct. App. Cal., 1st App. Dist., Mar. 30, 2000), App. 97, n. 17. The court did not specify which harmless-error standard it was applying in concluding that petitioner suffered “no possible prejudice.” The Supreme Court of California denied discretionary review, and petitioner did not then seek a writ of certiorari from this Court.
Petitioner next filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, raising the aforementioned due process claim (among others). The case was initially assigned to a Magistrate Judge, who ultimately recommended denying relief. He found the state appellate court‘s failure to recognize error under Chambers to be “an unreasonable application of clearly established law as set forth by the Supreme Court,” App. 180, and disagreed with the state appellate court‘s finding of “no possible prejudice.” But he nevertheless concluded that “there ha[d] been an insufficient showing that the improper exclusion of the testimony of Ms. Maples had a
II
A
In Chapman, supra, a case that reached this Court on direct review of a state-court criminal judgment, we held that a federal constitutional error can be considered harmless only if a court is “able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 24. In Brecht, supra, we considered whether the Chapman standard of review applies on collateral review of a state-court criminal judgment under
We begin with the Court‘s opinion in Brecht. The primary reasons it gave for adopting a less onerous standard on collateral review of state-court criminal judgments did not
The opinion in Brecht clearly assumed that the Kotteakos standard would apply in virtually all
Petitioner‘s contrary position misreads (or at least exaggerates the significance of) a lone passage from our Brecht opinion. In that passage, the Court explained:
“State courts are fully qualified to identify constitutional error and evaluate its prejudicial effect on the trial process under Chapman, and state courts often occupy a superior vantage point from which to evaluate the effect of trial error. For these reasons, it scarcely seems logical to require federal habeas courts to engage in the identical approach to harmless-error review that Chapman requires state courts to engage in on direct review.” 507 U. S., at 636 (citation omitted).
But the quoted passage does little to advance petitioner‘s position. To say (a) that since state courts are required to evaluate constitutional error under Chapman it makes no sense to establish Chapman as the standard for federal habeas review is not at all to say (b) that whenever a state court fails in its responsibility to apply Chapman the federal habeas standard must change. It would be foolish to equate the two, in view of the other weighty reasons given in Brecht for applying a less onerous standard on collateral review-reasons having nothing to do with whether the state court actually applied Chapman.
Petitioner argues that, if Brecht applies whether or not the state appellate court conducted Chapman review, then Brecht would apply even if a State eliminated appellate review altogether. That is not necessarily so. The federal habeas review rule applied to the class of case in which state appellate review is available does not have to be the same rule applied to the class of case where it is not. We have no
Petitioner contends that, even if Brecht adopted a categorical rule, post-Brecht developments require a different standard of review. Three years after we decided Brecht, Congress passed, and the President signed, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), under which a habeas petition may not be granted unless the state court‘s adjudication “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States ....”
B
Petitioner argues that, even if Brecht provides the standard of review, we must still reverse the judgment below because the exclusion of Maples’ testimony substantially and injuriously affected the jury‘s verdict in this case. That argument, however, is not fairly encompassed within the question presented. We granted certiorari to decide a question that has divided the Courts of Appeals-whether Brecht or Chapman provides the appropriate standard of review when constitutional error in a state-court trial is first recognized by a federal court. Compare, e. g., Bains v. Cambra, 204 F. 3d 964, 976-977 (CA9 2000), with Orndorff v. Lockhart, 998 F. 2d 1426, 1429-1430 (CA8 1993). It is true that the second sentence of the question presented asks: “Does it matter which harmless error standard is employed?” Pet. for Cert. I. But to ask whether Brecht makes any real difference is not to ask whether the Ninth Circuit misapplied
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We hold that in
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, and with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins in part, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I join all of the Court‘s opinion except Part II-B, I am persuaded that we should also answer the question whether the constitutional error was harmless under the standard announced in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). The parties and the Solicitor General as amicus curiae fully briefed and argued the question, presumably because it appears to fit within the awkwardly drafted question that we agreed to review.1 Moreover, our answer to the question whether the error was harmless would emphasize the important point that the Brecht standard, as more fully explained in our opinion in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750 (1946), imposes a significant burden of persuasion on the State.
Both the history of this litigation and the nature of the constitutional error involved provide powerful support for the conclusion that if the jurors had heard the testimony of Pamela Maples, they would at least have had a reasonable doubt concerning petitioner‘s guilt. Petitioner was not found guilty until after he had been tried three times. The
It is not surprising that some jurors harbored a reasonable doubt as to petitioner‘s guilt weeks into their deliberations. The only person to offer eyewitness testimony, a disinterested truckdriver, described the killer as a man who was 5‘7” to 5‘8” tall, weighed about 140 pounds, and had a full head of hair. Tr. 4574 (Apr. 26, 1995). Petitioner is 6‘2” tall, weighed 300 pounds at the time of the murder, and is bald. Record, Doc. No. 13, Exh. L (arrest report); ibid., Exh. M (petitioner‘s driver‘s license). Seven different witnesses linked the killings to a man named Anthony Hurtz, some testifying that Hurtz had admitted to them that he was in fact the killer. App. 60-64, 179. Each of those witnesses, unlike the truckdriver, was impeached by evidence of bias, either against Hurtz or for petitioner. Id., at 61-64, 73, 179-180.
However, Pamela Maples, a cousin of Hurtz‘s who was in all other respects a disinterested witness, did not testify at
Chambers error is by nature prejudicial. We have said that Chambers “does not stand for the proposition that the defendant is denied a fair opportunity to defend himself whenever a state or federal rule excludes favorable evidence.” United States v. Scheffer, 523 U. S. 303, 316 (1998). Rather, due process considerations hold sway over state evidentiary rules only when the exclusion of evidence “undermine[s] fundamental elements of the defendant‘s defense.” Id., at 315. Hence, as a matter of law and logical inference, it is well-nigh impossible for a reviewing court to conclude that such error “did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect” on its verdict. Kotteakos, 328 U. S., at 764; see also O‘Neal v. McAninch, 513 U. S. 432, 445 (1995) (“[W]hen a habeas court is in grave doubt as to the harmlessness of an error that affects substantial rights, it should grant relief“).
It is difficult to imagine a less appropriate case for an exception to that commonsense proposition. We found in Parker v. Gladden, 385 U. S. 363 (1966) (per curiam), that 26 hours of juror deliberations in a murder trial “indicat[ed] a difference among them as to the guilt of petitioner.” Id., at 365. Here, the jury was deprived of significant evidence of
We have not been shy in emphasizing that federal habeas courts do not lightly find constitutional error. See Carey v. Musladin, 549 U. S. 70 (2006). It follows that when they do find an error, they may not lightly discount its significance. Rather, a harmlessness finding requires “fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.” Kotteakos, 328 U. S., at 765. Given “all that happened” in this case, and given the nature of the error, I cannot agree with the Ninth Circuit‘s conclusion that the erroneous exclusion of Maples’ testimony was harmless under that standard.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I agree with the Court that Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993), sets forth the proper standard of review. Cf. id., at 643 (STEVENS, J., concurring). At the same time, I agree with JUSTICE STEVENS that we should consider the application of the standard, that the error was not harmless, and that “Chambers error is by nature prejudicial.” Ante, at 124 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284 (1973)). Cf. Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U. S. 419, 435 (1995) (similar statement as to errors under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963)). Nonetheless, I would remand this case rather than reversing the Court of Appeals.
My reason arises out of the fact that here, for purposes of deciding whether Chambers error exists, the question of harm is inextricably tied to other aspects of the trial court‘s determination. The underlying evidentiary judgment at issue involved a weighing of the probative value of proffered evidence against, e. g., its cumulative nature, its tendency to confuse or to prejudice the jury, or the likelihood that it will simply waste the jury‘s time. See App. 96-97;
All this, it seems to me, requires reconsideration by the Court of Appeals of its Chambers determination. I would
I would remand the case to the Ninth Circuit so that, taking account of the points JUSTICE STEVENS raises, ante, at 122-125, it can reconsider whether there was an error of admissibility sufficiently serious to violate Chambers. I therefore join the Court‘s opinion except as to footnote 1 and Part II-B, and I join JUSTICE STEVENS’ opinion in part.