Chalmers v. Mitchell

• Decision Date: 03 January 1996
• Docket Number: D,No. 137,137
• Citation: 73 F.3d 1262
• Parties: Wesley CHALMERS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Robert MITCHELL, Superintendent, Eastern Correctional Facility, Respondent-Appellee. ocket 94-2672.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 1262

73 F.3d 1262

Wesley CHALMERS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Robert MITCHELL, Superintendent, Eastern Correctional

Facility, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 137, Docket 94-2672.

United States Court of Appeals,

Second Circuit.

Argued Sept. 14, 1995.

Decided Jan. 3, 1996.

Robert E. Toone, Law Student Intern, Yale Law School, New Haven, CT (Brett Dignam, The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, New Haven, CT, of counsel), for Appellant.

Andrea G. Klineman, Assistant District Attorney, Kings County, Brooklyn, NY (Charles J. Hynes, District Attorney, Kings County, Roseann B. MacKerchnie, Noreen Healey, Assistant District Attorneys, Kings County, Brooklyn, NY, of counsel), for Appellees.

Before: NEWMAN, Chief Judge, VAN GRAAFEILAND and MESKILL, Circuit Judges.

MESKILL, Circuit Judge:

Wesley Chalmers, an inmate at Eastern Correctional Facility, appeals the denial of his petition for of a writ of habeas corpus by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Sifton, C.J. Chalmers filed a notice of appeal on November 10, 1994 and the district court issued a certificate of probable cause on November

22, 1994. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2253. We affirm the district court's denial of the petition and hold that the trial judge's instruction defining reasonable doubt as "a doubt for which some good reason can be given," while an incorrect statement of law which should never be made, did not rise to the level of a due process violation when taken in the context of the entire instruction. Furthermore, we hold that the convictions for criminal possession and criminal sale of cocaine were supported by sufficient evidence.

BACKGROUND

Wesley Chalmers was arrested during a buy and bust operation conducted by the New York City Police Department in Brooklyn. Two undercover officers approached an apartment they suspected was being used in the sale of cocaine, climbed the staircase and approached an upstairs apartment with the intent to buy cocaine. The officers testified that they knocked on the apartment door, which contained a smaller, peephole door, were visually inspected by a person in the apartment who then opened the peephole door, and through it sold the officers two vials of cocaine for ten dollars. Soon thereafter, backup officers raided the apartment and arrested several persons found inside, including the appellant. The police discovered approximately 940 vials of cocaine, 40 tinfoil packets of cocaine, two additional bags of cocaine and a bag of dilutant, in addition to $2,375 in cash including the $10 used by the undercover police officers, all located in the front room of the apartment. Appellant was coming out of a back room in the apartment when he was discovered and arrested.

Appellant was charged with and convicted of criminal possession and sale of narcotics and criminal possession of a weapon after a jury trial in New York Supreme Court in Kings County. After an unsuccessful journey through the state appellate courts, People v. Chalmars, 176 A.D.2d 239, 574 N.Y.S.2d 205 (2d Dep't 1991), leave to appeal denied, 79 N.Y.2d 854, 580 N.Y.S.2d 726, 588 N.E.2d 761 (1992), where he claimed that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the drug-related convictions and that the jury instructions were so flawed regarding the definition of reasonable doubt as to constitute a due process violation, appellant filed this petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the district court.

Chalmers contends that his conviction violated his federal due process rights in two ways. First, he claims that the trial court's instructions to the jury stating that a reasonable doubt is "a doubt for which some good reason can be given" impermissibly and unconstitutionally (1) shifted the burden of proof to him, and (2) lowered the burden of proof required of the prosecution. Second, he claims that even under the proper reasonable doubt standard, the prosecution failed to present legally sufficient evidence of his presence in the apartment, and of his possession and sale of the drugs found in the apartment to support his convictions.

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus brought under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254. Williams v. Bartlett, 44 F.3d 95, 99 (2d Cir.1994).

B. The Definition of Reasonable Doubt

It is a fundamental tenet of American law that a criminal defendant can only be convicted if the factfinder, normally a jury, finds guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072-73, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). The perfect definition of "reasonable doubt," however, is as uncertain as its place in American jurisprudence is certain. The United States Constitution does not require a trial court to define reasonable doubt for the jury. Victor v. Nebraska, --- U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 1243, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994). In fact, efforts by trial judges to explain the meaning of reasonable doubt to juries often create more confusion than clarity. Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 140, 75 S.Ct. 127, 137-38, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954) (citing Miles v. United States, 103 U.S. 304, 312, 26 L.Ed. 481 (1880)). Nevertheless, when a trial court attempts to explain "reasonable doubt" for a jury, reviewing courts must scrutinize the A guilty verdict rendered by a jury that applied a standard less demanding than "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is a nullity. Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081-82, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993). Because being judged by any lesser standard would violate a defendant's due process rights, a guilty verdict reached by application of a standard less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt must be overturned. Winship, 397 U.S. at 364, 90 S.Ct. at 1072-73.

instructions to ensure that the defendant was not judged by a lesser standard than "proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

We assume that a jury applies the instructions it is given. Therefore, if a jury convicts after it was told that it may do so even if it finds the prosecution has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, we will assume that the jury applied the lower standard. It is for this reason that the Supreme Court held that harmless error review of the erroneous definition of reasonable doubt is improper. Sullivan, 508 U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2081-82. In other words, the harmless error doctrine is inapplicable to the incorrect definition of reasonable doubt because the due process right involved lies in being judged by the correct standard. If the jury convicts by applying the wrong standard, even if it would have convicted under the right standard, the conviction must be overturned, for the right of the defendant was violated by the standard applied, not the result obtained. Id.

We cannot know what this jury did behind closed doors. The standard the jury applied can only be gleaned from examining what the jury was told. Just as we hesitate to disturb a jury's factual findings outside clear evidence refuting its findings, we will not disturb a conviction unless we conclude that it is "reasonably likely" that the jury applied the wrong standard. Victor, --- U.S. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 1248.

In attempting to determine what standard the jury actually applied, we cannot focus exclusively on a few erroneous words in the jury instruction and then reverse the conviction unless it is "reasonably likely" that the jury applied the erroneous standard described or implied by those few words. We must examine the overall charge that the jury heard for a better view of the standard the jury took into its deliberations and applied. United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 674, 95 S.Ct. 1903, 1912-13, 44 L.Ed.2d 489 (1975) ("a single instruction to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge" (quoting Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146-47, 94 S.Ct. 396, 400, 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973))).

Sometimes, erroneous portions of the jury instructions are offset when considered in context or explained by the trial court in later sections of the instruction. Park, 421 U.S. at 674-75 & n. 16, 95 S.Ct. at 1912-13 & n. 16 (holding that, among other things, the prosecutor's summation put the challenged portions of the jury instructions into the proper light). Other times, a seemingly innocuous incorrect statement becomes extremely damaging when coupled with other sections of the jury instructions or with improper conduct by counsel during the trial. United States v. Birbal, 62 F.3d 456, 462 (2d Cir.1995) (holding that trial court's statement that jury may acquit the defendant if prosecution fails to prove all elements beyond a reasonable doubt made a bad but non-reversible jury charge reversible). Thus a challenged portion of the jury instructions "may not be judged in artificial isolation," Cupp, 414 U.S. at 147, 94 S.Ct. at 400, but rather must be judged as the jury understood it, as part of the whole instruction, and indeed, as part of all the proceedings that were observed by the jury.

Chalmers suggests two reasons why we should hold that it was "reasonably likely" that the jury that convicted him applied a standard lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt." He challenges the trial court's description of a reasonable doubt as "a doubt for which some good reason can be given." He also points to the prosecutor's juxtaposition of "reasonable doubt" and the phrase "to the exclusion of a moral certainty"

during summation, a claim that we will consider as part of the context in which the challenged jury instruction was heard by the jury. ¹

1. Did the Instructions Impermissibly Shift the Burden of Proof?

The first argument advanced by the appellant is that by instructing the jury that a reasonable doubt is one for which some good reason can be given, the trial court shifted the burden of proof onto the defense to provide reasons. In earlier decisions we...