[Note: This opinion recap was authored by Neil DuChez, a summer associate at Akin Gump and a student at the University of Michigan Law School.]
If a constitutional error in a state trial is not recognized until the case ends up in federal court via a habeas petition, is the prejudicial impact of the error assessed under the Chapman “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt†standard or the more deferential Brecht “substantial and injurious effect†standard? Today in an opinion written by Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Brecht standard applies in all habeas cases.
Petitioner John Fry was charged with the 1992 murders of James and Cynthia Bell. Fry’s first two trials in a California state court ended in a deadlocked jury. During his third trial, the court excluded testimony by Pamela Maples, who had overheard portions of a conversation in which her cousin, Anthony Hurtz, had boasted of committing a double murder, the details of which matched the murders of the Bells. After jury deliberations lasting five weeks, Fry was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Fry’s state appeals – in which he argued, among other things, that the exclusion of Maples’s testimony violated his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, were unsuccessful.
Fry then filed a petition for federal habeas relief in the Eastern District of California. Although the district court held that the trial court erred in excluding Maples’s testimony and that the state appellate court’s failure to recognize the error constituted “an unreasonable application of clearly established law,†it denied habeas relief on the ground that Fry had not shown the “substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s verdict†required by Brecht. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed.
In its opinion today, the Court explained that its holding in Brecht hinged on concerns such as “the States’ interest in finality,†the “States’ sovereignty over criminal matters,†respect for “the historic limitation of habeas relief to those ‘grievously wronged,’†and the “significant ‘societal costs’†involved, all of which apply regardless whether the state courts applied the Chapman standard. The Court rejected Fry’s argument that, if the Brecht standard applies regardless whether the state court conducted Chapman review, then it would apply even when a state “eliminated appellate review altogether.†Deeming that prospect “highly unrealistic,†it declined to decide what standard would apply in such a case because Fry did obtain appellate review. The Court also rejected Fry’s argument that AEDPA and the Court’s 2003 decision in Mitchell v. Esparza imposed a different standard of review than the one in Brecht, explaining that neither authority suggested such an interpretation. Finally, the Court held that because the Brecht standard “obviously subsumes†an AEDPA/Chapman standard, there is no need to formally require that both tests be applied.
In affirming the Ninth Circuit, the Court did not analyze whether Brecht was correctly applied to Fry’s case, explaining that the issue was “ not fairly encompassed within the question presented.†Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, and by Justice Breyer in part, issued an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. He agreed that Brecht is the proper standard for cases such as Fry’s, but he would have reversed the decision below on the ground that the decision to exclude Maples’s testimony did have a “substantial and injurious effect.†Justice Stevens emphasized that because “federal habeas courts do not lightly find constitutional error…they may not lightly discount its significance†when such is found.
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