Williams v. Haviland

467 F.3d 527

Samuel Lee WILLIAMS, Petitioner-Appellee, v. James HAVILAND, Warden, Respondent-Appellant.

No. 05-3986.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 7, 2006.

Decided and Filed: October 26, 2006.

ARGUED:

M. Scott Criss, Office of the Attorney General, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellant. David L. Doughten, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

ON BRIEF:

Bruce D. Horrigan, Office of the Attorney General, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. David L. Doughten, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before MARTIN, MOORE, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to consider whether Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), overturned the repeated holding of the Supreme Court, see, e.g., Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545, 557 n. 7, 99 S.Ct. 2993, 61 L.Ed.2d 739 (1979), that the Fifth Amendment grand jury right, U.S. CONST. amend. V, was not incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, and thus does not apply to state prosecutions. Relying on Apprendi, the district court granted Petitioner-Appellee Samuel Williams's habeas petition on the ground that the indictment was constitutionally deficient under the Fifth Amendment grand jury right and the Sixth Amendment jury trial and notice rights because it failed to specify one of the essential elements of the charged offenses—specifically, the mens rea requirement. The government appealed, arguing that the district court erred in relying on Apprendi because that decision did not address the sufficiency of the indictment nor did it extend the Fifth Amendment grand jury right to state prosecutions. Because we agree that Apprendi had no effect on the constitutional requirements for indictments utilized in state prosecutions, we REVERSE the grant of habeas relief and REMAND for the district court to consider the remainder of Williams's habeas petition.

I. BACKGROUND

On March 29, 2000, Williams was involved in the firebombing of a house in an effort to recover stolen cocaine. Williams and several other individuals hatched a plan to have two Molotov cocktails made with gasoline thrown into the house to prompt the suspected thief Rodney Bundley to flee the house with the cocaine, at which time the group planned to repossess the drugs. Williams and the others carried out this plan. Although Bundley evacuated the home, the ensuing fire killed four children and Bundley's fiancée.

On April 19, 2000, Williams was indicted by a grand jury on seven counts: one count of complicity in aggravated arson in violation of OHIO REV.CODE § 2909.02(A)(1), one count of complicity in aggravated robbery with a firearm specification in violation of OHIO REV.CODE § § 2911.01(A)(1) and 2941.141(A), and five counts of complicity in aggravated murder with death specifications in violation of OHIO REV.CODE § 2903.01(B). The jury found Williams guilty on all counts and recommended a life sentence without parole. On February 28, 2001, the trial court accepted the recommendation and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment without parole on merged counts three through seven. The trial court imposed a ten-year sentence on count one and merged it with counts three through seven, and a consecutive ten-year sentence on count two plus one year for the firearm specification.

Williams raised six assignments of error in the Ohio Court of Appeals, including the insufficiency of the indictment, the issue now before us. On each count, the indictment describes the mens rea requirement for complicity in the principal offense by reference to the principal statute with the phrase "acting with the kind of culpability required for the commission of an offense." Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 78-84 (Indictment). Williams argued that the indictment was deficient under the U.S. Constitution for failure to set forth each of the necessary elements of the charged offenses. On July 16, 2002, the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed Williams's conviction. With regard to Williams's claim regarding the deficiency of the indictment, the state court of appeals found that the indictment satisfied state-law requirements,¹ and the court did not address Williams's claim under the U.S. Constitution. The Ohio Supreme Court refused jurisdiction.

Williams filed a timely habeas petition with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio on February 6, 2004. The magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation advising that the petition be dismissed. Williams objected on a number of grounds, including the claim of the insufficiency of the indictment raised in the Ohio Court of Appeals. The district court found merit in this objection and granted the writ of habeas corpus. The warden filed this timely appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

In habeas proceedings brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254, when, as here, a district court makes no independent findings of fact, we review de novo the district court's conclusions of law and findings of fact. Bugh v. Mitchell, 329 F.3d 496, 500 (6th Cir.2003); Moore v. Carlton, 74 F.3d 689, 691 (6th Cir.1996). The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ("AEDPA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2254, governs federal habeas review of a state-court conviction. Pursuant to AEDPA, a petition for a writ of habeas corpus cannot be granted as to any claim the state court considered on the merits unless the state court proceedings: "(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or (2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). However, when, as here, no state court addresses a properly raised federal claim, we are no longer bound by AEDPA's deferential standard of review and instead review the claim de novo. Maples v. Stegall, 340 F.3d 433, 436-37 (6th Cir.2003).

B. The District Court's Opinion

The district court framed the issue raised by Williams regarding the sufficiency of the indictment as "how much must the indictment say to ensure that the jury² is sufficiently apprised of each and every element on which it is the factfinder?" Williams v. Haviland, No. 04-CV-7054, 2005 WL 1566762, at *3 (N.D.Ohio July 1, 2005) (unpublished opinion). The district court then explained that the grand jury's role was "to serve as `a kind of buffer or referee between the government and the people,'" Williams, 2005 WL 1566762, at *4 (quoting In re Grand Jury Subpoena, Judith Miller, 397 F.3d 964, 973 (D.C.Cir. 2005)). The court discussed the Fifth Amendment's Grand Jury Clause, and then stated that

in Apprendi the Supreme Court clearly held that "under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any fact (other than a prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt."

Id. at *4 (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348). The district court applied this quotation from Apprendi to the facts of the instant case, finding that "[a]bsent the indictment's express presentation of every element of the offenses as required by Apprendi, there is no way to tell whether the grand jury fully performed its uniquely protective role." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). On this basis, the district court concluded that "allowing Williams's convictions to stand when there is no assurance that the grand jury considered his mens rea in finding probable cause[] would violate both his Fifth Amendment Grand Jury right and his Sixth Amendment jury trial and notice rights as interpreted by Apprendi." Id. at *5.

C. The District Court Misread Apprendi

The district's court reliance on Apprendi to grant the writ was misplaced. The district court's conclusion that the indictment must expressly present every element of the offense in a state prosecution is founded on the conclusion that Apprendi's single reference to an indictment, without any further discussion, sub silentio overturned the longstanding precedent that the Fifth Amendment Grand Jury Clause, which guarantees indictment by a grand jury in federal prosecutions, U.S. CONST. amend. V; Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960), was not incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to the states. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 687-88 n. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2646, 33 L.Ed.2d 626 (1972) (noting that "indictment by grand jury is not part of the due process of law guaranteed to state criminal defendants by the Fourteenth Amendment"); Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 535, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232 (1884) (holding that the Fourteenth Amendment did not incorporate the Fifth Amendment right to a grand jury). The district court's conclusion that Apprendi requires that state prosecutions must employ indictments listing all elements of a crime necessarily implies that states must employ grand juries to return indictments. This conclusion runs contrary to the Supreme Court's repeated assertion that the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not apply to the states, Rose, 443 U.S. at 557 n. 7, 99 S.Ct. 2993; Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 118-19, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975); Branzburg, 408 U.S. at 687-88 n. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2646; Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625, 633, 92 S.Ct. 1221, 31 L.Ed.2d 536 (1972); Beck v. Washington, 369 U.S. 541, 545, 82 S.Ct. 955, 8 L.Ed.2d 98 (1962); Gaines v. Washington, 277 U.S. 81, 86, 48 S.Ct. 468, 72 L.Ed. 793 (1928); Lem Woon v. Oregon, 229 U.S. 586, 590, 33 S.Ct. 783, 57 L.Ed. 1340 (1913), a principle of law "so well established that its overruling would constitute a result so `novel' that a counsel's failure to ask for the overruling in prior...