FindLaw > Criminal Law Summaries > 1998 Index > Calderon v. Coleman

Case: Calderon v. Coleman

Issue: Can a habeas petitioner obtain relief due to a constitutionally defective jury instruction without a determination that the improper instruction had a "substantive and injurious effect" on the jury's verdict?

Facts: Respondent Russell Coleman was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1979. He received a Briggs instruction informing the jury that if he received a life sentence without possibility of parole, the Governor of California still had the authority to commute such a sentence. (The giving of a Briggs instruction was upheld by the United States Supreme Court against a constitutional challenge in the case of California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992 (1983).) In addition to the Briggs instruction, the jury was told not to consider in any way the Governor's power to commute Coleman's life sentence without parole. Though the California Supreme Court eventually held that Briggs instructions violated state constitutional law, it upheld Coleman's death sentence on direct appeal due to the additional instructions informing the jury that they were not to consider the Governor's commutation power. Coleman filed a federal habeas petition and the district court granted the writ as to his sentence alone. The district court found that the Briggs instruction was inaccurate as to Coleman because in his case there had been significant limitation on the Governor's power to commute any life sentence Coleman would have been given. The district court did not appear to engage in any Brecht harmless error analysis, and neither did the Ninth Circuit (at least according to the Court majority) in affirming the district court.

Holding: Under Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 637 (1993), a federal court may grant habeas relief due to trial error, even constitutional error, only after determining that said error "has substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict." Thus, even assuming that a jury instruction on commutation in the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial was constitutionally improper, the sentence of death cannot be vacated absent Brecht harmless error analysis.

Reasoning: The five member per curiam majority stated that the Brecht standard "reflects the 'presumption of finality and legality' that attaches to a conviction at the conclusion of direct review. . . It protects the State's sovereign interest in punishing offenders and its 'good faith attempts to honor constitutional rights,' . . .while insuring that the extraordinary remedy of habeas corpus is available to those 'whom society has grievously wronged.'" The Ninth Circuit upset this balance by setting aside the state court conviction "without first determining that the error had a substantial and injurious affect on the jury's verdict." The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit's judgment and remanded so that that court could determine whether "the error in the whole context of the particular case, had a substantial and injurious affect or influence on the jury's verdict."

Other Opinions: Justice Stevens joined in dissent by Justices Souter, Ginsberg and Breyer, insisted that the majority had misread the Ninth Circuit opinion and that the Ninth Circuit had indeed engaged in harmless error analysis.

Comment: The majority appears to be sending signals to the Ninth Circuit concerning some of its recent death penalty jurisprudence. The Court for example, referred to the Ninth Circuit statement in the instant case that "[a] commutation instruction is unconstitutional when it is inaccurate," as "a sweeping pronouncement."