F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
JUN 6 2000
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
MICHAEL E. WELCH,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v. No. 99-3273
CITY OF PRATT, KANSAS;
ROBERT J. SCHMISSEUR,
District Judge, Pratt County, Kansas;
RAY MCGUIRE, Sheriff of Pratt
County, Kansas; ATTORNEY
GENERAL OF KANSAS,
Respondents-Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. No. 99-CV-3047)
Submitted on the briefs:
Michael S. Holland of Holland and Holland, Russell, Kansas, for
Petitioner-Appellant.
Jared S. Maag, Assistant Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas, for
Respondents-Appellees.
Before TACHA , EBEL , and BRISCOE , Circuit Judges.
EBEL , Circuit Judge.
Petitioner Michael E. Welch was convicted in a Kansas state court of
driving under the influence of alcohol. Following affirmance of his conviction on
direct appeal, petitioner filed this action in the district court seeking a writ of
habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court denied the petition and
denied his request for a certificate of appealability under 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c).
Petitioner appeals and asks this court for a certificate of appealability on two
issues focusing on his jury instructions: the instructions given did not adequately
protect his constitutional right not to testify; and the instructions contained an
impermissible presumption and the evidence was otherwise insufficient to support
his conviction. We conclude that petitioner has made substantial showings of the
denial of constitutional rights, and we grant him a certificate of appealability on
both issues. See id. Nonetheless, we agree with the district court that he is not
entitled to habeas relief, albeit through somewhat different analyses than those
used by the district court. We therefore affirm. 1
The facts are not disputed. At 9:10 p.m. on March 8, 1996, a City of Pratt
police officer stopped petitioner for driving in excess of the posted speed limit.
1
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
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After observing several indications that petitioner was intoxicated, the officer
arrested petitioner and took him to the Pratt Law Enforcement Center, where
petitioner agreed to take a breath test. The test was administered at 10:08 p.m.
and showed petitioner’s blood alcohol content to be .147, which was above the
legal limit of .08. A jury convicted petitioner of driving under the influence of
alcohol in violation of City of Pratt Municipal Ordinance 30(a)(2), and petitioner
was sentenced, inter alia, to six months in the county jail, a fine of $1,000, and
a year on probation after serving ten consecutive days in the county jail
(apparently with the remaining six months suspended). The Kansas Court of
Appeals affirmed on direct appeal, and the Kansas Supreme Court denied review.
Petitioner then brought this habeas action alleging that his conviction was
unconstitutional for two reasons, both of which he re-urges on appeal.
I
Petitioner first contends that the jury instruction pertaining to his Fifth
Amendment right not to testify at trial was constitutionally inadequate. The trial
court gave the following instruction, taken from Kansas pattern instruction
No. 52.13: “You should not consider the fact that the defendant did not testify in
arriving at your verdict.” Appellant’s App. at H-150. Petitioner had requested
that the following instruction be given instead:
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It is the constitutional right of a defendant in a criminal trial
that he may not be compelled to testify. The decision as to whether
he should testify is left to the defendant acting on the advice and
assistance of his attorney. You must not draw any inference of guilt
from the fact he did not testify, and this fact must not be discussed
by you or enter into your deliberations in any way. In deciding
whether or not to testify, a defendant may choose to rely on the state
of the evidence or upon the failure, if any, of the prosecution to
prove every essential element of the charge against him. . . . Carter
v. Kentucky , 450 U.S. 288, 303-304 . . . (1981); United States v.
[de ]Hernandez , 745 F.2d 1305, 1309 (10th Cir. 1984).
Appellant’s App. at G-149. Petitioner contends that the instruction given does
not meet the requirement, established by Carter , that the jury be instructed that
a defendant’s silence cannot be used as an inference of guilt, nor the requirement,
established by de Hernandez , that the jury be told that a defendant cannot be
compelled to testify. We address the “no adverse inference” and “compulsion”
aspects of his proposed instruction in turn.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that no
person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
This prohibition on compulsory self-incrimination led the Supreme Court to hold
that the Constitution “forbids either comment by the prosecution on the accused’s
silence or instructions by the court that such silence is evidence of guilt.” Griffin
v. California , 380 U.S. 609, 615 (1965). In Carter , the Court noted that “[e]ven
without adverse comment, the members of a jury, unless instructed otherwise,
may well draw adverse inferences from a defendant’s silence.” 450 U.S. at 301.
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The Court therefore held that to further protect the Fifth Amendment privilege
against compulsory self-incrimination, “a state trial judge has the constitutional
obligation, upon proper request, to minimize the danger that the jury will give
evidentiary weight to a defendant’s failure to testify.” Id. at 305. The Court
stated that this obligation “requires that a criminal trial judge must give
a ‘no-adverse-inference’ jury instruction when requested by a defendant to do so.”
Id. at 300. The instruction need not, however, be in any particular form nor in the
form requested by the defendant. See United States v. Gomez-Olivas , 897 F.2d
500, 502 (10th Cir. 1990); cf. James v. Kentucky , 466 U.S. 341, 350 (1984)
(“The Constitution obliges the trial judge to tell the jury, in an effective manner,
not to draw the [adverse] inference if the defendant so requests; but it does not
afford the defendant the right to dictate, inconsistent with state practice, how the
jury is to be told.”).
The instruction the trial court gave here told the jury “not [to] consider the
fact that the defendant did not testify in arriving at your verdict.” Though the
instruction did not expressly tell the jury not to draw any adverse inferences, we
agree with the district court that it sufficiently covered the substance of the Carter
obligation in this regard. See United States v. Castaneda , 94 F.3d 592, 596
(9th Cir. 1996) (rejecting Carter challenge where jury instructed that “it is the
government’s burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and
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that [t]he defendant is presumed to be innocent and does not have to testify or
present any evidence to prove innocence”) (quotation omitted); United States v.
Ladd , 877 F.2d 1083, 1089 (1st Cir. 1989) (approving over Carter challenge
instruction stating “the fact that the defendant does not [testify, explain, or present
evidence] cannot even be considered by you in arriving at your verdict”); United
States v. Russo , 796 F.2d 1443, 1454-55 (11th Cir. 1986) (approving instruction
telling jury that “if a Defendant elects not to testify, you should not consider that
in any way during your deliberations” as “broader and more beneficial to the
[defendants] than their requested instruction” containing no-adverse-inference
language). By instructing the jury not to consider petitioner’s failure to testify in
its deliberations, the jury was told not to draw any inferences, adverse or
otherwise, or in any way to use his right to remain silent against him. We
conclude that the instruction given at petitioner’s trial satisfied the trial court’s
obligation under Carter to protect his constitutional right not to testify.
Turning to the compulsion aspect of petitioner’s proposed instruction, we
held in de Hernandez that the jury must be instructed, when the defendant so
requests, that the defendant cannot be compelled to testify. See 745 F.2d at 1309.
Petitioner asserts that the failure of the trial court’s instruction to include the
not-compelled-to-testify language required by de Hernandez violated his Fifth
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Amendment right and entitles him to habeas relief. 2
Although the district court did
not expressly address this argument in its order denying the petition, we find it
unpersuasive. 3
Petitioner filed his petition on February 8, 1999, and it is therefore subject
to the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(AEDPA). See Lindh v. Murphy , 521 U.S. 320, 327 (1997). AEDPA amended
the federal habeas corpus statute under which petitioner seeks relief, 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254, to provide that:
(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in
custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted
with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State
court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim--
(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 . . . .
2
Our decision in de Hernandez was from a direct criminal appeal, and it is
not entirely clear whether we determined that the Fifth Amendment required this
instruction, or whether this court required it as an exercise of our supervisory
power over the federal criminal process. For present purposes, we will assume
we held that the instruction was constitutionally mandated, as petitioner
maintains.
3
We note that petitioner failed to comply with this court’s rules requiring
that he indicate in his brief the record reference showing where he raised each
issue on appeal, see 10th Cir. R. 28.2(C)(2), and that he provide a copy of his
petition, see 10th Cir. R. 10.3(C)(1), 30.1(A)(1). However, because the district
court noted that he raised this issue, although it did not expressly address it, we
will consider the issue on appeal.
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28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1); see Williams v. Taylor , 120 S. Ct. 1495, 1504 (2000).
“[A]s the statutory language makes clear, . . . § 2254(d)(1) restricts the source
of clearly established law to [the Supreme] Court’s jurisprudence.” Williams ,
120 S. Ct. at 1523; see also Sweeney v. Parke , 113 F.3d 716, 718 (7th Cir. 1997)
(noting that under AEDPA, “we are no longer permitted to apply our own
jurisprudence, but must look exclusively to Supreme Court caselaw in reviewing
a petitioner’s claim”); accord O’Brien v. DuBois , 145 F.3d 16, 20 (1st Cir. 1998);
Moore v. Calderon , 108 F.3d 261, 264 (9th Cir. 1997). Further, clearly established
federal law “refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of [the Supreme]
Court’s decisions.” Williams , 120 S. Ct. at 1523.
In holding that courts must give the not-compelled-to-testify instruction in
de Hernandez , we relied heavily on the Court’s opinion in Carter , and noted that
the defendant’s requested instruction in Carter had included such language.
See de Hernandez , 745 F.2d at 1309. However, we explained that Carter itself
did not mandate that such an instruction including this language be given:
We do not take the holding in Carter that the instruction requested
should have been given to include necessarily the “not compelled to
testify” element. . . . We however are of the view, as indicated, that
for an instruction on this point to be complete it should include the
compulsion aspect.
Id. Our decision in de Hernandez thus represents the Tenth Circuit’s
jurisprudence regarding instructions necessary to protect a defendant’s Fifth
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Amendment rights, but it does not reflect the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. The
Supreme Court has never held that the compulsion element must be included in an
instruction when requested. (Indeed, we are unaware of any decisions from our
sister circuits expressly accepting, or rejecting, the position we took in
de Hernandez .) Thus, while the trial court’s failure to give petitioner’s requested
not-compelled-to-testify instruction may have violated Tenth Circuit law, it did not
violate clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court.
Petitioner is therefore not entitled to habeas relief on this issue.
II
Petitioner also contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his
conviction under Pratt Municipal Ordinance § 30(a)(2) due to the improper use of
a mandatory presumption. He points out, correctly, that there was no direct
evidence, such as expert testimony, relating the results of his breath test back
to the time he was driving to show that he was intoxicated while driving. He
contends that his conviction resulted from a jury instruction creating an
impermissible mandatory presumption that he was driving while intoxicated
because he was intoxicated when the test was taken. He argues this mandatory
presumption relieved the prosecution of its burden of proving all the elements of
the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, and thus violated his right to due process.
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See Francis v. Franklin , 471 U.S. 307, 313 (1985); Sandstrom v. Montana ,
442 U.S. 510, 521-24 (1979).
The city ordinance in question, which tracks Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-1567(a)(2),
provides that “[n]o person shall operate or attempt to operate any vehicle within
this city while . . . [t]he alcohol concentration in the person’s blood or breath, as
measured within two hours of the time of operating or attempting to operate
a vehicle, is [.08] or more . . . .” Appellant’s App. at K-164. 4
The corresponding
jury instruction stated that the prosecution had to prove “[t]hat the defendant,
while driving, had an alcohol concentration in his breath of .08 or more as
measured within two hours of the time of operating the vehicle.” Id. at I-155.
On direct appeal, the Kansas Court of Appeals addressed petitioner’s
argument as follows:
Welch maintains that there was insufficient evidence to
establish the alcohol concentration of his blood or breath while he
was driving. At trial, the City presented evidence that Welch had
consented to take a breath alcohol test, that the test was given within
1 hour of him driving the vehicle, and that the results showed that he
had a breath alcohol concentration of .147. The officer who
administered the breath test also testified as to what breath alcohol
concentration was and that it related to the alcohol concentration in
a person’s bloodstream. Upon questioning by Welch’s attorney, the
officer said that he did not know with absolute certainty the alcohol
4
The copy of the ordinance contained in the appendix actually lists the
critical alcohol concentration as .10, rather than .08, but the parties, the jury
instructions, and the district court consistently refer to the critical concentration
level as .08.
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concentration in Welch’s blood while he was operating the vehicle
because he had not been there at the time, and that there might have
been some change in the alcohol concentration between the time
Welch was driving and the time the test was taken.
...
“It is common knowledge that a machine or process must
be used to test blood or breath to determine whether a person’s
alcohol concentration exceeds the statutory limit.” State v. Larson ,
12 Kan. App. 2d 198, 202, 737 P.2d 880 (1987). The statutory limit
in this case was .08. The natural effect of the lapse of time between
the operation of the vehicle and the test can be readily understood and
considered by jurors. The jurors could reasonably use the .147 test
results, the other available evidence, and their common sense and
experience to draw sufficient inferences to find Welch guilty of
driving under the influence of alcohol.
City of Pratt v. Welch , No. 78,039, slip op. at 8-9 (Kan. Ct. App. Nov. 6, 1998)
(unpublished). 5
Petitioner’s argument on appeal appears to challenge both the
constitutionality of the ordinance itself and the jury instruction on the basis of the
allegedly impermissible presumption. See Appellant’s Br. at 12 (“[I]t is not
constitutionally permissible for the legislature to mandate or this court to allow
5
We cannot tell from the Kansas Court of Appeals’ decision, or from the
district court’s decision for that matter, whether petitioner explicitly argued in
those courts that the ordinance and instruction created an impermissible
presumption. However, it is clear from the record petitioner raised this issue at
trial, both in moving for a judgment of acquittal and in objecting to the jury
instructions. Respondents have not argued that petitioner failed to exhaust,
procedurally defaulted, or waived this issue, and we therefore consider it likely
that he included it as part of his sufficiency-of-the-evidence arguments in those
courts, as he has on appeal. We therefore will consider it.
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a jury to presume that his breath alcohol concentration at 10:08 p.m. was his BAC
while he operated (9:10 p.m.) the vehicle.”). To the extent he argues that the
ordinance is unconstitutional, we read the Kansas Court of Appeals’ decision as
interpreting both the ordinance and the instruction to allow, but not require, the
jury to draw the inference from the test results that petitioner was intoxicated
while driving. This interpretation avoids petitioner’s constitutional challenge to
the ordinance itself, since he does not argue that any permissive presumption is
also improper. See Mullaney v. Wilbur , 421 U.S. 684, 691 (1975); Lustgarden v.
Gunter , 966 F.2d 552, 553 (10th Cir. 1992); cf. New York v. Ferber , 458 U.S. 747,
769 n.24 (1982) (state court’s interpretation of state statute to avoid constitutional
problem binding on federal courts). We therefore address only his challenge to the
jury instruction. Cf. Sandstrom , 442 U.S. at 516-17 (noting that a state supreme
court is “the final authority on the legal weight to be given a presumption under
[state] law, but it is not the final authority on the interpretation which a jury could
have given the instruction”).
As we indicated, we read the Kansas Court of Appeals’ decision as
construing the instruction to allow a permissive inference or presumption.
Petitioner contends that the instruction created a mandatory conclusive
presumption.
Inferences and presumptions are a staple of our adversary
system of factfinding. It is often necessary for the trier of fact to
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determine the existence of an element of the crime–that is, an
“ultimate” or “elemental” fact–from the existence of one or more
“evidentiary” or “basic” facts. . . . [I]n criminal cases, the ultimate
test of any [presumption’s] constitutional validity in a given case
remains constant: the device must not undermine the factfinder’s
responsibility at trial, based on evidence adduced by the State, to find
the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt.
County Court of Ulster County v. Allen , 442 U.S. 140, 156 (1979) (citations
omitted).
A “permissive presumption” allows, but does not require, the factfinder to
determine the existence of an element of an offense from proof of one or more
basic or evidentiary facts. See id. at 157. In contrast, a mandatory presumption
“tells the trier [of fact] that he or they must find the elemental fact upon proof of
the basic fact, at least unless the defendant has come forward with some evidence
to rebut the presumed connection between the two facts.” Id. “Because [a]
permissive presumption leaves the trier of fact free to credit or reject the inference
and does not shift the burden of proof, it affects the application of the ‘beyond
a reasonable doubt’ standard only if, under the facts of the case, there is no
rational way the trier could make the connection permitted by the inference,” id. ,
an issue petitioner does not raise. Instead, petitioner contends that the instruction
here created a mandatory conclusive presumption because it required the jury to
find that he was intoxicated while driving based on the test results, and therefore
did not merely shift the burden of production, but relieved the prosecution of its
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burden of persuasion on this element of the offense. See Francis , 471 U.S. at 314
(“[Mandatory] presumptions violate the Due Process Clause if they relieve the
State of the burden of persuasion on an element of an offense.”); cf. Ulster County
Court , 442 U.S. at 157 n.16 (explaining difference in effect between mandatory
presumptions that merely shift the burden of production to defendant and those
that entirely shift the burden of proof to defendant).
Whether the instruction created a permissible “permissive” presumption,
as respondents argue and the Kansas court effectively found, or an impermissible
mandatory presumption, as petitioner contends, depends on how the jury
understood the instruction. See Sandstrom, 442 U.S. at 514. The question thus
becomes “‘whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the
challenged instruction in a way’ that violates the Constitution.” Estelle v.
McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 72 (1991) (quoting Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380
(1990)); see also Esquibel v. Rice, 13 F.3d 1430, 1434 (10th Cir. 1994).
We conclude there is not. The instruction clearly told the jury that the
prosecution had to prove that defendant, “ while driving ,” had an alcohol
concentration in his breath above the prescribed limit. The instruction further
provided that the jury could consider test results indicating his alcohol
concentration was above the limit, as long as the test was taken within two hours
of the time of driving. The testing provision is a legislative determination
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regarding the competency of evidence, see State v. Pendleton , 849 P.2d 143, 148
(Kan. Ct. App. 1993), but we do not believe it can be reasonably understood to
require to jury to convict without considering whether petitioner was intoxicated
while driving. Unlike the situation in McLean v. Moran , 963 F.2d 1306, 1308
(9th Cir. 1992), on which petitioner relies, the jury was not instructed to presume
one fact from another, nor even told that it could do so. Rather, the instruction
allowed the jury to infer from the test taken within two hours of when petitioner
was driving what his blood alcohol level was while he was driving. The
instruction thus created a permissive presumption and did not violate petitioner’s
due process rights. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
prosecution, see Foster v. Ward , 182 F.3d 1177, 1194 (10th Cir. 1999), we
conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support petitioner’s conviction.
Petitioner’s request for a certificate of appealability is GRANTED.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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