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ANTHONY HEDGPETH v. MICHAEL ROBERT PULIDO

On appeal from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Who is who?

Mr. Hedgpeth is Mr. Pulido's warden.

What is this case about?

Mr. Pulido was convicted of murder by a jury. But, the jury instructions were flawed. Thus, he is appealing the jury verdict for the opportunity to have a new trial.

How did Mr. Pulido make it to the Supreme Court?

When the trial court instructed the jury in this case, it told the jury that it could convict Mr. Pulido of murder either of two ways: If Mr. Pulido formed the intent to help the murderer commit the crime before the murder, or if Mr. Pulido formed the intent to help the murderer during or after the murderer committed the crime. Mind you, if the jury instructions had been actually written this clearly, the trial court would not have made the mistake it made in this case.

"Felony murder" is crime that happens when a death occurs during the commission of a felony even if an accomplice in the felony is the one who actually committed the homicide. Felony murder requires that the defendant intend to assist in the felony before the death. Basically, to commit felony murder, the defendant must intend to participate in a felony before the death that occurs during the felony. Helping a murderer dispose of a dead body or driving a getaway car for a robbery doesn't count as felony murder unless the defendant meant to help the murderer before the murderer killed someone.

Mr. Pulido's defense at trial was that he didn't intend to help in a robbery or murder when his uncle killed a gas station attendant. He heard the gunshots in the store, and that was the first time he realized that a robbery was happening. Then he helped his uncle open the register after he entered the store and discovered that his uncle had killed to gas station attendant.

So the jury instructions were wrong - Mr. Pulido could have been convicted for felony murder because the jury was told they could find him guilty even if he helped the murderer after the murder happened. And this jury found him guilty.

After his conviction Mr. Pulido appealed the decision.

What did the appellate courts say?

The state courts recognized part of the flaw in the jury instructions. But, the state courts concluded that because the jury's verdict forms were written correctly, the jury was not effected by those flaws. When the appeal to the federal district court began, the district court recognized that the verdict forms were dependant on another jury instruction that allowed the jury to reach the wrong conclusion in the jury verdict forms. The District Court remanded the case to California for a new trial.

At this point Mr. Pulido stopped appealing. He won. Now the state took a turn at appealing the case.

First, the state appealed to the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the District Court. The state appealed to the Supreme Court.

Who won?

The State won a remand to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 7-3 for reversal, with Justice Stevens writing a dissent that Justices Ginsberg and Souter joined.

Who wrote the opinion?

The opinion is per curium. Ordinary reserved for uncontroversial decisions, no author for the opinion is identified in a per curium decision. In this instance, there was a dissent.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The Court decided that the Ninth Circuit used the wrong analysis in deciding the case.

The due process clause of the 14th Amendment forbids the sort of trial error that occurred in this case. If the jury is given the wrong instruction and the accused is convicted, then that violates the Constitution. But just because the constitution is violated does not mean that every error requires a new trial. Small errors, or errors that did not effect the outcome of the case, are considered harmless. Convictions based on harmless constitutional errors are not reversed. An appeals court must consider whether a mistake is a "harmless error" when it decides the case.

The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit did not analyze whether the trial court's jury instructions were harmless error. It seems the Ninth Circuit had begun to rely on an older Supreme Court precedent that held that "structural errors" were not subject to the harmless-error review. Thus, the Supreme Court sent the case back the Ninth Circuit to have them rewrite the decision. This time the Ninth Circuit will decide if the jury instruction was a harmless error.

What is dissent complaining about?

Justice Stevens doesn't think the Ninth Circuit made a mistake at all. He reads the opinion from the Ninth Circuit as doing a harmless error analysis that it called a "structural error" analysis. To him, there is no reason to reverse - the Ninth Circuit already did the right analysis.

What's the life lesson?

Names are important. The main disagreement between the dissent and the majority opinion is simply that the majority believes the Ninth Circuit called it "structural error" so that the appeals court conducted a different analysis. The dissent claims that the appeals court actually did the right analysis, the circuit court merely used the wrong name.

So what would have happened if the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had called their analysis a "harmless error" analysis? The Supreme Court might not have taken the case. Unless the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did it wrong.