Sanders v. Cotton
| Decision Date | 31 January 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-2622.,03-2622. |
| Citation | 398 F.3d 572 |
| Parties | William A. SANDERS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Zettie COTTON, Respondent-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Erik W.A. Snapp (argued), Winston & Strawn, Chicago, IL, for Petitioner-Appellant.
James B. Martin (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Scott A. Kreider, Hannon Centers Roop & Huttom, Indianapolis, IN, for Respondent-Appellee.
Before COFFEY, RIPPLE, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
William Sanders was convicted of murder and attempted murder by an Indiana jury and sentenced to consecutive terms of 40 and 25 years' imprisonment, respectively. After his conviction and sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, Sanders filed a post-conviction petition in state court, claiming that the jury instructions did not correctly state the burden of proof for murder, attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter, and attempted voluntary manslaughter, and that his appellate counsel was ineffective for not challenging on direct appeal the trial court's refusal to submit a jury instruction that would have correctly stated the burden of proof. Sanders's petition was denied by the trial court and the state appellate court, and the Supreme Court of Indiana denied his petition to transfer.
Sanders then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, arguing that his due process rights were violated when the jury instructions did not correctly state the burden of proof and that his appellate counsel was ineffective for not challenging the trial court's refusal to submit a jury instruction that would have correctly stated the burden of proof. The district court denied Sanders's petition, and he now appeals that decision. We reverse.
At the heart of Sanders's appeal is his argument that the jury instructions in his trial failed to properly identify the prosecution's burden of proving the absence of sudden heat in order to convict him of murder and attempted murder. In Indiana the only difference between murder and voluntary manslaughter is the presence of sudden heat, which Indiana defines as "anger, rage, resentment, or terror sufficient to obscure the reason of an ordinary man; it prevents deliberation and premeditation, excludes malice, and renders a person incapable of cool reflection." McBroom v. State, 530 N.E.2d 725, 728 (Ind.1988). If a defendant charged with murder produces "any appreciable evidence" that he or she committed the crime under sudden heat, the trial court must give a voluntary manslaughter instruction, Roark v. State, 573 N.E.2d 881 882 (Ind.1991), and the burden shifts to the prosecution to prove the absence of sudden heat beyond a reasonable doubt in order to obtain a conviction for murder, see McBroom, 530 N.E.2d at 728.
The facts come from the record compiled in the state court. Sanders was charged with the murder of his son and the attempted murder of his girlfriend. On March 6, 1990, Sanders and his girlfriend, Sharon Pratchett, took their sick son to the hospital. While at the hospital, Sanders and Pratchett began to argue and the argument continued as they drove back to Pratchett's house. At trial, Pratchett and Sanders told conflicting descriptions of the argument. Pratchett testified that the argument began when Sanders accused her of embarrassing him. Although Pratchett's testimony is not clear, it appears that Sanders was jealous because Pratchett and another man looked at each other in the hospital waiting room. According to Pratchett, as Sanders's rage escalated, he became violent, hitting her in the face, grabbing her by the hair, and threatening to kill her. Pratchett said she feared for her life, so she grabbed her son and jumped from the moving car. Sanders testified that the argument began when he told Pratchett that he was going to leave her. Sanders said that Pratchett had always told him that he could not leave her and be involved in his son's life; but that during the argument he insisted he was taking his son. Sanders said that Pratchett then threw their son out the window, so he began hitting her, and that was the last thing he remembered. What is not in dispute is that Sanders turned the car around, crossed over into oncoming traffic where Pratchett and their son were lying, and hit them both with the car. Pratchett was injured and their son was killed.
After the evidence was presented to the jury, the trial court instructed the jury as to the elements of murder and attempted murder as well as the lesser-included offenses of voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter. Indiana law requires the prosecution to prove the absence of sudden heat to obtain a murder or attempted murder conviction when the defendant has asserted the issue. Palmer v. State, 425 N.E.2d 640, 644 (Ind.1981). Nevertheless, the murder and attempted murder jury instructions did not mention sudden heat. Instead, the jury instructions for voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter stated that the jury could convict Sanders only if the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he was "acting under sudden heat." In other words, the burden to prove the existence, not the absence, of sudden heat was allocated to the State.
Sanders's counsel proposed a jury instruction ("Proposed Instruction Two") that would have properly placed the burden of proof on the State:
You are instructed that in order to find the defendant guilty of the offense of murder or attempted murder, you must find that the state has proven the absence of sudden heat beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sanders's counsel, Scott King, and the trial judge discussed the propriety of this instruction:
On direct appeal, Sanders's counsel, Scott King, did not challenge the trial court's failure to properly instruct the jury. Sanders filed a post-conviction petition raising, among other issues, the trial court's failure to give Proposed Instruction Two, the incorrect burden of proof stated in the manslaughter instructions, and his appellate counsel's ineffectiveness for failing to argue both issues on direct appeal.1 The trial court held an evidentiary hearing where King testified that he could not remember why he did not include an argument challenging the jury instructions' misstatement of the burden of proof for sudden heat.
The trial court analyzed Sanders's claims under the standard of fundamental error, which Indiana defines as "when errors are so blatant and serious that to ignore them would constitute a denial of fundamental due process." The trial court acknowledged that the manslaughter instructions tendered to the jury were erroneous because the instructions incorrectly listed the presence of sudden heat as an element of voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter. However, the trial court, relying on Indiana state law precedent, found that the error was harmless because the instruction told the jury that "[t]he existence of sudden heat is a mitigating factor that reduces what otherwise would be murder under this chapter to voluntary manslaughter." The court found that Proposed Instruction Two, allocating the burden to prove absence of sudden heat to the State as an element of murder, was an incorrect statement of the law, so the trial court correctly excluded it. Finally, despite its explicit statement that the instruction was erroneous, the court held that Sanders's counsel could not have been ineffective because "the jury was adequately instructed on voluntary manslaughter, and thus, the defendant was not prejudiced by counsel's faulty instruction."
Sanders appealed the denial of his post-conviction petition to the Court of Appeals of Indiana. The appellate court agreed with the trial court's finding that the voluntary manslaughter instructions were erroneous, but found the error harmless because the jury instructions "also informed the jury that sudden heat is a mitigating factor." Therefore, the court found that "the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to give the trial counsel's tendered instruction because the instructions were correct and adequately instructed the jury on voluntary manslaughter." The appellate court also agreed that Sanders's appellate counsel was not ineffective since there could be no prejudice because the jury instructions, when read as a whole, did "not constitute fundamental error." The Supreme Court of Indiana denied review.
We review the district court's factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo. Harding v. Walls, 300 F.3d 824, 827 (7th Cir.2002). Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), to obtain habeas corpus relief, a petitioner must establish that...
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