McIntyre v. Williams

• Decision Date: 30 June 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-10989,99-10989
• Citation: 216 F.3d 1254
• Parties: (11th Cir. 2000) Robert Paul McINTYRE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug WILLIAMS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee. Non-Argument Calendar.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1254

216 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. 2000)

Robert Paul McINTYRE, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Doug WILLIAMS, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.

No. 99-10989

Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

June 30, 2000.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

(No. 97-01581-CV-MHS-1), Marvin H. Shoob, Judge.

Before ANDERSON, Chief Judge, and TJOFLAT and BARKETT, Circuit Judges.

ANDERSON, Chief Judge:

Robert Paul McIntyre appeals the district court's denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On appeal, he argues that the substitution of one judge for another during his jury trial for murder constituted a denial of his constitutional rights. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

On January 11, 1988, Malissa Earnest and Teresa Simmons ran away from a group home for troubled youth in Georgia that was being attended to by house mother Peggy Casteel. After being picked up as hitchhikers by Greg Fischbeck, Fischbeck brought Earnest and Simmons to Terry Chapman Belcher who gave them shelter. On January 18, Robert McIntyre was reported missing by his mother; she also reported a missing van. Louisiana police officers pulled the van over and detained McIntyre, Belcher, and Earnest over night at the police station.¹ Cara Stone, who happened to be staying in the same cell as Earnest, which was nearby McIntyre and Belcher, reported what she had heard from these three. Meanwhile, Earnest left the next morning, and McIntyre and Belcher consented to being returned to Georgia and were so returned. The Louisiana police officers relayed what Stone had reported to law enforcement in Douglas County, Georgia. Acting on this report, the Douglas County Sheriff's Department searched the woods near the home of Belcher's grandmother, Bessie Mae Newton, (the "Newton house") and discovered Simmons' body in a shallow grave. A boot lace, which was used to strangle her, was still around her neck.

On March 1, 1988, a Douglas County, Georgia, grand jury indicted McIntyre, Belcher, and Earnest for the malice murder of Simmons. On June 6, 1988, McIntyre's jury trial began with Judge Robert Noland presiding. After two and one half days of trial, including jury selection and part of the State's case, Judge Noland had to leave unexpectedly to attend the funeral of his infant grandson. McIntyre moved for a continuance or a mistrial; Judge Noland denied the motion and instead Judge Robert James was substituted. Judge James presided the remaining two and one half days. On June 10, 1988, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and Judge James sentenced him to life imprisonment, the only sentence for malice murder. Judge James denied McIntyre's motion for new trial on May 28, 1993.

On direct appeal, McIntyre made a number of arguments including that the substitution of judges violated his constitutional rights. Addressing the substitution issue, inter alia, the Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed his conviction and sentence. See McIntyre v. State, 266 Ga. 7, 463 S.E.2d 476 (1995). The U.S. Supreme Court denied his petition for certiorari. See McIntyre v. State, 518 U.S. 1021, 116 S.Ct. 2556, 135 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1996).

On May 30, 1997, McIntyre petitioned the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia for a federal writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254. On December 22, 1998, a U.S. magistrate judge recommended that the petition be denied. Agreeing with this recommendation, the district court denied the petition. McIntyre filed a notice of appeal and moved for a certificate of appealability, but the district court denied the motion. This Court, however, issued a certificate of appealability limited to review of the substitution issue.

McIntyre argues that the substitution of judges violated his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. This violation, he argues, was a structural defect not subject to harmless error analysis and, therefore, required automatic reversal. Alternatively, he argues that he was prejudiced by the substitution.²

Because McIntyre filed his federal habeas petition on May 30, 1997, after the effective date (April 24, 1996) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act ("AEDPA"), AEDPA's review provisions concerning the state court's adjudication of the issue apply. Explaining the effect of these provisions, the Supreme Court recently stated:

Under the statute, a federal court may grant a writ of habeas corpus if the relevant state-court decision was either (1) "contrary to ... clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or (2) "involved an unreasonable application of ... clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."

. . . .

A state-court decision will certainly be contrary to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases.

Williams v. Taylor, --- U.S. ----, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 1519, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)).³ The Supreme Court also addressed the meaning of unreasonable application:

Defining an "unreasonable application" by reference to a "reasonable jurist," however, is of little assistance to the courts that must apply § 2254(d)(1) and, in fact, may be misleading. Stated simply, a federal habeas court making the "unreasonable application" inquiry should ask whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable. The federal habeas court should not transform the inquiry into a subjective one by resting its determination instead on the simple fact that at least one of the Nation's jurists has applied the relevant federal law in the same manner the state court did in the habeas petitioner's case. The "all reasonable jurists" standard would tend to mislead federal habeas courts by focusing their attention on a subjective inquiry rather than on an objective one....

The term "unreasonable" is no doubt difficult to define. That said, it is a common term in the legal world and, accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning. For purposes of today's opinion, the most important point is that an unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.... Under § 2254(d)(1)'s "unreasonable application" clause, then, a federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be unreasonable.

Id. at 1521-22.⁴ In sum, we can only reverse the district court if we conclude that the state court's decision was contrary to, or involved an objectively unreasonable application of, the governing Federal law set forth by Supreme Court cases. If we cannot so conclude, we must affirm.

We turn to the Georgia Supreme Court's decision regarding the substitution of judges to determine if it is contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of clearly established Federal law, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court assumed that the midtrial substitution of judges implicated McIntyre's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, but did not cite any U.S. Supreme Court case to that effect. See McIntyre v. State, 266 Ga. 7, 463 S.E.2d 476, 479 (1995). It held that the substitution of judges was not a structural defect requiring automatic reversal, but rather was subject to harmless error analysis. See id. The court concluded that McIntyre was not harmed by the substitution and therefore reversal was not required. See id.

As the Supreme Court of Georgia did, we assume arguendo that the midtrial substitution of judges implicated McIntyre's Sixth Amendment rights, and we address whether the Georgia court's decision in applying harmless error was contrary to clearly established Federal law as determined the Supreme Court, or involved an unreasonable application thereof. McIntyre primarily argues that the substitution of judges is a structural defect requiring automatic reversal. He points to a number of state court decisions that indicate that the substitution of trial judges during the presentation of evidence at a criminal trial over defendant's objection is reversible error. See Bailey v. State, 397 N.E.2d 1024, 1026-27 (Ind.Ct.App.1979); State v. Davis, 564 S.W.2d 876, 878-79 (Mo.1978), Commonwealth v. Zeger, 200 Pa.Super. 92, 186 A.2d 922, 926-27 (1962), People v. McCline, 442 Mich. 127, 499 N.W.2d 341, 343-44 (1993), Blend v. People, 41 N.Y. 604 (1870), State v. McClain, 194 La. 605, 194 So. 563 (1940); State v. Johnson, 55 Wash.2d 594, 349 P.2d 227 (1960). However, he does not cite any U.S. Supreme Court cases, nor have we uncovered any, that indicate that the substitution of judges is a structural defect requiring automatic reversal.⁵ In fact, we have found no case in which the Supreme Court has addressed the constitutional propriety of substituting judges under these circumstances. As a result, we cannot say that the state court's conclusion that the substitution is an error subject to harmless error analysis and not a structural defect is contrary to clearly established Federal law as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In assessing the reasonableness of the state court's conclusion, we turn for guidance to Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 113 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991), and Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993). In Brecht, the Court explained that constitutional violations classified as trial errors are subject to harmless error analysis and those classified as structural defects require automatic reversal. See Brecht, 507 U.S. at 629, 113 S.Ct. at 1717. In Fulminante, the Court provided lists of both trial errors and structural defects. Trial...