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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES
No.
04—637
MARGARET BRADSHAW, WARDEN, PETITIONER
v. JOHN DAVID STUMPF
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES
COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[June 13, 2005]
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns respondent John
David Stumpf’s conviction and
death sentence for the murder of Mary Jane Stout. In
adjudicating Stumpf’s
petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the United States Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted him relief on two
grounds: that his guilty plea was not knowing, voluntary, and
intelligent, and that his conviction and sentence could not
stand because the State, in a later trial of Stumpf’s accomplice, pursued a theory
of the case inconsistent with the theory it had advanced in
Stumpf’s case. We granted
certiorari to review both holdings. 543 U.S. ___ (2005).
I
On May 14, 1984, Stumpf and two other
men, Clyde Daniel Wesley and Norman Leroy Edmonds, were
traveling in Edmonds’ car along Interstate 70 through
Guernsey County, Ohio. Needing money for gas, the men stopped
the car along the highway. While Edmonds waited in the car,
Stumpf and Wesley walked to the home of Norman and Mary Jane
Stout, about 100 yards away. Stumpf and Wesley, each
concealing a gun, talked their way into the home by telling the
Stouts they needed to use the phone. Their real object,
however, was robbery: Once inside, Stumpf held the Stouts at
gunpoint, while Wesley ransacked the house. When Mr. Stout
moved toward Stumpf, Stumpf shot him twice in the head, causing
Mr. Stout to black out. After he regained consciousness, Mr.
Stout heard two male voices coming from another room, and then
four gunshots–the shots that killed his wife. Edmonds was
arrested shortly afterward, and his statements led the police
to issue arrest warrants for Stumpf and Wesley. Stumpf, who
surrendered to the police, at first denied any knowledge of the
crimes. After he was told that Mr. Stout had survived,
however, Stumpf admitted to participating in the robbery and to
shooting Mr. Stumpf. But he claimed not to have shot Mrs.
Stout, and he has maintained that position ever since.
The proceedings against Stumpf occurred
while Wesley, who had been arrested in Texas, was still
resisting extradition to Ohio. Stumpf was indicted for
aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, aggravated
robbery, and two counts of grand theft. With respect to the
aggravated murder charge, the indictment listed four statutory
“specifications”–three of them aggravating
circumstances making Stumpf eligible for the death penalty.
See App. 117—118; Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2929.03
(Anderson 1982).** The case was assigned to a
three-judge panel in the Court of Common Pleas.
Rather than proceed to trial,
however, Stumpf and the State worked out a plea agreement:
Stumpf would plead guilty to aggravated murder and attempted
aggravated murder, and the State would drop most of the other
charges; with respect to the aggravated murder charge, Stumpf
would plead guilty to one of the three capital specifications,
with the State dropping the other two. The plea was accepted
after a colloquy with the presiding judge, and after a hearing
in which the panel satisfied itself as to the factual basis for
the plea.
Because the capital specification to
which Stumpf pleaded guilty left him eligible for the death
penalty, a contested penalty hearing was held before the same
three-judge panel. Stumpf’s
mitigation case was based in part on his difficult childhood,
limited education, dependable work history, youth, and lack of
prior serious offenses. Stumpf’s principal argument, however, was that he had
participated in the plot only at the urging and under the
influence of Wesley, that it was Wesley who had fired the fatal
shots at Mrs. Stout, and that Stumpf’s assertedly minor role in the murder counseled
against the death sentence. See §2929.04(B)(6) (directing
the sentencer to consider as a potential mitigating
circumstance, “[i]f the offender was a participant in the
offense but not the principal offender, the degree of the
offender’s participation in the offense”). The
State, on the other hand, argued that Stumpf had indeed shot
Mrs. Stout. Still, while the prosecutor claimed Stumpf’s allegedly primary role in the
shooting as a special reason to reject Stumpf’s mitigation argument, the
prosecutor also noted that Ohio law did not restrict the death
penalty to those who commit murder by their own hands–an
accomplice to murder could also receive the death penalty, so
long as he acted with the specific intent to cause death. As a
result, the State argued, Stumpf deserved death even if he had
not personally shot Mrs. Stout, because the circumstances of
the robbery provided a basis from which to infer Stumpf’s intent to cause death. The
three-judge panel, agreeing with the State’s first
contention, specifically found that Stumpf “was the
principal offender” in the aggravated murder of Mrs.
Stout. App. 196. Determining that the aggravating factors in
Stumpf’s case outweighed any
mitigating factors, the panel sentenced Stumpf to death.
Afterward, Wesley was successfully
extradited to Ohio to stand trial. His case was tried to a
jury, before the same judge who had presided over the panel
overseeing Stumpf’s
proceedings, and with the same prosecutor. This time, however,
the prosecutor had new evidence: James Eastman, Wesley’s
cellmate after his extradition, testified that Wesley
had admitted to firing the shots that killed Mrs. Stout. The
prosecutor introduced Eastman’s testimony in Wesley’s
trial, and in his closing argument he argued for Wesley’s
credibility and lack of motive to lie. The prosecutor claimed
that Eastman’s testimony, combined with certain
circumstantial evidence and with the implausibility of
Wesley’s own account of events, proved that Wesley was the
principal offender in Mrs. Stout’s murder–and that
Wesley therefore deserved to be put to death. One way Wesley
countered this argument was by noting that the prosecutor had
taken a contrary position in Stumpf’s trial, and that Stumpf had already been
sentenced to death for the crime. Wesley also took the stand
in his own defense, and testified that Stumpf had shot Mrs.
Stout. In the end, the jury sentenced Wesley to life
imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
After the Wesley trial, Stumpf, whose
direct appeal was still pending in the Ohio Court of Appeals,
returned to the Court of Common Pleas with a motion to withdraw
his guilty plea or vacate his death sentence. Stumpf argued
that Eastman’s testimony, and the prosecution’s
endorsement of that testimony in Wesley’s trial, cast
doubt upon Stumpf’s
conviction and sentence. The State (represented again by the
same prosecutor who had tried both Wesley’s case and
Stumpf’s original case)
disagreed. According to the prosecutor, the court’s first
task was to decide whether the Eastman testimony was sufficient
to alter the court’s prior determination that Stumpf had
been the shooter. Id., at 210. Contrary to the
argument he had presented in the Wesley trial, however, the
prosecutor now noted that Eastman’s testimony was belied
by certain other evidence (ballistics evidence and
Wesley’s testimony in his own defense) confirming Stumpf
to have been the primary shooter. In the alternative, the
State noted as it had before that an aider-and-abettor theory
might allow the death sentence to be imposed against Stumpf
even if he had not shot Mrs. Stout.
Although one judge speculated during
oral argument that the court’s earlier conclusion about
Stumpf’s principal role in
the killing “may very well have had an effect upon”
the prior sentencing determination, ibid., the Court of
Common Pleas denied Stumpf’s
motion in a brief summary order without explanation. That
order was appealed together with the original judgment in
Stumpf’s case, and the Ohio
Court of Appeals affirmed, as did the Ohio Supreme Court.
State v. Stumpf, 32 Ohio St. 3d 95, 512
N. E. 2d 598 (1987), cert. denied,484 U.S. 1079
(1988).
After a subsequent request for state
postconviction relief was denied by the state courts, Stumpf
filed this federal habeas petition in the United States
District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in November
1995. The District Court denied Stumpf relief, but granted
permission to appeal on four claims, including the two at issue
here. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
reversed, concluding that habeas relief was warranted on
“either or both” of “two alternative
grounds.” Stumpf v. Mitchell, 367 F.3d 594,
596 (2004). First, the court determined that Stumpf’s guilty plea was invalid
because it had not been entered knowingly and intelligently.
More precisely, the court concluded that Stumpf had pleaded
guilty to aggravated murder without understanding that specific
intent to cause death was a necessary element of the charge
under Ohio law. See Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§2903.01(B)
and (D). Noting that Stumpf had all along denied shooting Mrs.
Stout, and considering those denials inconsistent with an
informed choice to plead guilty to aggravated murder, the Court
of Appeals concluded that Stumpf must have entered his plea out
of ignorance. Second, the court concluded that “Stumpf’s due process rights were
violated by the state’s deliberate action in securing
convictions of both Stumpf and Wesley for the same crime, using
inconsistent theories.” 367 F.3d, at 596. This
violation, the court held, required setting aside “both
Stumpf’s plea and his
sentence.” Id., at 616.One member of the
panel dissented.
II
Because Stumpf filed his habeas
petition before enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), we review his claims under
the standards of the pre-AEDPA habeas statute. See
Lindh v. Murphy,521 U.S. 320 (1997).
Moreover, because petitioner has not argued that Stumpf’s habeas claims were barred as
requiring announcement of a new rule, we do not apply the rule
of Teague v. Lane,489 U.S. 288 (1989),
to this case. See Schiro v. Farley,510 U.S. 222, 229
(1994); Godinez v. Moran,509 U.S. 389, 397, n.
8 (1993).
A
The Court of Appeals concluded that
Stumpf’s plea of guilty to
aggravated murder was invalid because he was not aware of the
specific intent element of the charge–a determination we
find unsupportable.
Stumpf’s guilty plea would indeed be invalid if he had
not been aware of the nature of the charges against him,
including the elements of the aggravated murder charge to which
he pleaded guilty. A guilty plea operates as a waiver of
important rights, and is valid only if done voluntarily,
knowingly, and intelligently, “with sufficient awareness
of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.”
Brady v. United States,397 U.S. 742, 748
(1970). Where a defendant pleads guilty to a crime without
having been informed of the crime’s elements, this
standard is not met and the plea is invalid. Henderson
v. Morgan,426
U.S. 637 (1976).
But the Court of Appeals erred in
finding that Stumpf had not been properly informed before
pleading guilty. In Stumpf’s
plea hearing, his attorneys represented on the record that they
had explained to their client the elements of the aggravated
murder charge; Stumpf himself then confirmed that this
representation was true. See App. 135, 137—138. While
the court taking a defendant’s plea is responsible for
ensuring “a record adequate for any review that may be
later sought,” Boykin v. Alabama,395 U.S. 238, 244
(1969), we have never held that the judge must himself explain
the elements of each charge to the defendant on the record.
Rather, the constitutional prerequisites of a valid plea may be
satisfied where the record accurately reflects that the nature
of the charge and the elements of the crime were explained to
the defendant by his own, competent counsel. Cf.
Henderson, supra, at 647 (granting relief to a
defendant unaware of the elements of his crime, but
distinguishing that case from others where “the record
contains either an explanation of the charge by the trial
judge, or at least a representation by defense counsel that the
nature of the offense has been explained to the accused”).
Where a defendant is represented by competent counsel, the
court usually may rely on that counsel’s assurance that
the defendant has been properly informed of the nature and
elements of the charge to which he is pleading guilty.
Seeking to counter this natural
inference, Stumpf argues, in essence, that his choice to plead
guilty to the aggravated murder charge was so inconsistent with
his denial of having shot the victim that he could only have
pleaded guilty out of ignorance of the charge’s specific
intent requirement. But Stumpf’s asserted inconsistency is illusory. The
aggravated murder charge’s intent element did not require
any showing that Stumpf had himself shot Mrs. Stout. Rather,
Ohio law considers aiders and abettors equally in violation of
the aggravated murder statute, so long as the aiding and
abetting is done with the specific intent to cause death. See
In re Washington, 81 Ohio St. 3d 337, 691
N. E. 2d 285 (1998); State v. Scott, 61 Ohio
St. 2d 155, 165, 400 N. E. 2d 375, 382 (1980). As a
result, Stumpf’s steadfast
assertion that he had not shot Mrs. Stout would not necessarily
have precluded him from admitting his specific intent under the
statute.
That is particularly so given the
other evidence in this case. Stumpf and Wesley had gone to the
Stouts’ home together, carrying guns and intending to
commit armed robbery. Stumpf, by his own admission, shot
Mr. Stout in the head at close range. Taken together,
these facts could show that Wesley and Stumpf had together
agreed to kill both of the Stouts in order to leave no
witnesses to the crime. And that, in turn, could make both men
guilty of aggravated murder regardless of who actually killed
Mrs. Stout. See ibid., at 165, 400 N. E. 2d, at
382.
Stumpf also points to aspects of the
plea hearing transcript which he says show that both he and his
attorneys were confused about the relevance and timing of
defenses Stumpf and his attorneys had planned to make. First,
at one point during the hearing, the presiding judge stated
that by pleading guilty Stumpf would waive his trial rights and
his right to testify in his own behalf. Stumpf’s attorney answered that Stumpf
“was going to respond but we have informed him that there
is, after the plea, a hearing or trial relative to the
underlying facts so that he is of the belief that there will be
a presentation of evidence.” App. 140. The presiding
judge responded that “[o]f course in the sentencing
portion of this trial you do have those rights to speak in your
own behalf [and] to present evidence and testimony on your own
behalf.” Ibid. A few moments later, there was
another exchange along similar lines, after the judge asked
Stumpf whether he was “in fact guilty of” the
aggravated murder charge and its capital specification:
“[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: … Your Honor, the defendant has
asked me to explain his answer. His answer is yes. He will
recite that with obviously his understanding of his right to
present evidence at a later time relative to his conduct, but
he’ll respond to that.
“JUDGE HENDERSON: At no time am I implying that the
defendant will not have the right to present evidence in [the]
mitigation hearing … . And I’m going to
ask that the defendant, himself, respond to the question that I
asked with that understanding that he has the right to present
evidence in mitigation. I’m going to ask the defendant if
he is in fact guilty of the charge set forth in Count one,
including specification one … ?
“THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.” Id., at 142.
Reviewing this exchange, the Court of Appeals concluded that
Stumpf “obviously … was reiterating his desire to
challenge the [S]tate’s account of his
actions”–that is, to show that he did not intend to
kill Mrs. Stout. 367 F.3d, at 607. But the desire to contest
the State’s version of events would not necessarily entail
the desire to contest the aggravated murder charge or any of
its elements. Rather, Stumpf’s desire to put on evidence “relative to the
underlying facts” and “relative to his conduct”
could equally have meant that Stumpf was eager to make his
mitigation case–an interpretation bolstered by the
attorney’s and Stumpf’s
approving answers after the presiding judge confirmed that the
defense could put on evidence “in mitigation” and in
“the sentencing” phase. While Stumpf’s mitigation case was premised
on the argument that Stumpf had not shot Mrs. Stout, that was
fully consistent with his plea of guilty to aggravated murder.
See supra, at 7—8.
Finally, Stumpf, like the Court of
Appeals, relies on the perception that he obtained a bad
bargain by his plea–that the State’s dropping several
non-murder charges and two of the three capital murder
specifications was a bad tradeoff for Stumpf’s guilty plea. But a
plea’s validity may not be collaterally attacked merely
because the defendant made what turned out, in retrospect, to
be a poor deal. See Brady, 397 U.S., at 757;
Mabry v. Johnson,467 U.S. 504, 508
(1984). Rather, the shortcomings of the deal Stumpf obtained
cast doubt on the validity of his plea only if they show either
that he made the unfavorable plea on the constitutionally
defective advice of counsel, see Tollett v.
Henderson,411
U.S. 258, 267 (1973), or that he could not have understood
the terms of the bargain he and Ohio agreed to. Though Stumpf
did bring an independent claim asserting ineffective assistance
of counsel, that claim is not before us in this case. And in
evaluating the validity of Stumpf’s plea, we are reluctant to accord much weight to
his post hoc reevaluation of the wisdom of the bargain.
Stumpf pleaded guilty knowing that the State had copious
evidence against him, including the testimony of Mr. Stout; the
plea eliminated two of the three capital specifications the
State could rely on in seeking the death penalty; and the plea
allowed Stumpf to assert his acceptance of responsibility as an
argument in mitigation. Under these circumstances, the plea
may well have been a knowing, voluntary, and intelligent
reaction to a litigation situation that was difficult, to say
the least. The Court of Appeals erred in concluding that
Stumpf was uninformed about the nature of the charge he pleaded
guilty to, and we reverse that portion of the judgment
below.
B
The Court of Appeals was also wrong to
hold that prosecutorial inconsistencies between the Stumpf and
Wesley cases required voiding Stumpf’s guilty plea. Stumpf’s assertions of inconsistency relate entirely to
the prosecutor’s arguments about which of the two men,
Wesley or Stumpf, shot Mrs. Stout. For the reasons given
above, see supra, at 7—8, the precise identity of
the triggerman was immaterial to Stumpf’s conviction for aggravated murder. Moreover,
Stumpf has never provided an explanation of how the
prosecution’s postplea use of inconsistent arguments could
have affected the knowing, voluntary, and intelligent nature of
his plea.
The prosecutor’s use of allegedly
inconsistent theories may have a more direct effect on
Stumpf’s sentence, however,
for it is at least arguable that the sentencing panel’s
conclusion about Stumpf’s
principal role in the offense was material to its sentencing
determination. The opinion below leaves some ambiguity as to
the overlap between how the lower court resolved Stumpf’s due process challenge to his
conviction, and how it resolved Stumpf’s challenge to his sentence. It is not clear
whether the Court of Appeals would have concluded that Stumpf
was entitled to resentencing had the court not also considered
the conviction invalid. Likewise, the parties’ briefing
to this Court, and the question on which we granted certiorari,
largely focused on the lower court’s determination about
Stumpf’s conviction. See,
e.g., Pet. for Cert. ii (requesting review of Stumpf’s conviction, not
sentence); Reply Brief for Petitioner 3 (challenge to Court of
Appeals’ decision is focused on issue of conviction);
Brief for Respondent 15, n. 3 (“arguments regarding
Stumpf’s death sentence are
not before this Court”). In these circumstances, it would
be premature for this Court to resolve the merits of Stumpf’s sentencing claim, and we
therefore express no opinion on whether the prosecutor’s
actions amounted to a due process violation, or whether any
such violation would have been prejudicial. The Court of
Appeals should have the opportunity to consider, in the first
instance, the question of how Eastman’s testimony and the
prosecutor’s conduct in the Stumpf and Wesley cases relate
to Stumpf’s death sentence in
particular. Accordingly, we vacate the portion of the judgment
below relating to Stumpf’s
prosecutorial inconsistency claim, and we remand the case for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Notes
*. * Unless otherwise noted, all citations
to Ohio statutes refer to the versions of those statutes in
effect in 1984, at the time of the crime and trial.
