Hedgepath v. Pulido
Pulido is a rather un-exciting decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that was released yesterday. Essentially, "a conviction based on a general verdict is subject to challenge if the jury was instructed on alternative theories of guilt and may have relied on an invalid one." However, the error is not structural error, and it is subject to harmless error analysis.
Pulido was convicted in California of felony murder. The jury instructions permitted the jury to find him guilty of felony murder if he formed the intent to aid and abet the underlying felony 1) before the murder (appropriate jury instruction); or 2) after the murder (incorrect jury instruction). The California Supreme Court upheld the verdict, but the federal district court granted habeas relief because there was no way to determine which theory the jury relied on in finding guilt, and after finding that "instructing the jury on the invalid theory had a 'substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.'"
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, calling it a structural error, and yet engaging in harmless error analysis. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed, because structural error is error that "defies analysis by harmless-error standards . . . because the consequences are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate that automatic reversal is required when such errors occur." (dissenting opinion). The issue at hand, where the jury instructions contain alternative theories of guilt, one of which is incorrect, is subject to harmless error analysis and therefore is not structural.
The way that I read Pulido, everyone agreed in the end. Pulido agreed with the State that the Court of Appeals was incorrect in calling the error structural error, but maintained that it was not harmless error. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Pulido and the State, reversed because it was called "structural error," and remanded for a finding of whether there was harmless error. The dissent agreed with the majority opinion that it was not structural error, but thought that it was silly to remand the case based on misuse of the term "structural error," because all of the courts beneath had already engaged in a harmless error analysis and found that the error was not harmless. Therefore, the case is being remanded for a repeat of the same analysis that has already been done, likely with the same result, but this time they must leave out the words "structural error."
