Woodford, Jeanne, Warden v. Garceau, Robert (03/25/2003)

Questions presented: Do the provisions of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) (28 U.S.C. 2241, et seq.) apply to capital cases so long as the federal petition is filed on or after the AEDPA's effective date?

BY BROOKE HANDLER, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Life for one death row inmate has taken a significant turn.

After spending 16 years on death row for murder, Robert Frederick Garceau may have his death sentence lifted.

That depends, however, on when the U.S. Supreme Court decides the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) applies to death penalty cases.

Establishing a definitive date for the implementation of the act means everything for the Hells Angel biker:

It all began in Sept. 1984 when Maureen Bautista threatened to inform the police of her boyfriend's methamphetamine laboratory in Shandon, California. Fearing that his narcotics operation would be discovered, Garceau stabbed Bautista to death. He also murdered her 14-year-old son, Telesforo, because he witnessed his mothers death.

Six months later, the bodies were found stuffed in a bedroom dresser that had been buried under concrete in the backyard of Greg Rambo, one of Garceau's drug-dealing partners.

By that time, Rambo had also been slain.

In 1985, a jury in Monterey County convicted Garceau of killing Rambo and he was given a sentence of 33-years-to-life for that homicide. Then a separate jury was convened in Bakersfield during that same year in the slaying of the Bautistas, the crime for which Garceau received the death sentence.

But Garceau's conviction and death sentence for murdering his girlfriend and her teenage son were thrown out.

During the trial, Lewis King, the judge in Kern County, California, told jurors that in deciding whether Garceau murdered the Bautistas, they could consider that the defendant had been convicted of a third murder in a related case and that he manufactured illegal drugs.

The judge told the jury they could take into account the evidence of the Rambo murder for any purpose, "including but not limited to...[Garceau's] character or any trait of his character" or "conduct on a specific occasion."

But that was wrong.

Under California law, evidence that a person committed one crime cant be used to prove he committed another crime.

Instead, while past convictions can be introduced at trial, jurors must be instructed that the prior convictions are not evidence of guilt in the present case, a rule the U.S. Supreme Court outlined in 1967.

Nonetheless, in 1994, the California Supreme Court held that the erroneous jury instructions were a "harmless error" because there was "overwhelming evidence" of Garceau's guilt.

In seeking federal habeas corpus relief, Garceau's attorney argued that the instruction was not only contrary to California law, but that it also violated the Due Process Clause by permitting the jury to use the evidence of his other crimes to establish his criminal propensity.

The district court denied Garceau's motion for an evidentiary hearing and later denied his petitition.

When the case was reviewed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 26, 2001, a divided panel held that the trial error probably tipped the jury and, therefore, amounted to a deprivation of a fair trial. The court ruled that the judge incorrectly instructed the jury on how to analyze the evidence and that his instructions were prejudicial. As a result, the appeals court threw out the conviction.

In the majority opinion, Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote: "[I]t was highly probable that the courts instruction to the jury to consider Garceau's other crimes to judge his conduct had a substantial and injurious effect on determining the jury's verdict."

The courts conclusion was based on two factors.

First, the prosecution relied heavily on the Rambo murder, "the other crime," in urging the jury to draw the propensity inference. The prosecutor began his closing argument by saying that he intended to show that "the defendant [was] the killer of not only Maureen Bautista and Telesforo Bautista but Greg Rambo."

He argued: "[t]here are certain systems at least of categories that connect Maureen and Telesforos murder with Greg Rambo's murder. Garceau is the common denominator. Garceau is the one who committed the murders."

Second, the court said Rambo's murder "was explained in graphic detail and very likely emotionally affected the jury."

In so holding, the majority also determined that the AEDPA did not apply to Garceau.

The AEDPA, which requires federal courts to uphold convictions if the state court reasonably applied existing law, went into effect on April 24, 1996.

The 9th Circuit majority said the AEDPA did not apply to Garceau because he had requested a stay of execution and appointment of counsel before the act was signed.

Garceau requested the stay of execution and appointment of counsel in federal district court on May 12, 1995.

The argument, therefore, is that because Garceau filed paperwork before April 24, 1996, the act does not apply to him. As a direct result, the appeals court decision to throw out the conviction should remain and the sentence should be vacated.

Judge Tashima wrote: "The AEDPA does not apply to petitions that were "pending as of the effective date of the AEDPA, as cited in Calderon v. United States District Court, and Garceau's petition is considered pending as if May 12, 1995, the date that he requested both that federal habeas counsel be appointed and that his execution be stayed."

But Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain disagreed with his colleagues.

In his dissent, he wrote: "The only question to be answered is whether the giving of other crimes instruction itself, which specifically invited the jury to draw the propensity inference, resulted in actual prejudice. In my view, the answer to that question is emphatically no."

O'Scannlain argued that the jury heard evidence that Garceau killed Rambo only from the same drug partners who testified that he killed the Bautistas. The state did not introduce evidence of his conviction for the Rambo murder. As a result, the states entire case rested on the credibility of Garceau's drug partners.

O'Scannlain said: "That the jury convicted Garceau therefore strongly suggests that the jury found the states witnesses credible, and thus, only factors that eroded credibility of the drug partners would have changed the outcome...I simply cannot comprehend how proper jury instruction would have changed the outcome. Accordingly, I am not persuaded that the instruction was harmful."

For Garceau, however, his fate depends on when the U.S. Supreme Court decides the AEDPA applies to death penalty cases.

While the 9th Circuit held that the AEPDA does not apply to Garceau because he filed paperwork before the act was signed, it is alone in this view. All of the other federal circuits apply the act to any case where the actual habeas petition was not filed until after the act was signed.

On Oct. 1, 2002, as the U.S. Supreme Court was about to begin its 2002-03 term, the Court accepted the case and limited review to this question: Do the provisions of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) (28 U.S.C. 2241, et seq.) apply to capital cases so long as the federal petition is filed on or after the AEDPA's effective date?

On March, 25, 2003, a divided Court answered the question, no. In a 6-3 decision, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that because a case does not become "pending" until an actual application for habeas relief is filed in federal court, the AEDPA doesn't apply.

Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented.