MITCHELL, WARDEN v. ESPARZA

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Syllabus
MITCHELL, WARDEN v. ESPARZA
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the sixth circuit
No. 02–1369. Decided November 3, 2003
Respondent was sentenced to death for felony murder. On state postcon-
viction review, he argued that he had not been convicted of an offense
for which a death sentence could be imposed because the indictment did
not charge him as a “principal offender” under the relevant Ohio statute.
The Ohio appellate court, however, held that literal compliance with the
statute was not required where, as here, only one defendant is named
in the indictment. That court also rejected respondent’s second state
postconviction petition, which alleged, inter alia, ineffective assistance
of appellate counsel for not arguing that the State’s failure to comply
with its sentencing procedures violated the Eighth Amendment. In
granting respondent’s subsequent federal habeas petition, the District
Court concluded that the state court’s decision was an unreasonable ap-
plication of clearly established federal law. The Sixth Circuit affirmed,
holding that the Eighth Amendment precluded respondent’s death sen-
tence and that harmless-error review was inappropriate.
Held: The Sixth Circuit exceeded the limits imposed on federal habeas
review by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d), which permits federal habeas relief only
if the State’s adjudication on the merits resulted in a decision that was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
lished federal law. This Court’s precedents do not support the Sixth
Circuit’s conclusion that Ohio’s failure to charge respondent as a “princi-
pal” was the functional equivalent to dispensing with the reasonable-
doubt requirement. In noncapital cases, this Court has often held that
the trial court’s failure to instruct a jury on all of the statutory elements
is subject to harmless-error analysis. The Court’s precedents do not
require the opposite result where the violation occurs in a capital sen-
tencing proceeding. Indeed, a number of this Court’s harmless-error
cases have involved capital defendants. Because the Ohio appellate
court’s decision does not conflict with the reasoning or holdings of this
Court’s precedent, it is not contrary to clearly established federal law.
Nor is it an unreasonable application of federal law. Habeas relief is
appropriate only if the state court applied harmless-error review in an
“objectively unreasonable” manner. Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63,
75–77. That is not the case here. The Ohio Supreme Court has de-
fined a principal offender as the actual killer, and the jury instructions

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show that the verdict would surely have been the same had the jury
been instructed to find the respondent a “principal” in the offense.
After all, he was the only person charged in the indictment, and there
was no evidence that anyone else was involved.
Certiorari granted; 310 F. 3d 414, reversed and remanded.
Per Curiam.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the
grant of habeas relief to respondent Gregory Esparza after
concluding that, because the Eighth Amendment requires
the State to narrow the class of death eligible defendants,
the Ohio Court of Appeals had improperly subjected re-
spondent’s claims to harmless-error review. 310 F. 3d 414
(2002). This decision ignores the limits imposed on federal
habeas review by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d), and we therefore
grant the petition for certiorari and reverse.
In February 1983, respondent Esparza entered a store in
Toledo, Ohio, and approached two employees, Melanie Ger-
schultz and James Barailloux. No one else was in the store.
At gunpoint, he ordered Gerschultz to open the cash register.
Barailloux meanwhile fled the store through a rear door, en-
tering the attached home of the storeowner, Evelyn Krieger.
As Barailloux was alerting Krieger to the robbery, he heard
a gunshot. Barailloux and Krieger returned to the store
and found Gerschultz lying on the floor, fatally wounded by
a single gunshot to her neck. The cash register was open
and approximately $110 was missing.
Respondent was charged with aggravated murder during
the commission of an aggravated robbery, Ohio Rev. Code
Ann. § 2903.01 (Anderson 2002), and aggravated robbery,
§ 2911.01. He was convicted on both counts, and the trial
judge accepted the jury’s recommendation that he be sen-
tenced to death for the murder conviction. The trial judge
additionally sentenced respondent to 7 to 25 years’ imprison-
ment for aggravated robbery, plus 3 years for the firearm
specification. The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the convic-

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tions and the sentences. State v. Esparza, 39 Ohio St. 3d 8,
529 N. E. 2d 192 (1988), cert. denied, 490 U. S. 1012 (1989).
On state postconviction review, respondent argued, for the
first time, that he had not been convicted of an offense for
which a death sentence could be imposed under Ohio law.
Although the indictment charged him with aggravated mur-
der in the course of committing aggravated robbery, it did
not charge him as a “principal offender.” 1 The Ohio Court
of Appeals rejected his claim, holding that literal compliance
with the statute was not required: “[W]here only one defend-
ant is named in an indictment alleging felony murder, it
would be redundant to state that the defendant is being
charged as a principal offender. Only where more than one
defendant is named need the indictment specify the allega-
tion ‘principal offender.’ ” State v. Esparza, No. L–90–235,
1992 WL 113827, *9 (May 29, 1992), cause dism’d, 65 Ohio
St. 3d 1453, 602 N. E. 2d 250 (1992).
Respondent then filed a second petition for state postcon-
viction relief alleging, inter alia, ineffective assistance of ap-
pellate counsel because his attorney did not argue that the
State’s failure to comply with its sentencing procedures vio-
lated the Eighth Amendment. The Ohio Court of Appeals
in a conclusory opinion denied his claim, referring back to its
previous decision. State v. Esparza, No. L–84–225, 1994
WL 395114, *5 (July 27, 1994), cause dism’d, 70 Ohio St. 3d
1 Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2929.04(A) (Anderson 2002) provides, in rele-
vant part:
“Imposition of the death penalty for aggravated murder is precluded,
unless one or more of the following is specified in the indictment or count
in the indictment . . . and proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
. . . . .
“(7) The offense was committed while the offender was committing, at-
tempting to commit, or fleeing immediately after committing or attempt-
ing to commit . . . aggravated robbery, . . . and either the offender was the
principal offender in the commission of the aggravated murder or, if not
the principal offender, committed the aggravated murder with prior calcu-
lation and design.”

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1473, 640 N. E. 2d 845 (1994). The import of the court’s deci-
sion was clear: Respondent failed to prove he was prejudiced
because any error committed by counsel was harmless. In
respondent’s words, “The state court . . . determined that
since [respondent] was the only individual charged, the jury
must have determined that [respondent] was the principal
offender.” Brief in Opposition 2.
Having exhausted his avenues for relief under state law,
respondent filed a habeas petition in the District Court for
the Northern District of Ohio. The District Court con-
cluded that the Ohio Court of Appeals’ decision was an un-
reasonable application of clearly established federal law be-
cause it was contrary to our opinions in Apprendi v. New
Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), and Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508
U. S. 275 (1993). In light of this error, as well as others
not relevant to this opinion, the court granted respondent’s
petition in part and issued a writ of habeas corpus as
to the death sentence. Esparza v. Anderson, No. 3:96–
CV–7434 (Oct. 13, 2000), App. to Pet. for Cert. 41a–240a.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court, holding
that the Eighth Amendment precluded respondent’s death
sentence and that harmless-error review was inappropriate.
The State of Ohio petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which
we now grant, along with respondent’s motion for leave to
proceed in forma pauperis.
A federal court may grant a state habeas petitioner relief
for a claim that was adjudicated on the merits in state court
only if that adjudication “resulted in a decision that was con-
trary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme
Court of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1). The
Court of Appeals, however, failed to cite, much less apply,
this section.
A state court’s decision is “contrary to” our clearly estab-
lished law if it “applies a rule that contradicts the governing
law set forth in our cases” or if it “confronts a set of facts

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that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of this
Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from our
precedent.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 405–406
(2000); see also Price v. Vincent, 538 U. S. 634, 640 (2003);
Early v. Packer, 537 U. S. 3, 7–8 (2002) (per curiam). A
state court’s decision is not “contrary to . . . clearly estab-
lished Federal law” simply because the court did not cite our
opinions. Id., at 8. We have held that a state court need
not even be aware of our precedents, “so long as neither the
reasoning nor the result of the state-court decision contra-
dicts them.” Ibid.
According to the Sixth Circuit, Ohio’s failure to charge in
the indictment that respondent was a “principal” was the
functional equivalent of “dispensing with the reasonable
doubt requirement.” 310 F. 3d, at 421 (citing Sullivan v.
Louisiana, supra, at 280). Our precedents, however, do not
support its conclusion. In noncapital cases, we have often
held that the trial court’s failure to instruct a jury on all of
the statutory elements of an offense is subject to harmless-
error analysis. E. g., Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 19
(1999); California v. Roy, 519 U. S. 2 (1996) (per curiam);
Carella v. California, 491 U. S. 263, 266 (1989) (per curiam);
Pope v. Illinois, 481 U. S. 497 (1987). In Neder, for example,
we held that such an error “differs markedly from the consti-
tutional violations we have found to defy harmless-error re-
view.” 527 U. S., at 8. In so holding, we explicitly distin-
guished Sullivan because the error in Sullivan—the failure
to instruct the jury that the State must prove the elements
of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt—“ ‘vitiat[ed] all the
jury’s findings,’ ” 527 U. S., at 11, whereas the trial court’s
failure to instruct the jury on one element of an offense did
not, see id., at 13–15. Where the jury was precluded from
determining only one element of an offense, we held that
harmless-error review is feasible. Ibid.
We cannot say that because the violation occurred in the
context of a capital sentencing proceeding that our precedent

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requires the opposite result. Indeed, a number of our
harmless-error cases have involved capital defendants,2 Ari-
zona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279, 310 (1991) (unconstitu-
tional admission of coerced confession at guilt stage); Clem-
ons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738 (1990) (unconstitutionally
broad jury instructions at sentencing stage); Satterwhite v.
Texas, 486 U. S. 249 (1988) (unconstitutional admission of evi-
dence at sentencing stage), and we left a question similar to
the one presented here open in another capital case, Ring v.
Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 609, n. 7 (2002) (“We do not reach
the State’s assertion that any error was harmless because
a pecuniary gain finding was implicit in the jury’s guilty
verdict”).
In relying on the absence of precedent to distinguish our
noncapital cases, and to hold that harmless-error review is
not available for this type of Eighth Amendment claim, the
Sixth Circuit exceeded its authority under § 2254(d)(1). A
federal court may not overrule a state court for simply hold-
ing a view different from its own, when the precedent from
this Court is, at best, ambiguous. As the Ohio Court of Ap-
peals’ decision does not conflict with the reasoning or the
holdings of our precedent, it is not “contrary to . . . clearly
established Federal law.”
The question then becomes whether the Ohio Court of
Appeals’ determination is an “unreasonable application
of clearly established Federal law.” § 2254(d)(1) (empha-
sis added; punctuation omitted). A constitutional error is
harmless when “it appears ‘beyond a reasonable doubt that
2 The Sixth Circuit cited Presnell v. Georgia, 439 U. S. 14 (1978) (per
curiam), a due process case, noting that rather than remand for a
harmless-error analysis, we simply reversed. In Presnell, we held that
the Georgia Supreme Court violated due process when it sustained a death
sentence because the sentence was supported by the evidence, even
though the defendant was unaware of the charge and the issue was never
submitted to a jury. Presnell, however, relied on the defendant’s lack of
notice and his inability to defend himself, not a faulty indictment or an
incomplete jury instruction.

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the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict
obtained.’ ” Neder, supra, at 15 (quoting Chapman v. Cal-
ifornia, 386 U. S. 18, 24 (1967)); see also Delaware v. Van
Arsdall, 475 U. S. 673, 681 (1986). We may not grant re-
spondent’s habeas petition, however, if the state court simply
erred in concluding that the State’s errors were harmless;
rather, habeas relief is appropriate only if the Ohio Court
of Appeals applied harmless-error review in an “objectively
unreasonable” manner. Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U. S. 63,
75–77 (2003); see also Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U. S. 19, 25
(2002) (per curiam); Williams, supra, at 410 (An “unreason-
able application of federal law is different from an incorrect
application of federal law”).
The Ohio Court of Appeals’ conclusion was hardly objec-
tively unreasonable. The Ohio Supreme Court has defined
a “ ‘principal offender’ ” as “ ‘the actual killer,’ ” State v.
Chinn, 85 Ohio St. 3d 548, 559, 709 N. E. 2d 1166, 1177 (1999),
and in this case, the jury was instructed on the elements of
aggravated murder, “ ‘defined as purposely causing the death
of another while committing Aggravated Robbery,’ ” 310
F. 3d, at 432 (Suhrheinrich, J., dissenting). The trial judge
further instructed the jury that it must determine “ ‘whether
the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the
offense of Aggravated Murder was committed while the De-
fendant was committing Aggravated Robbery.’ ” Ibid. In
light of these instructions, the jury verdict would surely
have been the same had it been instructed to find as well
that the respondent was a “principal” in the offense. After
all, he was the only defendant charged in the indictment.
There was no evidence presented that anyone other than re-
spondent was involved in the crime or present at the store.3
3 The Court of Appeals noted evidence brought to light for the first time
in the habeas proceeding in the District Court that suggested there might
have been another participant in the crime, Joe Jasso. The jury, however,
was not presented with this evidence at trial, and thus it has no bearing
on the correctness of the Ohio Court of Appeals’ decision that the State

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Cf. Neder, 527 U. S., at 19 (“[W]here a defendant did not, and
apparently could not, bring forth facts contesting the omitted
element, answering the question whether the jury verdict
would have been the same absent the error does not funda-
mentally undermine the purposes of the jury trial guaran-
tee”). Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the
state court’s conclusion that respondent was convicted of a
capital offense was objectively unreasonable. That being
the case, we may not set aside its decision on habeas review.4
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
need not charge a defendant as a principal offender if the failure to so
charge is harmless error.
4 Our decision, like the Court of Appeals’, is limited to the issue pre-
sented here. We express no view whether habeas relief would be avail-
able to respondent on other grounds.