DeRosa v. Workman

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
September 11, 2012
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
JAMES L. DEROSA,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v. No. 10-7084
(D.Ct. No. 6:05-CV-00213-JHP-SPS)
RANDALL G. WORKMAN, Warden,
Oklahoma State Penitentiary,
Respondent - Appellee.
ORDER
Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, KELLY, LUCERO, MURPHY, HARTZ,
O’BRIEN, TYMKOVICH, GORSUCH, HOLMES, and MATHESON, Circuit
Judges.
This matter is before the court on petitioner’s Petition for Rehearing En
Banc and/or Panel Rehearing. We also have a response, as well as a reply. The
original panel has considered the request for panel rehearing, as well as the other
pleadings on file, and that request is denied.
The entire petition, as well as the response and reply, were also circulated to
all the judges of the court who are in regular active service. A poll was called,
and a majority of the court voted to deny the en banc request. Consequently, the
petition for en banc hearing is also denied. See Fed. R. App. P. 35(a). Judges
Lucero and Hartz voted to allow en banc reconsideration.
Entered for the Court,
ELISABETH A. SHUMAKER
Clerk of Court
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10-7084, DeRosa v. Workman (Lucero, J., dissenting from the denial of en banc
rehearing).
This case presents a troublesome and recurrent theme in capital cases arising out
of the Oklahoma state courts, which causes me to dissent from the denial of en banc
review. As I note herein, state prosecutors and courts have developed a pattern and
practice of non-compliance with—if not outright ignoring of—United States Supreme
Court precedent that specifically prohibits eliciting from a relative of the victim an
opinion as to whether the death penalty should be imposed. The panel recognizes this
disobedience of Supreme Court precedent to be a clear constitutional violation, but
nonetheless deems it harmless because of the heinous nature of the crimes involved.
I would halt Oklahoma prosecutors’ systematic abuse of the federal Constitution.
We must recognize that capital defendants facing trial in Oklahoma state court have not
been, and likely will not be, provided the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth
Amendment as a matter of state law and policy. When confronted with a clear course of
objectively unreasonable decisions, as we are today, we owe no deference to the
pronouncements of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (“OCCA”). Rather, it is
our duty to engage in stringent and thorough de novo review. By applying a toothless
form of harmless error analysis that focuses on the reprehensibility of the crime rather
than the impact of the improper testimony, we only embolden those who would commit
further constitutional violations. That is assuredly not my intent, nor the intent of my
respected colleagues, but it is the result. Because I am unwilling to place my imprimatur
of approval on this pattern of constitutional violation, I respectfully dissent.
I
As the panel recognized, the Constitution does not allow a capital sentencing jury
to hear a family member’s opinions about the crime and the appropriate sentence for the
convicted. See Robinson v. Maynard, 943 F.2d 1216, 1217 (10th Cir. 1991) (noting that
this type of victim-impact testimony is prohibited by Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496(1987), a rule left untouched by Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991)). It appears
that every circuit court to examine the question has come to this same conclusion. See
United States v. Brown, 441 F.3d 1330, 1352 (11th Cir. 2006); Humphries v. Ozmint,
397 F.3d 206, 217 (4th Cir. 2005) (en banc); Parker v. Bowersox, 188 F.3d 923, 931 (8th
Cir. 1999); Woods v. Johnson, 75 F.3d 1017, 1038 (5th Cir. 1996). Yet more than twenty
years after Robinson, Oklahoma courts and prosecutors continue to brazenly allow
unconstitutional victim testimony to infect capital sentencing.
By my count, the panel opinion represents the sixth time in the past decade that we
have rejected a claim of improper victim-impact testimony in an Oklahoma death penalty
case under the harmless error doctrine. See Selsor v. Workman, 644 F.3d 984, 1026-27
(10th Cir. 2011); Welch v. Workman, 639 F.3d 980, 1002-03 (10th Cir. 2011); Welch v.
Sirmons, 451 F.3d 675, 703 (10th Cir. 2006); Hooper v. Mullin, 314 F.3d 1162, 1174
(10th Cir. 2002); Hain v. Gibson, 287 F.3d 1224, 1239 (10th Cir. 2002).
Much of the unconstitutional testimony in these cases is shockingly prejudicial. In
Hain, the first of these six cases, I was on the panel. The mother of one of the victims
testified that she sought “justice for all of us who loved him, but mostly for [the victims],
who are not here to speak for themselves. I believe [the defendant] should be sentenced
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to death. . . . Until the death penalty is carried out, there is always the chance he could be
released.” 287 F.3d at 1235-36. The mother of a second victim contrasted the “horror”
of the victims’ death with that of two recently euthanized family pets, testifying that she
wished the victims “had been able to die that peacefully.” Id. at 1235. “In order for true
justice to be done,” the witness continued, “I feel that [the defendant] should also be
sentenced to death.” Id. We held that this testimony was admitted in violation of clearly
established federal law, but relying on the substantial evidence of guilt and two
aggravating factors, we denied relief. Id. at 1239-40.
In Welch v. Workman, the victim’s mother, after “beg[ging]” the jury for the
death penalty, testified: “We can now only put our faith first in God and then our courts,
and you, the jury. And I would beg you, please, don’t let this happen to another family.
And, again, I say I feel that he should be imposed the death penalty.” 639 F.3d at 999-
1000. The victim’s brother stated that the defendant “deserves the death penalty. Give it
to him, please.” Id. at 997. We acknowledged that the OCCA’s acceptance of this
testimony was unreasonable in light of clearly established federal law. See id. at 1002.
We further rejected the claim that “the victim impact testimony here was only marginally
offensive,” because the “family members’ testimony violated every category of
impermissible expression.” Id. at 1003. But in light of “overwhelming evidence” of guilt
and aggravating factors, we deemed the error harmless. Id. at 1004 (citation omitted).
In Welch v. Sirmons, no fewer than five victim family members requested a death
sentence. 451 F.3d at 701. The victim’s sister coupled her request with testimony “about
[the victim’s] son putting flowers on his mother’s grave.” Welch v. State, 2 P.3d 356,
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373 (Okla. Ct. Crim. App. 2000). The victim’s mother testified that the victim’s father,
who passed away before trial, “would sit and cry asking who had done this to his
daughter,” and she too requested a death sentence. Id. We again declared the OCCA’s
analysis contrary to clearly established federal law, but held the error was harmless in
light of “the existence of two aggravating factors, both of which were amply supported
by the evidence.” Welch v. Sirmons, 451 F.3d at 703-04.
We follow the same course in this case. The victim’s daughter offered an
emotional plea for the death penalty, testifying:
I think of how the pain and terror my mother and daddy must have suffered
at the time of their murders. The horror and betrayal they felt . . . .
Although [the execution of DeRosa] will not bring them back to us, it will
give us some peace of mind. Our family has suffered enough because of
this man. My family pleads with you to give the death penalty.
(Panel Op. 79-80 (emphasis added).) The panel correctly concludes that the OCCA’s
handling of this issue was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law.
(Panel Op. 86.) Nevertheless, the panel focuses on the fact that the jury found “the
existence of two aggravating factors,” which were “overwhelmingly supported” by the
government’s evidence, and once again excuses an intentional violation of the
Constitution by Oklahoma prosecutors. (Panel Op. 87.)
II
This pattern should give us great pause. Our circuit has recognized in the
foregoing cases that the OCCA’s victim-impact jurisprudence is unreasonable and thus
disentitled to deference under AEDPA. This is no small holding. Because AEDPA was
intended to “further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism,” Williams v.
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Taylor, 529 U.S. 420, 436 (2000), we will defer to a state court as long as “fairminded
jurists could disagree,” Harrington v. Richter, 131 S. Ct. 770, 786 (2011) (quotation
omitted). Our court has been clear that the OCCA’s victim-impact decisions violate this
standard, as they are “so lacking in justification” that the OCCA’s errors are “understood
and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.”
Id. at 786-87.
Faced with what can only be construed as intentional disobedience of the federal
Constitution, our court has responded with impotence, effectively enabling a continuation
of the misbehavior. We have consistently engaged in an ineffectual form of harmless
error review to excuse Oklahoma prosecutors’ systematic constitutional violation.
I would halt the OCCA’s intransigence, and Oklahoma prosecutors’ practice of
defying the United States Supreme Court, by conducting a more searching inquiry.
Despite its focus on state-court deference, even AEDPA “stops short of imposing a
complete bar on federal court relitigation of claims already rejected in state proceedings.”
Id. at 786. The great writ survives as a “guard against extreme malfunctions in the state
criminal justice systems.” Id. (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n.5 (1979)
(Stevens, J., concurring in judgment)). We are faced with such extreme malfunction.
Were the option not foreclosed by precedent, one could make a strong case that a
state court system’s pattern of ignoring the United States Supreme Court should be
immune from harmless error review as akin to structural error. See Arizona v.
Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 310 (1991) (structural errors are those that affect “the
framework within which the trial proceeds”). When the highest court in a state has
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adopted a practice that violates the Constitution “beyond any possibility for fairminded
disagreement,” Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 787, we are plainly faced with a “structural”
defect as that word is ordinarily used. The Supreme Court has held to the contrary,
however, indicating that improper “admission of evidence at the sentencing stage of a
capital case” is subject to review for harmlessness. Fulminante, 499 U.S. at 306(quotation omitted).
Nevertheless, our harmlessness analysis need not turn a blind eye to these
constitutional violations. As the panel in this case recognized, our standard of review
here is the most thorough known to law: de novo. See Ornelas v. United States, 517
U.S. 690, 700 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (characterizing the de novo standard as a
“searching inquiry”); Nance v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Can., 294 F.3d 1263, 1266
(10th Cir. 2002) (referring to de novo review as “stringent”). And “[o]ur duty to search
for constitutional error with painstaking care is never more exacting than it is in a capital
case.” Burger v. Kemp, 483 U.S. 776, 785 (1987).
In this case and its predecessors, we have focused on the existence of aggravating-
factor findings. But in Kotteakos v. United States, the case that gave birth to the Brecht
standard, the Court declared that the harmless-error inquiry “cannot be merely whether
there was enough [evidence] to support the result.” 328 U.S. 750, 765 (1946); see Brecht
v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 638 (1993) (“[W]e hold that the Kotteakos harmless-error
standard applies in determining whether habeas relief must be granted . . . .”). This
advisement necessarily carries additional weight in capital sentencing proceedings, where
jurors retain discretion to impose a life sentence regardless of the presence of aggravating
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factors. See Satterwhite v. Texas, 486 U.S. 249, 258 (1988) (acknowledging that
harmless-error inquiry “in the sentencing phase of a capital case may be more difficult
because of the discretion that is given to the sentencer”).
The panel emphasizes the heinousness of the murders at issue—a regrettably
common feature of our death penalty jurisprudence—while overlooking the actual harm
that resulted from the error. Yet under Brecht, we must focus on “whether the error itself
had substantial influence.” Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765. “Even those guilty of the most
heinous offenses are entitled to a fair trial.” Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 107
(1945). The fact that a capital defendant committed a horrible crime cannot be an excuse
to repeatedly ignore constitutional errors at sentencing
I have no doubt that Tolbert’s testimony had the power to sway the jury. Cf.
O’Neal v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 437 (1995) (if a court harbors “grave doubt” about
the effect of a constitutional error on collateral review, it is not harmless). Only the most
callous individual would be unaffected by a plea from a woman whose parents were
brutally murdered. This is the reason such testimony is not permitted by the Constitution,
and it is the reason Oklahoma prosecutors continue to elicit such statements.
In the case under review, we once again declare harmless an unequivocal violation
of the Constitution. This panel, like those in the prior cases cited above, has engaged in
its unenviable analysis with the utmost sincerity and vigor. But by excusing violation
after violation in the face of a clearly established pattern of constitutional defiance, we
validate Oklahoma courts’ practice of flouting the Constitution in death penalty cases.
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As the state stridently reminds us, it is of course true that we do not have direct
“supervisory authority over Oklahoma courts,” English v. Cody, 146 F.3d 1257, 1262
(10th Cir. 1998), and there is no direct action we can take to halt this contumacious
behavior. It gets complicated when attorneys and courts do not follow Supreme Court
precedent. There is but one federal court that can directly correct the OCCA’s
unreasonable interpretation: the United States Supreme Court. See 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a)
(providing for United States Supreme Court jurisdiction over “[f]inal judgments or
decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had”).
Direct review of state criminal convictions is rare, however. Unless and until the Court
elects to defend the dignity of its own precedent, we must place the emphasis of our
review on the impact of these victim pleas rather than on the heinousness of the crimes.
I respectfully dissent from the denial of en banc review.
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