Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-86-01400/USCOURTS-ca10-86-01400-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 535
Nature of Suit: Habeas Corpus - Death Penalty
Cause of Action: 

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PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

ROBYN LEROY PARKS, ) 

) 

Petitioner-Appellant, ) 

) 

FI I.JED 

United Stotea Court of Appeals 

'fenth Circuit 

OCT 2 S 1988 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

V • ) No. 86-1400 

) 

JOHN N. BROWN, Warden, ) 

Oklahoma State Penitentiary, ) 

McAlester, Oklahoma; ) 

LARRY MEACHUM, Superintendent, ) 

Oklahoma Department of Corrections; ) 

and MICHAEL c.· TURPEN, Attorney ) 

General of Oklahoma, ) 

) 

Respondents-Appellees. ) 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Oklahoma 

(D.C. No. CIV-84-1618-T) 

ON REHEARING EN BANC 

Vivian Berger, New York, New York (Lewis Barber, Jr., Oklahoma 

City, Oklahoma, with her on the brief), for Petitioner-Appellant. 

Robert A. Nance, Assistant Attorney General, Deputy Chief, Federal 

Division (Robert H. Henry, Attorney General of Oklahoma, with him 

on the brief), Oklahom~ City, Oklahoma, for Respondents-Appellees. 

Before HOLLOWAY, MCKAY, LOGAN, SEYMOUR, MOORE, ANDERSON, TACHA, 

BALDOCK, BRORBY, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

EBEL, Circuit Judge, delivers the opinion and judgment for the 

Court, in which LOGAN, MOORE, ANDERSON, TACHA, BALDOCK, and 

BRORBY, Circuit Judges, join as to Part I, and HOLLOWAY, Chief 

Judge, and MCKAY, LOGAN, SEYMOUR, and MOORE, Circuit Judges, join 

as to Part II. 

Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 1 
In 1978, an Oklahoma jury convicted petitioner-appellant, 

Robyn Leroy Parks, of first-degree murder and, after further 

hearing, sentenced him to death. After exhausting his state 

remedies, he sought and was denied habeas corpus relief in the 

United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. 

He then appealed to this court, and a divided panel affirmed the 

district court. We agreed to a rehearing en bane on two of 

petitioner's arguments, and we now reverse his death sentence. 

At petitioner's trial, the state established the following. 

Abdullah Ibrahim, a native of Bangladesh, worked part-time at a 

gas station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On the morning of August 

17, 1977, a motorist stopped at the gas station and found Ibrahim 

dead inside the station booth. Ibrahim died from a single gunshot 

wound in the chest from a .45-caliber pistol. The police found an 

unused gas credit card slip in the booth, with the license number 

''XZ~5710" written on it. The police traced this number to an 

automobile in which Parks had an interest. 

An informant told police that Parks was involved in the 

murder and gave police an address at which Parks might be found. 

Although the police did not find Parks at that address, they found 

a car in the vicinity of the address with the license number ''XZ5710.'' Inside the car they found a prescription-drug bottle with 

Parks' name on it, a belt with the initials "R.L.P.,'' and eight 

.45-caliber bullets. 

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The police then talked with Parks' former roommate, James R. 

Clegg, Jr. After being offered a reward, Clegg allowed police to 

tape record two telephone conversations that he had with Parks, 

who was then in California. During the first conversation, Parks 

admitted to shooting the gas station attendant. Parks told Clegg 

that after he saw the attendant come out of the station booth and 

look at his license plate number, he was afraid that the attendant 

would call the police because he was using a stolen credit card to 

pay for the gas. He said that he was concerned about being 

stopped by.the police because he had guns and dynamite in his car. 

During the second conversation, Parks told Clegg where he had· 

hidden the murder weapon. At that location, police found a 

.45-caliber pistol and ammunition. 

In the District Court of Oklahoma County, a jury found Parks 

guilty of the first-degree murder of Ibrahim. After further 

hearing, the same jury sentenced him to death. The jury found 

only one of the three statutory aggravating circumstances that .. 

were charged -- that the murder was "committed for the purpose of 

avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest or prosecution." See 21 

Okla. Stat. § 701.12. 1 Parks' conviction and sentence were 

affirmed on direct appeal by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal 

Appeals. Parks v. State, 651 P.2d 686 (Okla. Crim. App. 1982). 

1 The sentencing jury rejected the other two aggravating factors 

alleged by the state: that defendant would probably commit crimes 

in the future, thus posing "a .continuing threat to society,'' and 

that the murder w~s "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.'' 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 3 
The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. Parks v. 

Oklahoma, 459 U.S. 1155 (1983)~ 

Parks subsequently sought post-conviction relief in the state 

courts of Oklahoma. The state district court denied relief, and 

the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed in an unreported 

order and opinion. The United States Supreme Court again denied 

certiorari. Parks v. Oklahoma, 467 U.S. 1210 (1984), 

Parks then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 

the United States District Court for the Western District of 

Oklahoma •. The district court denied relief, and Parks appealed to 

this court. A divided panel affirmed the district court's denial 

of habeas relief. Parks v. Brown, 840 F.2d 1496 (10th Cir. 1987). 

This court agreed to a rehearing en bane, and we now reverse. 

·This rehearing focuses upon two basic issues, both arising 

from the penalty phase of petitioner's trial: (1) Whether the 

prosecutor's summation in the penalty phase concerning juror 

responsibility diverted the jury from considering the full extent 

of its responsibility for determining the life or death sentence, 

in violation of Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985); 

(2)[a] Whether the penalty phase instruction "You must avoid any 

influence of sympathy, sentiment, passion, prejudice or other 

arbitrary factor when imposing sentence," influenced the jury 

improperly to discount mitigating evidence presented by the 

defendant; and (2)[b] Whether the combination of the prosecutor's 

comments concerning the above instruction and the instruction 

itself, and the absence of any corrective instruction after the 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 4 
arguments, influenced the jury improperly to discount mitigating 

evidence presented by the defendant? 2 

As to the first issue, we hold that the prosecutor's remarks 

did not violate Caldwell by improperly reducing the jury's sense 

of its responsibility for the sentencing decision. Therefore, we 

affirm the district court on that issue. With respect to the 

second issue, we hold that the anti-sympathy portion of the jury 

instructions, even when viewed independently from the prosecutor's 

anti-sympathy remarks, viqlated the petitioner's eighth amendment 

rights by qreating an impermissible risk of influencing the jury 

to discount mitigating evidence presented by him. Because we find 

the anti-sympathy instruction to be unconstitutional, we reverse 

the district court to the extent that it upheld the 

constitutionality of the death sentence in this case, and we 

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

We begin our analysis of petitioner's claims by noting the 

special nature of the death penalty. Because of its severity and 

irreversibility, the death sentence is the "ultimate restraint." 

2 Although petitioner's trial counsel did not raise these issues 

as objections at trial, we nevertheless may consider them because 

the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed them on direct 

appeal. See Parks v. State, 651 P.2d 686, 693 (Okla. Crim. App. 

1982). "li"a state court has reached the merits of a claim, a 

federal habeas court may do the same despite the existence of a 

state procedural bar." Andrews v. Shulsen, 802 F.2d 1256, 1266 

n.8 (10th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, U.S. , 107 S. Ct. 1964, 

95 L. Ed. 2d 536 (1987-)-.-Although the prosecutor's remarks were 

only reviewed for "fundamental prejudice," that constitutes a 

sufficient decision on the merits by the state court. See 

Morishita v. Morris, 702 F.2d 207, 209 (10th Cir. 1983)(review 

for ''fundamental fairness" by state court was a decision on the 

merits). 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 5 
Cartwright v. Maynard, 822 F.2d 1477, 1483 (10th Cir. 1987) (en 

bane), aff'd, U.S. , 108 S. Ct. 1853, 100 L. Ed. 2d 372 

(1988). This qualitative difference from other punishments 

requires "a corresponding difference in the need for reliability 

in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a 

specific case." Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305 

(1976). See also Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 604 (1978). The 

Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that a high degree of scrutiny 

of the capital sentencing determination is required to ensure that 

the capital sentencing decision does not violate the eighth 

amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments. See, 

~, California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 998-99 (1983). 

Accordingly, we apply a heightened scrutiny to the prosecutor's 

statements and jury instructions challenged in this rehearing. 

I• 

THE PROSECUTOR'S COMMENTS REGARDING JURORS' RESPONSIBILITY .. 

Petitioner argues that certain statements made by the 

. prosecutor during the penalty phase of the trial violated the rule 

of Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985). The Supreme 

Court in Caldwell held that it is "constitutionally impermissible 

to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer 

who has been led to believe that the responsibility for 

determining the appropriateness of the defendant's death rests 

elsewhere." Id. at 328-29. In that case the Court found that it 

was improper for a prosecutor to have stated to the jury that its 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 6 
decision was "automatically reviewable by the Supreme Court'' 

because, among other things, the statement carried with it "an 

intolerable danger that the jury will in fact choose to minimize 

the importance of its role.'' Id. at 333. 3 

Here, petitioner challenges the following statements made by 

the prosecutor during the prosecutor's closing argument: 

But, you know, as you as jurors, you really, in 

assessing the death penalty, you're not yourself putting 

Robyn Parks to death. You just have become a part of 

the criminal-justice system that says when anyone does 

this, that he must suffer death. So all you are doing 

is you're just following the law, and what the law says, 

and on your verdict -- once your verdict comes back in, 

the law takes over. The law does all of these things, 

so it's not on your conscience. You're just part of the 

criminal-justice system that says that when this type of 

thing happens, that whoever does such a horrible, 

atrocious thing must suffer death. 

Now that's man's law. But God's law is the very 

God's law says that the murderer shall suffer 

So don't let it bother your conscience, you 

same. 

death. 

know. 

Record, vol. V, at 707-08. 

Petitioner argues that those statements diluted the jurois-~ 

sense of responsibility for their decision in violation of 

Caldwell. Although we do not condone the statements made by the 

3 The Court identified four dangers associated with such 

statements: (1) jurors might not understand that appellate courts 

are limited in their ability to review sentencing decisions; (2) 

the jury might be more willing to impose the death sentence as a 

sign of disapproval of the defendant's acts if they thought that 

any error could be corrected on appeal; (3) jurors, correctly 

assuming that a sentence of life in prison cannot be increased on 

appeal whereas a death sentence can be reduced if the appeals 

court desires, might impose the death penalty as a way of 

delegating the penalty decision; and (4) jurors might minimize the 

importance of their role and vote to impose the death penalty even 

if they -were undecided. Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 330-33. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 7 
prosecutor, we find that the statements did not reduce the jury's 

sense of its actual responsibility for the sentencing decision and 

therefore did not violate Caldwell. 

A two-step inquiry is appropriate when examining alleged 

Caldwell violations. See Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 184 

n.15 (1986). First, the court should determine whether the 

challenged prosecutorial remarks are the type of statements 

covered by Caldwell. In other words, they must be statements that 

tend to shift the responsibility for the sentencing decision away 

from the jury. If so, the second inquiry is to evaluate the 

effect of such statements on the jury to determine whether the 

statements rendered the sentencing decision unconstitutional. 

The Supreme Court elaborated upon Caldwell in Darden v. 

Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (1986), when it stated that Caldwell 

applies only to comments that "mislead the jury as to its role in 

the sentencing process in a way that allows the jury to feel less 

responsible than it should for the sentencing decision.'' Id. a~ 

184 n.15 (emphasis added). Thus, Caldwell is triggered only by 

statements that dilute the jury's sense of its actual role in the 

sentencing process. Further, Caldwell may address only statements 

which mislead the jury as to its role, either by omission or 

commission. 4 

4 Darden appears to require an element of misleading before 

Caldwell is violated, even though one of the dangers discussed in 

Caldwell did not involve any element of misleading or confusion. 

See footnote 3, supra. However, we need not determine whether a 

statement must be misleading before Caldwell is violated, nor do 

we need to decide whether the ·prosecutor's statements here were, 

[continued on next page .•• ] 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 8 
We conclude that Caldwell is inapplicable here because, as in 

Darden, "none of the [prosecutor's] comments could have had the 

effect of misleading the jury into thinking that it had a reduced 

role in the sentencing process." 477 U.S. at 184 n.15. However 

much the prosecutor in the instant case may have tried to diffuse 

the jury's moral responsibility for the death penalty, the actual 

role of the jury as the decision-making body that had the 

authority and responsibility to decide whether Robyn Parks should 

be sentenced to death was crystal clear. 5 

In evaluating the challenged statements, it is necessary to 

examine the context in which they were made. See Darden v. 

Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 179 (1986); Dutton v. Brown, 812 F.2d 

593, 596 (10th Cir. 1987) (en bane), cert. denied, U.S. , 

108 s. Ct. 116, 98 L. Ed~ 2d 74 (1987). An examination of other 

statements by the prosecutor and statements by defense counsel 

supports our conclusion that the jury's sense of its actual 

responsibility and authority for making the s~ntencing decision. 

was not diminished. 

[ ••• continued from previous page] 

in fact, misleading because of our threshold holding that Caldwell 

applies only to statements that diminish a jury's sense of its 

role in deciding whether to impose the death peualty and we have 

found no such statements here. 

5 Because we find tha~ Caldwell is not implicated in this case as 

a threshold matter, we need not decide whether the effect of the 

statements on the jury was sufficient to deny petitioner his 

eighth amendment rights, nor do we address here the appropriate 

standard of review to evaluate the effect upon the jury of a 

Caldwell-violative statement. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 9 
During his initial closing argument at the penalty phase of 

the trial, the prosecutor emphasized that the jurors had the 

actual responsibility for deciding the appropriateness of the 

death penalty. For example, immediately after the statements 

challenged here by the petitioner, the prosecutor told the jury: 

"You consider all of this evidence ... Can you think of a more 

proper case a more proper case in which your verdict assessing 

death would be more proper?" Record, vol. V, at 708. That 

statement made it clear to the jurors that they had the ultimate 

responsibility for evaluating the evidence and determining the 

appropriate sentence. 

In his final closing argument, the prosecutor again stressed 

the gravity and importance of the jury's responsibility when he 

stated: 

We are sorrowful that you do have a duty that you 

must perform, because you will remember this case, and 

you'll remember it the rest of your life, and you'll 

remember whether or not a horrible tragedy occurred and 

the man that did it sat before you. 

. . . . 

We must have the protection of the death penalty, 

and we must have jurors that are strong enough to say, 

when that kind of a case is laid in front of us, .•. 

then we must, under the law and under the evidence, 

under a proper case, we must return the death penalty. 

Record, vol. V, at 728-30. 

Furthermore, defense counsel, in his closing argument, 

responded directly to the prosecutor's comments, thereby 

underscoring to the jury the full scope of its responsibility: 

_It seems to me that ·the situation that we've got 

here·is that [the prosecutor is] trying to tell you that 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 10 
you've got three aggravating factors which could allow 

you to tell somebody down Jn McAlester to roll up Robyn 

Parks' sleeve and inject him with a barbiturate -- a 

fast-acting paralytic agent -- while strapped in a 

chair. They could allow you to do that; and under the 

law which I wrote, 6 they could. However, nothing in the 

law says you have to do it. You are the people who are 

going to determine whether it's done. 

I heard [the prosecutor] say if anybody does this, 

he must suffer death. It's not true. It's not true at 

all. 

Record, vol. V, at 709. 

The defense counsel then proceeded to discuss the mitigating 

factors such as the petitioner's age, race and background. 

Record, vol. V, at 710. Thereafter, he reemphasized that not all 

first-degree murders are punishable by the death penalty and that 

"mandatory death penalties are unconstitutional." Record, vol. V, 

at 710-11. He then argued against the alleged aggravating 

circumstances. Record, vol. v, at 711-15. 

After discussing the aggravating circumstances, defense 

counsel again emphasized that it was the jury's responsibility to 

determine the appropriate penalty: 

I said, I'm not -- by voting for this bill, I'm not 

prepared to throw the switch on anybody. The juries are 

the ones that are going to do th~t. The law doesn't 

require it, the legislature never required it, and I 

think for a good reason. What they did was, they gave 

it to the province of 12 people such as you to determine 

whether a man should live or a man should die, and they 

gave some guidelines to try to make that decision more 

rational and less emotional. 

6 Apparently the defense counsel had participated in the. 

enactment of Oklahoma's death penalty statute. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 11 
•.• But again, someone down in McAlester, hired 

by the state of Oklahoma, is going to have to inject a 

lethal substance into Robyn Leroy Parks to cause his 

death, if you do decide, and that responsibility is on 

each and every one of you. 

Record, vol. V, at 716, 720-21. 

Similarly, the judge, in his instructions, emphasized to the 

jury that it had the responsibility to determine what penalty 

should be given to the petitioner Parks. The jury was instructed: 

"It is now your duty to determine the penalty which shall be 

imposed for this offense." Penalty Instruction No. 3. Unlike 

Caldwell, in which the trial court compounded the sense of 

dilution of responsibility that had been conveyed by the 

prosecutor to the jury, here the judge's instructions were clear 

and unequivocal that the sentencing responsibility rested with 

this jury. 

Other decisions of this court and other courts of appeals are 

instructive on the scope of Caldwell and its applicability to the 

statements made by the prosecutor in this case. In Dutton v. 

Brown, 812 F.2d 593 (10th Cir. 1987) (en bane), cert. denied, 

U.S. , 108 S. Ct. 116, 98 L. Ed. 2d 74 (1987), this court 

rejected a Caldwell challenge to statements similar to the ones 

challenged here. In Dutton, the prosecutor told the jurors that 

they were "part of the process" and were "not functioning as 

individuals." ·rd. at 596. 7 This court held that "when taken in 

7 Those remarks are similar to th~ statements by the prosecutor 

in this case that the jurors were "not [themselves] putting Robyn 

Parks to death" but were just ."part of the criminal justice 

system." 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 12 
context, the statement of the prosecutor was not constitutionally 

impermissible.'' Id. at 596-97. Rather, the statement "merely 

underscored that the jury was part of the whole system of 

justice." Id. at 597. 

In Coleman v. Brown, 802 F.2d 1227 (10th Cir. 1986), cert. 

denied, U.S. , 107 S. Ct. 2491, 96 L. Ed. 2d 383 (1987), 

the prosecutor told the jury that it was "not writing the verdict" 

because the defendant, not the jury, was responsible for the 

defendant's plight. We concluded in Coleman that the defendant's 

rights were not violated: 

[T)he dangers the Court identified in Caldwell are not 

present in the remarks made here. This method of 

argument does not permit the jury to rely on someone 

else to make the ultimate sentencing decision or 

otherwise dilute or trivialize the jury's 

responsibility. Unlike the argument in Caldwell, the 

argument used here did not suggest to the jury that 

someone else now has control over the defendant's fate. 

Id. at 1240-41 (emphasis in original). 

Several other circuits have rejected Caldwell challenges to 

prosecutorial statements that were m6re egregious than the ones in 

this case and while we have no occasion to approve or disapprove 

of those holdings, they do show how other circuits have read 

Caldwell. SeA, ~' Sawyer v. Butler, 848 F.2d 582, 595 (5th 

Cir. 1988) (jury was told that "there will be others who will be 

behind you to either agree with you or to say you are wrong"), 

reh'g granted, 1988 U.S. App. Lexis 12690; Stewart v. Dugger, 847 

F.2d 1486, 1489-93 (11th Cir. 1988) (judge told jury that "this is 

one of those cases where the ~egislature has said that the death 

penalty is the appropriate penalty" an.d prosecutor informed the 

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jury of its advisory role); Harich v. Dugger, 844 F.2d 1464, 1472-

75 (11th Cir. 1988) (en bane) (advisory jury was told that its 

sentence was only a recommendation and that the court would make 

the final decision). Our research reveals that the circuit court 

decisions that have invalidated sentencing decisions under 

Caldwell involved prosecutorial remarks that clearly shifted the 

ultimate sentencing authority away from the jury. See,~, Mann 

v. Dugger, 844 F.2d 1446 (11th Cir. 1988) (jury was told that its 

decision was only an "advisory" recommendation and that the 

sentencing decision was not on its shoulders); Wheat v. Thigpen, 

793 F.2d 621, 628-29 (5th Cir. 1986) (jury was told that a death 

penalty decision would not be final and if the jury made a mistake 

a reviewing court would send the case back), cert. denied, 

U • S • , 10 7 S . Ct. 15 6 6 , 9 4 L • Ed . 2 d 7 5 9 ( 19 8 7 ) • 

Upon viewing the prosecutor's statements in context, we 

conclude that they did not unconstitutionally diminish the jurors' 

sense of authority and responsibility for the sentencing decision, 

Although the pro~ecutor may have sought to use the challenged 

remarks to comfort the jury that it was applying standards 

reflecting societal values, the remarks did not reduce the jury's 

sense of actual responsibility and authority for determining the 

appropriate penalty. We read Caldwell as prohibiting only the 

latter kind of statements, and, accordingly, we hold that the 

challenged prosecutor's remarks did not violate Caldwell. 

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II. 

ANTI-SYMPATHY INSTRUCTION AND PROSECUTOR'S STATEMENTS 

REGARDING SYMPATHY 

A. The Anti-Sympathy Instruction 

Petitioner contends that the anti-sympathy instruction at the 

penalty phase of his trial violated his eighth amendment rights. 

The instructiofi provided, in pertinent part: "You must avoid any 

influence of sympathy, sentiment, passion, prejudice or other 

arbitrary factor when imposing sentence." 8 Petitioner challenges 

8 The full instruction, Instruction# 9 in the Penalty Trial, 

provided: 

In arriving at your determination as to what 

sentence is appropriate under the law, you are 

authorized to consider all the facts and circumstances 

of this case whether presented by the State or the 

defendant and whether presented in the first proceeding 

or this sentencing proceeding. 

All of the previous instructions given you in the 

first part of this trial apply where applicable and must 

be considered along with these additional Instructions; 

together they contain all the law of any kind to be 

applied by you in this case, and the rules by which you 

are to weigh the evidence and determine the facts in 

issue. You must consider them all together, and not a 

part of them to the exclusion of the rest. 

You are the judges of the facts. The importance 

and worth of the evidence is for you to determine. You 

must avoid any influence of sympathy, sentiment, 

passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factor when 

imposing sentence. You should discharge your duty as 

jurors impartially, conscientiously and faithfully under 

your oaths and return such verdict as the evidence 

warrants when measured by these Instructions. 

The Court has made rulings during the sentencing 

stage of this trial. In doing so, the Court has not 

expressed nor intimated in any way the conclusions to be 

[continued on next page .•• ] 

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only ·the ''sympathy" portion of the instruction. He argues that it 

constitutes constitutional error because it undermined the jury's 

consideration of mitigating evidence. 

In evaluating this alleged constitutional error, we are 

mindful of the standard of review of jury instructions in the 

sentencing phase of a capital trial. Initially, a reviewing court 

should determine how a reasonable juror could construe the 

instruction. Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 315-16 (1985); 

California v. Bro~n, 479 U.S. 538, 541 (1987). If there is a 

"substantial possibility" that a reasonable juror could construe 

the instruction in such a way as to make its sentencing decision 

improper, the court should reverse the sentencing decision. Mills 

v. Maryland, U.S. , 108 S. Ct. 1860, 1867, 100 L. Ed. 2d 

384 (1988). We conclude in this case, as the Supreme Court did in 

Mills, that ''[t]he possibility that pelitioner's jury conducted 

its task improperly certainly is great enough to require 

resentencing." 108 S. Ct. at 1870. 

The Supreme Court confronted a similar, although not 

identical, jury instruction in California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538 

(1987). In that case the trial judge instructed the jury that it 

must not be swayed by "mere sentiment, conjecture, sympathy, 

[ .•. continued from previous page] 

reached by you in this case. The Court specifically has 

not expressed any opinion as to whether or not any 

statutory aggravating circumstances exist, or whether or 

not any mitigating circumstances exist. 

You must not use any method of chance in arriving 

at a verdict but must baie it on the judgment of each 

juror concurring therein. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 16 
passion, prejudice, public opinion or public feeling." Id. at 

542. As in this case, the defendant challenged the "sympathy" 

portion of the instruction, arguing that it interfered with the 

jury's consideration of mitigating evidence. The Court, in a five 

to four decision, upheld the instruction, principally relying upon 

the word "mere" that modified the word "sympathy" in the 

instruction. The Court stated, "By concentrating on the noun 

'sympathy,' respondent ignores the crucial fact that the jury was 

instructed to avoid basing its decision on mere sympathy." Id 

(emphasis in original). The Court concluded that a reasonable 

juror would "understand the instruction not to rely on 'mere 

sympathy' as a directive to ignore only the sort of sympathy that 

would be totally divorced from the evidence adduced during the 

penalty phase." Id. 

The anti-sympathy instruction before us is not modified by 

the word "mere," which the Court in Brown considered "crucial" to 

its decision to uphold the instruction. Rather, the instruction 

in this case commands the jury to disregard "any" influence of 

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sympathy. 9 Therefore, unlike the instruction in Brown, this allinclusive anti-sympathy instruction carries with it the danger of 

leading the jury to ignore sympathy that is based on the 

mitigating evidence. Consequently, it cannot receive the saving 

interpretation given in Brown that the jury should exclude only 

"the sort of sympathy that would be totally divorced from the 

evidence." The Court in Brown, by stressing that the instruction 

there reasonably could be construed as precluding only "extraneous 

emotional factors" that were "totally divorced from the evidence," 

id., implici.tly suggested that sympathy that is based on the 

evidence is a valid consideration in sentencing that cannot 

constitutionally be precluded.lo 

Besides emphasizing the word "mere," the Court in Brown also 

stated that it was "highly unlikely" that a juror would single out 

9 Judge Anderson's dissent reads the instruction as telling the 

jury only "to avoid the arbitrary influence of emotions such as 

sympathy, sentiment, passion, and prejudice." (Emphasis added.) 

However, that is not the way we read the instruction. It command~ 

the jury to "avoid any influence of sympathy .•• or other 

arbitrary factor." (Emphasis added.) The word "arbitrary" does 

not modify "influence." Rather, it modifies "factor," indicating 

that any "sympathy," even when based on the evidence, is an 

arbitrary factor which should be completely disregarded by the 

jury. We do not believe it is "hypertechnical" to examine the 

elements of an instruction that informs a sentencing jury what it 

may not consider in making a decision on the death penalty. The 

word "any" is an important part of the instruction in this case. 

By giving weight to the adjective used by the instructing court, 

we are no more technical than the Supreme Court was in Brown when 

it focused on the word "mere." 

lO In fact, the State in Brown acknowledged that the jury may 

consider sympathy for the defendant that is related to the 

evidence. The state merely argued that "untethered sympathy" that 

was unrelated to the circumstances of the offense or the defendant 

should not be considered. Brow·n, 4 79 U.S. at 548 (Brennan, J. , dissenting). 

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the word "sympathy" in that .instruction, which precluded the jury 

from considering sentiment, conjecture, passion, prejudice, public 

opinion or public feeling in addition to sympathy. Id. at 542-43. 

The Court reasoned that a rational juror would read the 

instruction as a whole and conclude that it was a general command 

to confine the juror's deliberation to "considerations arising 

from the evidence presented." Id. at 543. 11 However plausible 

such an interpretation may be for the phrase "mere sympathy," we 

do not think it can be given to the phrase "any influence of 

sympathy" which, by its inclusive terms, must include sympathy 

"arising from the evidence presented" as well as sympathy 

unconnected to the evidence. 

In any event, we do not believe that the inclusion of the 

word sympathy in a list of obviou_sly improper factors reduced the 

unconstitutional effect of the instruction in this case. In fact, 

it is likely that including the word sympathy with factors such as 

prejudice only served to denigrate it and to underscore its 

impermissibility. That conclusion is buttressed by the phrase "or 

any other arbitrary factor" at the end of the sentence, which 

suggests that sympathy is an arbitrary factor which should not be 

relied upon. Further, although the word "sympathy" was buried in 

the middle of seven factors in Brown, in this case it was first on 

the list of only four impermissible factors and it was preceded by 

11 We do not read these statements to be central to the Court's 

reasoning. The Court was careful to state that it was the 

existence of the adjective "mere" that was "the. crucial fact" 

underlying its decision. 479 U.S. at 542. 

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the adjective "any.'' Therefore, it is more likely in this case 

that a juror would notice and be affected by the anti-sympathy 

portion of the instruction. 

Four justices in Brown dissented. 479 U.S. at 547-63. 

Because those justices argued in Brown that a ''mere sympathy" 

instruction was unconstitutional, we believe that, a fortiori, 

they would find an absolute anti-sympathy instruction to be 

improper. 

Justice O'Connor, in a separate concurring opinion, provided 

the fifth vote for upholding the "mere sympathy'' instruction in 

Brown. In her opinion, however, she expressed concern about the 

instruction, and she observed that a danger with "attempts to 

remove emotion from capital sentencing" is that such attempts may 

mislead jurors "into believing that mitigating evidence about a 

defendant's background or character also must be ignored." Brown, 

479 U.S. at 545-46 (O'Connor, J., concurring). It is that concern 

that we now address. 

The capital defendant's constitutional right to present and 

have the jury consider mitigating evidence during the capital 

phase of the trial is very broad. The Supreme Court has held that 

"the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer 

..• not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, 

any aspect of a-defendant's character or record and any of the 

circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a 

basis for a sentence less then death." Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 

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586, 604 (1978) (emphasis in original). See also Woodson v. North 

Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976). 

The sentencer must give "individualized'' consideration to the 

mitigating circumstances surrounding the defendant and the crime, 

Brown, 479 U.S. at 541; Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 879 

(1983); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 111-12 (1982); Lockett, 

438 U.S. at 605, and may not be precluded from considering "any 

relevant mitigating evidence." Eddings, 455 U.S. at 114. See 

also Andrews v. Shulsen, 802 F.2d 1256, 1261 (10th Cir. 1986), 

cert. denied, U.S. , 107 S. Ct. 1964, 95 L. Ed. 2d 536 

(1987). 

Mitigating evidence about a defendant's background or 

character is not limited to evidence of guilt or innocence, nor 

does it necessarily go to the circumstances of the offense. 

Rather, it can include an individualized appeal for compassion, 

understanding, and mercy as the personality of the defendant is 

fleshed out and the jury is given an opportunity to understand, .. 

and to relate to, the defendant in normal human terms. A long 

line of Supreme court cases shows that a capital defendant has a 

constitutional right to make, and have the jury consider, just 

such an appeal. 

In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), the Court upheld 

the Georgia sentencing scheme which allowed jurors to consider 

mercy in deciding whether to impose the penalty of death. Id. at 

203. The Court stated that ''[n]othing in any of our cases 

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suggests that the decision to afford an individual defendant mercy 

violates the Constitution." Id. at 199. 

In Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976), the 

Court struck down mandatory death sentences as incompatible with 

the required individualized treatment of defendants. A plurality 

of the Court stated that mandatory death penalties treated 

defendants "not as uniquely individual human beings but as members 

of a faceless, undifferentiated mass to be subjected to the blind 

infliction of the death penalty." Id. at 304. The Court held 

that "the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth 

Amendment ••• requires consideration of the character and record 

of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular 

offense as a constitutionally indispensable part of the process of 

inflicting the penalty of death.'' Id. The Court explained that 

mitigating evidence is allowed during the sentencing phase of a 

capital trial in order to provide for the consideration of 

"compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse •, 

frailties of humankind." Id. 

In Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), the Court 

reviewed a sentencing judge's refusal to consider evidence of a 

defendant's troubled family background and emotional problems. In 

reversing the imposition of the death penalty, the Court held that 

" [ j ]ust as the· State may not by--statute preclude the sentencer 

from considering any mitigating factor, neither may the sentencer 

refuse to consider, -as ~ matter of law, any relevant mitigating 

evidence." Id. at 113-14 (emphasis in original). The Court 

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stated that although the system of capital punishment should be 

"consistent and prin_cipled," it must also be "humane and sensible 

to the uniqueness of the individual." Id. at 110. 

In Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985), the Court 

held that an attempt to shift sentencing responsibility from the 

jury to an appellate court was unconstitutional, in part, because 

the appellate court is ill equipped to consider "the mercy plea 

[which] is made directly to the jury." Id. at 330-31. The Court 

explained that appellate courts are unable to "confront and 

examine the individuality of the defendant" because "[w]hatever 

intangibles a jury might consider in its sentencing determination, 

few can be gleaned from an appellate record." Id. 

In Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (1986), the trial 

court had precluded the defendant from introducing evidence of his 

good behavior while in prison awaiting trial. The Court held that 

the petitioner had a constitutional right to introduce the 

evidence, even though the evidence did not relate to his 

culpability for the crime. Id. at 4-5. The Court found that 

excluding the evidence "impeded the sentencing jury's ability to 

carry out its task of considering all relevant facets of the 

character and record of the individual offender." Id. at 8. 

"Mercy," "humane" treatment, "compassion," and consideration 

of the unique "humanity" of the defendant, which have all been 

affirmed as relevant considerations in the penalty phase of a 

--capital case, all inevitably involve sympathy or are sufficiently 

intertwined with sympathy that they cannot be parsed without 

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significant risk of confusion in the mind of a reasonable juror. 

Webster's Third International Dictionary (Unabridged ed. 1966) 

describes "mercy" as "a compassion or forbearance shown to an 

offender," and "a kindly refraining from inflicting punishment or 

pain, often a refraining brought about by a genuinely felt 

compassion and sympathy." Id. at 1413 (emphasis added). The word 

"humane" similarly is defined as "marked by compassion, sympathy, 

or consideration for other human beings." Id. at 1100 (emphasis 

added). Webster's definition of "compassion" is a "deep feeling 

for and understanding of misery or suffering," and it specifically 

states that "sympathy" is a synonym of compassion. Id. at 462. 

Furthermore, it defines "compassionate" as "marked by ... a 

ready inclination to pity, sympathy, or tenderness." Id (emphasis 

added). 

Without placing an undue technical emphasis on definitions, 

it seems to us that sympathy is likely to be perceived by a 

reasonable juror as an essential or important ingredient of, if .. 

not a synonym for, "mercy," "humane" treatment, "compassion, 11 and 

a full "individualized" consideration of the "humanity" of the 

defendant and his "character." Therefore, the instru6tion that 

absolutely precluded the jury from considering any sympathy for 

Robyn Parks improperly undermined the jury's ability to consider 

fully petitioner's mitigating-evidence. Furthermore, if a juror 

is precluded from responding with sympathy to the defendant's 

mitigating evidence of his own unique humanness, then theke is an 

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unconstitutional danger that his counsel's plea for mercy and 

compassion will fall on deaf ears. 

Here, the petitioner did offer mitigating evidence about his 

background and character. Petitioner's father testified that 

petitioner was a "happy-go-lucky guy" who was "friendly with 

everybody." The father also testified that, unlike other people 

in the neighborhood, petitioner avoided violence and fighting; 

that he (the father) was in the penitentiary during the 

petitioner's early childhood; that petitioner was the product of a 

broken home; and that petitioner only lived with him from about 

age 14 to 19. Although the father admitted that petitioner once 

was involved in an altercation at school, he suggested that it was 

a result of the difficulties of attending a school with forced 

bussing. Record, vol. V, at 667-82. 

Petitioner's counsel, in his closing argument, then relied on 

this testimony to argue that petitioner's youth, race, school 

experiences, and broken home were mitigating factors that the jury 

should consider in making its sentencing decision. In so doing, 

defense counsel appealed directly to the jury's sense of 

compassion, understanding, and sympathy, and asked the jury to 

show "kindness" to his client as a result of his background. 

Record, vol. V, at 708-723. We find that the anti-sympathy 

instruction created an impermissible risk that the jury did not 

fully consider these mitigating factors in making its sentencing 

decision. 

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Once we have determined that the challenged jury instruction' 

is constitutionally defective, we then look.to the full set of 

instructions as a whole "to see if the entire charge delivered a 

correct interpretation of the law." Brown, 4 79 U.S. at 541. Our 

review of other relevant instructions from the penalty phase of 

the trial reveals that they did not remedy the unconstitutional 

effect of the anti-sympathy instruction. 

The only instruction which could have conceivably remedied 

the anti-sympathy instruction is Instruction No. 6, which 

explained the jury's duty regarding mitigating circumstances. The 

instruction explained to the jury that it was to consider certain 

enumerated mitigating circumstances such as lack of prior criminal 

activity, duress, and the age of the petitioner, along with "any 

other or additional mitigating circumstances, if any, that you may 

find from the evidence to exist in this case." It also advised 

them that "[w]hat facts or evidence that may constitute an 

additional mitigating circumstance is for the jury to determine ... " 

Although the jury was instructed that it had the duty to 

consider all relevant mitigating evidence, it was also commanded 

to ''avoid any influence of sympathy" when considering that 

evidence. Penalty Instruction No. 9. As we discussed above, 

sympathy may be an important ingredient in understanding and 

appreciating mitigating evidence of· a defendant's background and 

character. Thus, at best, the jury received conflicting 

instructions. Although it is possible that the jury could have 

read tRe instructions in such a way as to override the absolute 

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anti-sympathy instruction, it is equally possible that the jury 

felt constrained in its ability to consider the mitigating 

evidence because of the absolute bar to its ability to consider 

sympathy. As the Supreme Court stated in Francis v. Franklin, 471 

U.S. 307, 322 (1985), "[l]anguage that merely contradicts and does 

not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice 

to absolve the infirmity. A reviewing court has no way of knowing 

which of the two irreconcilable instructions the jurors applied in 

reaching their verdict." Because we cannot "rule out the 

substantial possibility that the jury may have rested its verdict 

on the 'improper' ground," Mills, 108 S. Ct. at 1867, we must 

remand for resentencing. 

Respondent argues that the jury was aware of its 

responsibility to consider and weigh both the_aggravating and 

mitigating evidence. Respondent points out that the prosecutor 

repeatedly reminded the jurors of this duty. Indeed, during his 

first closing argument in the penalty phase of the trial, the 

prosecutor stated: 

Now before you would be authorized to even think about 

giving the death penalty, you must find that one of the 

aggravating circumstances existed . 

. • . Now once you've found at least one, then you 

must go, under the law, over to the mitigating. 

And, now the court also tells you, you can consider 

anything else that you want to, to mitigate the penalty 

of death and the term of life. You can consider 

anything you want td in ~ddition to what he's told you 

•.. "and determine whether one or more of them apply 

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.to all the evidence, facts and circumstances of this 

case." In other words, whether or not you feel like 

that these mitigating circumstances are so stiong in 

favor of the Defendant that it's just going to eliminate 

and do away with the aggravating circumstances. 

Record, vol. V, at 696-704. 

Respondent argues that these statements eliminated any 

unconstitutional effect of the anti-sympathy instruction. We 

disagree. First, a prosecutor's statements are not sufficiently 

authoritative in the minds of jurors to override. an 

unconstitutional instruction from the judge. Second, although the 

prosecutor.told the jury to consider mitigating evidence, he also 

told them not to consider it in the most natural and significant 

way that they could do so that is, with sympathy. Thus, at 

best, the prosecutor gave the jurors conflicting signals which 

could have confused them and interfered with their consideration 

of the mitigating evidence. Third, the prosecutor's statements, 

taken as a whole, served only to exacerbate the error of the antisympathy instruction rather than to ameliorate that error. See .. 

"B. The Prosecutor's Remarks Regarding Sympathy," infra. 

Respondent also argues that sympathy is not a 

constitutionally protected mitigating factor. That argument 

misconstrues the issue. The issue is not whether unbridled 

sympathy itself is a proper mitigating factor. Rather, the issue 

is whether an absolute anti-sympathy instruction presents an 

impermissible danger of interfering with the jury's consideration 

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' 

of proper mitigating evidence. We hold that it does. 12 The 

Supreme Court. has made it clear that such a risk is ''unacceptable 

and incompatible with the commands of the Eighth and Fourteenth 

Amendments." Lockett, 438 U.S. at 605. 

Respondent also contends that the instruction is properly 

aimed at removing emotion and thus arbitrariness from the 

sentencing decision. Although we agree that untethered emotion 

should not be the basis of a sentencing decision, see Gregg v. 

Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189 (1976), we hold that an instruction 

that directs the jury to disregard any influence of sympathy, 

including sympathy for the defendant based on the mitigating 

evidence, sweeps too broadly. 13 

Additionally, respondent asserts that the jury should not be 

allowed to consider sympathy for the petitioner because the 

12 We recognize that our holding is at odds with the recent 

decision by the Fifth Circuit in Byrne v. Butler, 847 F.2d 1135 

(5th Cir. 1988). That court affirmed and adopt~d a district 

court's holding that a general anti-~ympathy instruction did noc 

violate a defendant's constitutional rights. The district court 

stated that the qualifier "mere," which modified the word 

"sympathy" in California v. Brown, was not needed to avoid a 

constitutional violation. 847 F.2d at 1139. We believe that the 

district court and the Fifth Circuit treated the Supreme Court's 

emphasis in Brown of the word "mere" too lightly. Our reading of 

Brown indicates to us that the Supreme Court recognized that 

sympathy grounded upon mitigating evidence may be considered by 

the jury. The Fifth Circuit's holding would eliminate such 

consideration. 

13 Judge Anderson's dissent suggests that we are "slant[ing] 

toward a constitutional right to an emotional jury." The dissent 

confuses our support for Robyn Parks' right to appeal to the 

sentencing jury's compassion, mercy, and sympathy based on the 

evidence, which is well grounded in the Supreme Court's 

jurisprudence, with a support £or untethered emotion, which we do 

not intend by our opinion. 

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prosecutor is precluded from introducing a victim impact statement 

which would allow the prosecutor to use sympathy for the victim as 

an aid in securing the death penalty. See Booth v. Maryland, 

U.S. , 107 S. Ct. 2529, 96 L. Ed. 2d 440 (1987). In Booth the 

Supreme Court invalidated a Maryland statute that required the 

introduction of a victim impact statement at the sentencing stage 

of a capital murder trial, holding that the statute violated the 

eighth amendment. We reject respondent's argument that Booth 

stands for the proposition that all sympathy must be eliminated 

from the jury's decisionmaking. Instead, we read Booth as holding 

only that the information in a victim impact statement, as 

distinguished from the background of the defendant, is irrelevant 

to the issues to be considered at the penalty phase of a capital 

case and that the potential for passion and prejudice from those 

statements is such that they may not be introduced. By contrast, 

the Supreme Court has made it clear many times that the defendant 

is entitled to present evidence of his character and background-~t 

the sentencing phase of his capital trial. Compare Eddings, 

supra, with Booth, supra. 

B. The Prosecutor's Remarks Regarding Sympathy 

Besides the anti-sympathy instruction, petitioner claims that 

the prosecutor's remarks regarding sympathy were improper and 

added to the constitutional violation. Because we find that the 

anti-sympathy instruction alone violated petitio0er's 

constitutional rights, we need not reach the prosecutor's 

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statements to reverse the penalty decision. Nevertheless, we do 

find the prosecutor's statements illustrative of the risk that the 

trial court's anti-sympathy instruction created -- a risk that the 

jury will rely on such an instruction to disregard proper 

mitigating evidence. 

Petitioner, during the penalty phase of his trial, introduced 

testimony from his father that addressed factors in the 

petitioner's childhood that were designed to explain to the jury 

why he might have acted as he did, and to evoke some sympathy and 

understanding for the petitioner as an individual human being. 

There is no question that introduction of that evidence was 

proper. However, long before that evidence was ever introduced 

the prosecutor had begun to lay the foundation for his argument 

that it should be disregarded. During voir dire, the prosecutor 

stated to the jury: 

Of course the court will instruct you that you should 

not allow sympathy, sentiment or prejudice to enter into 

your deliberations. And frankly, that's just as cold-blooded 

as you can put it . 

. • . [Y]ou can be as sympathetic as you want to or you 

can be as prejudiced as you want to be, but you can't 

do it and sit on this jury. So, that's just a real simple 

way that Judge Cannon put it to you. 

You cannot ~llow your sympathy, sentiment or 

prejudice to influence you in this case and sit on 

this jury. And now is the time for us to find out 

if you will eliminate any sympathy, sentiment or 

prejudice in this case. Will all of you do that? 

Record, vol. I, at 86-87. 

After the petitioner put on his mitigating evidence, the 

prosecutor, in-his closing argument during the penalty phase of 

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the trial, argued to the jury that the mitigating evidence and 

defense counsel's summation of such evidence was nothing more than 

an appeal to sympathy and accordingly should be disregarded. The 

prosecutor stated: 

His [the defense counsel's] closing arguments are 

really a pitch to you for sympathy -- sympathy, or 

sentiment or prejudice; and you told me in voir dire you 

wouldn't do that. 

Well, it's just cold turkey. He either did it or 

he didn't. He either deserves the death penalty or he 

doesn't, you know. You leave the sympathy, and the 

sentiment and prejudice part out of it. 

Record, vol. v, at 725-26. 

Thus, the prosecutor relied on the anti-sympathy instruction 

to overcome the defense counsel's arguments regarding mitigation 

and mercy. 14 The prosecutor's use of the instruction demonstrates 

how a general anti-sympathy instruction may be used t9 reduce 

improperly the jury's consideration of mitigating circumstances. 

Because we find that an instruction that absolutely precludes 

any consideration of sympathy creates an impermissible risk that a 

reasonable juror might disregard mitigating evidence, we hold that 

the general anti-sympathy instruction in this case violated 

petitioner's eighth amendment rights. Although we affirm the 

district court's denial of the writ of habeas corpus, we hold that 

petitioner's death sentence is invalid and must be vacated, and we 

14 At least one court of appeals has held that similar statements 

by a prosecutor are unconstitutional. See Drake v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 

1449, 1460 (11th Cir. 1985) (pr9secutor's anti-mercy statements 

were improper; mercy is one of the jury's "most central sentencing 

considerations, the orie most likely to tilt the decision in favor 

of life"), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1020 (1986). 

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enjoin petitioner's execution under this invalid sentence. 15 

Accordingly, we reverse the district court to the extent that it 

sustained the death penalty and we remand for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. 16 

REVERSED AND REMANDED. 

15 The federal habeas statute empowers the federal courts to 

dispose of the matter "as law and justice require." 28 u.s.c. § 

2243; Chaney v. Brown, 730 F.2d 1334, 1358 (10th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 469 U.S. 1090 (1984). --

16 Before 1985, Oklahoma courts held that they lacked the 

authority to order a resentencing proceeding before a new jury 

because 21 Okla. Stat. § 701.10 (198~) mandated that a capital" 

sentencing proceeding be conducted before the same jury that 

determined the defendant's guilt. See,~, Chaney v. Brown, 699 

P.2d 159 (Okla. Crim. App. 1985); Johnson v. State, 665 P.2d 815, 

826-27 (Okla. Crim. App. 1982). Therefore, when errors in 

sentencing in capital cases were found, death sentences would be 

modified to life imprisonment. Effective July 16, 1985, the 

Oklah9ma Legislature amended section 701.13(E) to authorize 

remanding a capital case for resentencing. See 21 Okla. Stat. 

Ann. § 701.13(E) (West Supp. 1988). We are aware that the 

Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals has held that retroactive 

application of the amended statute would be unconstitutional under 

the Federal and Oklahoma constitutions, Dutton v. Dixon, 757 P.2d 

376 (Okla. Crim. App. 1988), and that the relevant dates for this 

ex post facto problem are the date the offense was committed and 

the date the statute became effective. Bromley v. State, 757 P.2d 

382, 388 (Okla. Crim. App. 1988). However, the manner in which 

the State of Oklahoma chooses .to resentence petitioner is not now 

before us and we express no view on the issue. 

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HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, with whom McKAY and SEYMOUR, 

Circuit Judges, join, concurring and dissenting: No. 86-1400 

I concur fully in the persuasive analysis in Judge Ebel's 

opinion with respect to Part II on the anti-sympathy instruction, 

and in the disposition in his opinion holding unconstitutional the 

death penalty in this case. I respectfully dissent from the 

conclusion and analysis in Part I of Judge Ebel's opinion 

concerning the Caldwell issue. For this reason I join in the 

opinion of Judge McKay and agree fully with his view that there 

was a Caldwell violation here under the Supreme Court's standard 

expressed there that "we cannot say that this effort [minimizing 

the sentencing jury's responsibility] had no effect on the 

sentencing decision ... " (quoting Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 341). 

Judge McKay has convincingly explained his conclusion that 

there was a Caldwell violation requiring invalidation of this 

death penalty. In addition to his forceful reasoning, I note that 

the concerns of Caldwell apply in the circumstances of this trial 

under Oklahoma criminal procedure· with special force. The 

prosecutor's arguments under the Oklahoma 'procedure followed the 

instructions to the jury at the penalty phase. Under 22 O.S.A. 

§ 831 (5) and (6), instructions are given to the jury before the 

argument by counsel; then counsel for the State commences, defense 

counsel then argues, and counsel for the State concludes the 

argument to the jury. When the arguments are concluded, if the 

court is of the opinion that the jury might be misled by the 

arguments of counsel, the judge may furthef instruct the jury to 

prevent such misunderstanding. 22 O.S.A. § 831 (6). 

Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 34 
Here the procedure outlined above was followed as to the 

sequence of instructions and subsequent arguments, but the trial 

court did not elect to give any further instructions on the law to 

avoid any misleading. There was a supplemental instruction in 

response to a question about the verdict form,-but there was none 

concerning the jury's responsibility on the life-or-death 

decision. The record shows no objection or request by defense 

counsel for such an instruction; nevertheless the damaging effect 

of the arguments on the jury's perception of its responsibility 

was fundamental and cannot be dismissed. See Caldwell, 472 U.S. 

at 334 n .. 4 (citing Hawes v. State, 240 Ga. 327, 333; 240 S.E. 2d 

833, 839 (1977) (setting aside death sentence in spite of 

counsel's failure to object to prosecutor's argument)). 

The prejudicial arguments of the prosecutor here to the jury 

on its function followed all of the trial judge's instructions on 

the jury's responsibility in deciding whether to impose the death 

penalty. 1 The lack of any corrective instruction to the jurors on 

their responsbility is a factor of special concern. The 

importance of such corrective instructions after jury dilution 

remarks has been emphasized by two courts of appeals in postCaldwell decisions. See Harich v. Wainwright, 813 F.2d 1082, 

1 

These arguments included the statements that the jurors had 

become "a part of the criminal justice system that says when 

anyone does this, that he must suffer death [O]nce your 

verdict comes back in, the law takes over. The law does all of 

these things .... You're just part of the criminal-justice 

system that says when this type of [sic] thing happens, that 

whoever does such a horrible, atrocious thing must suffer death." 

The prosecutor further stated: "Now, that's 

God's law is the very same. God's law says 

.shall suffer death. So don't let it bother your 

know." (Record Vol. 6 at 707-08.). 

2 

man's law. But 

that the murderer 

conscience, you 

Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 35 
1095, (11th Cir. 1987); Tucker v. Kemp, 802 F.2d 1293, 1296-97 

(11th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 911 (1987); Celestine v. 

Butler, 823 F.2d 74, 78-79 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 108 s. Ct. 6 

(1987); see also Donnelly v. Decristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 641, 644 

(1974) (corrective charge was given after improper prosecutorial 

argument). 

Accordingly, I join in the view of Judge McKay that there was 

a Caldwell violation which itself requires invalidation of this 

death penalty, while agreeing fully with Judge Ebel's opinion that 

there was a violation of California v. Brown and his disposition 

of this habeas appeal. 

3 

Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 36 
No. 86-1400 - PARKS v. BROWN 

MCKAY, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part, 

in which HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, and SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge, join: 

While I concur in part II of the majority's opinion, the 

decision on the jury responsibility issue raised in part I compels 

me to dissent in this death penalty case. 

The murder committed by Robyn Parks was, as all murders are, 

a personal tragedy for the victim's family and an affront to society's moral sensibilities. At common law, every convicted murderer was sentenced to death. Throughout the development of modern death penalty jurisprudence, however, the Supreme Court has 

made clear that capital punishment is constitutionally limited to 

those rare murders involving heinous, outrageous, or gruesome 

killings. 

The Supreme Court rejected the notion that our "standards of 

decency had evolved to the point where capital punishment no 

longer could be tolerated," Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 179 

(1976), but at the same time recognized that the capital sentencing process must be tailored in order to avoid arbitrary and 

capricious imposition of the death penalty based on irrelevant 

biases and prejudices. In order to resolve this conflict, the 

Supreme Court has limited imposition of the death penalty by narrowing the class of murders to which the penalty applies and by 

Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 37 
vesting the jury viith carefully guided discretion in the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. See Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 

U.S. 104, 110-11 (1982), and Gregg, 428 U.S. at 176-79. 

The Supreme Court's severe narrowing of cases in which the 

death penalty meets eighth amendment standards reflects society's 

evolving standards of decency and "the humane feeling that this 

most irrevocable of sanctions should be reserved for a small 

number of extreme cases." Gregg, 428 U.S. at 182. The decision 

to impose the death penalty in a particular murder case properly 

turns on such issues as the depravity of the murder (~, whether 

the defendant tortured his victim or inflicted multiple or hideous 

wounds) and the demonstrated violent propensities of the defendant. These are the factors which differentiate those "routine 

murder case[s], 11 Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 328 (1979) 

(Stevens, J., concurring) that cannot justify the imposition of 

the death penalty from those far fewer murder cases that do. 

I. 

The critical standard of review in death penalty cases is the 

Supreme Court's most recent pronouncement on the subject in Mills 

v. Maryland, U.S. , 108 S. Ct. 1860, 1870 ( 1988): 

The decision to exercise the power of the State to 

execijte a defendant is unlike any other decision. citizens and public officials are called upon to make. 

Evolving standards of societal decency have imposed a 

correspondingly high requirement of reliability on the 

determination that death is the appropriate penalty in a 

particular case. The possibility that petitioner's~ 

conducted its task improperly certainly is great enough 

to require resentencing. (emphasis added) 

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Stated in the context of this case, in order to sustain the death 

penalty we must determine that the prosecutor's effort to reduce 

the jury's sense of responsibility had "no effect on the sentencing decision." . Caldwell v. Mississipppi, 472 U.S. 320, 341 

(1985). In this case, Mr. Parks attempted to purchase gasoline 

with a stolen credit card and shot the victim once in the chest 

when he discovered the victim copying his license plate number. 

There was no evidence of torture, multiple wounds, or premeditation on the part of Mr. Parks. His only prior conviction was as a 

juvenile involved in a schoolyard scuffle. Under the facts of 

this ordinary murder case, 1 the jury's imposition of the death 

penalty strongly suggests that it "conducted its task improperly" 

and its verdict may have been a product of the jurors' misapprehension of its proper role in the sentencing process. 

When the jury addressed aggravating circumstances, it did not 

find that this murder was ''especially heinous, atrocious or 

cruel." Maj. op. at 3, fn. 1. However, it did find that the murder was "committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a 

lawful arrest or prosecution," 21 Okla. Stat. § 701.12. Certainly 

that circumstance aloni does not clearly settle this murder into 

one of the "extreme cases" envisioned by Gregg. In my mind, even 

if this~aggravating circumstance, standing alone, is constitutionally sufficient to sweep an ordinary murder like this one into the 

1 See my dissent in Parks v.. Brown; 840 F.2d 1496 (10th Cir. 

1987), for a discussion of the distinction between an ordinary 

murder and one which is appropriately considered for capital 

punishment. 

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_,._.:,• .. _, ... - ' " .1, ' ' •• -.~ •'. '' ::,~, • .,.•,, ' I - • ,;.,,,· , ,. ,,,.

,;,.,, ...... , .. , ... _, ... 

class of extreme cases appropriate for capital punishment, the 

jury's decision to impose the death penalty in this case warrants 

the special scrutiny dictated by Mills. Special scrutiny is necessary in order to ensure that the jury was not improperly guided 

in its decision-making process. The imposition of the death penalty in this case is disquieting because it at least appears to be 

a case in which the death penalty is inappropriate under the clear 

dichotomy drawn by the Supreme Court between the great majority of 

murders and those in which capital punishment is constitutionally 

permissible. 

II. 

In death penalty cases, the Court should exercise the greatest caution when applying principles of law which affect the delicate balance between jury guidance and discretion in the capital 

sentencing process. A prosecutor's remarks regarding jury responsibility and the remarks and instructions of a trial court, or .. 

lack thereof, in response to her remarks -can be critical in the 

jury's capital sentencing determination. Therefore, the prosecutor's remarks, if impermissible, increase the likelihood that the 

jury's verdict rests upon improper grounds. 

In general. many issues which arise in a jury trial are well 

within the competence of jurors: for example, weighing evidence, 

discounting counsel's remarks if she overargues her case, observing the demeanor and truthfulness of witnesses, distinguishing 

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between acceptable and unacceptable hearsay, and ultimately comprehending the simplicity or complexity of a case before them. 

Where capital sentencing is concerned, however, 

[s]ince the members of a jury will have had little, if 

any, previous experience in sentencing, they are unlikely to be skilled in dealing with the [aggravating 

and mitigating] information they are given ••.. It is 

quite simply a hallmark of our legal system that juries 

be carefully and adequately guided in their deliberations. 

Gregg, 428 U.S. at 192-93. 

The problem of juror inexperience i~ particularly acute in 

matters bearing upon the procedural allocation of functions and 

responsibilities between the court and the jury. 2 · It is in these 

matters that the jurors are most likely to look to the court for 

guidance and to rely on what the prosecutor tells them or what the 

court tells or fails to tell them. Direction by the state in the 

person of the prosecutor, and instructions from the court, or lack 

thereof, regarding jury responsibility in sentencing are espe- .. 

cially likely to influence the jury's decision-making process. 

III. 

Under the Mills standard, the prosecutor's remarks in this 

case, which were not corrected contemporaneously by the court, 

violated the principles articulated in Caldwell, 472 U.S. 320. 

The Caldwell court held that "it is constitutionally impermissible 

2 For instance, traditionally sentencing and the disposition 

offenders have been functions of the trial court. In these 

matters, the court has considerably more experience than members 

of the jury. 

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to rest a death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer 

who has been led to believe that the responsibility for determining the appropri'ateness of the defendant's death rests elsewhere." 

Id. at 328-29. This delegation of a jury's sentencing responsibility ''presents an intolerable danger of bias toward a death sentence." Id. at 331. 

The Supreme Court recently interpreted Caldwell to prohibit 

those comments "that mislead the jury as to its role in the sentencing process in a way that allows the jury to feel less responsible than it should for the sentencing decision." Darden v. 

Wainwright, 106 S. Ct. 2464, 2473 n.15 (1986) (emphasis added). 

Indeed, the Court rejected automatic death penalty statutes, see 

Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976), in order to ensure 

that jurors remain conscious of the awesome responsibility 

involved when they determine whether a convicted murderer should 

live or die. 

In the concluding paragraph of Part I, the majority declares 

that the prosecutor's remarks may have been intended "to comfort 

the jury that it was applying standards reflecting societal 

values, the remarks did not reduce the jury's sense of actual 

responsibility and authority for determining the appropriate penalty." Maj. op. at 14. The proper focus, of course, is whether 

the comments, whatever their intent, "may incline them to approach 

their sentencing decision with less appreciation for the gravity 

of their choice and for the moral responsibility reposed in them 

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as sentencers." California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 1011 (1983) 

(emphasis added). Clearly, a jury's moral responsibility in a 

capital murder case is the sine qua non of its sentencing decision. I cannot see how this attempt "to comfort them" had no 

effect on their sense of moral responsibility. It was a blatant 

attempt to distract them from it. If it was intended to comfort 

them, it was by dissuading them from the moral burden the law 

imposes on them. We cannot say, as the majority says, that the 

''remarks did not reduce the jury's sense of actual responsibility," maj .. op. at 14. We don't know that. We are required 

instead to determine that there is no possibility that the remarks 

reduced this sense of moral responsibility. One of the major 

themes persistent in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), Gregg 

v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), and their progeny is that the 

jury's exercise of discretion, although limited by legislative 

guidelines, is necessary for a proper sentencing determination. 

See Woodson, 428 U.S. 280 (1976); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 .. 

(1976); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242 (1976). A jury properly 

exercising its discretion in· capital sentencing "maintain[s] a 

link between contemporary community values and the penal system--a 

link without which the determination of punishment could hardly 

reflect 'the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress 

of a maturing society.'" Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 

519 n.15 (1968), quoting Trap v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958). 

In the sentencing process, the determination of the number 

and seriousness of aggravating circumstances is merely a guideline 

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for the jurors, a benchmark for considering the death penalty. If 

the jury finds that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating 

6ircumstances, imposition of the death penalty is constitutionally 

permissible; however, under Oklahoma law, the jury may still exercise its discretion by refusing to impose the death penalty. 

Parks v. State, 651 P.2d 686, 694 (Okla. 1982), cert. denied, 459 

U.S. 1155 (1983). Under this sentencing construct, the prosecutor's remarks are singularly invidious because his words create a 

mandatory sentencing scheme which attempts to strip the jury of 

the very discretion it may fully exercise up to the final moment 

when the verdict is decided. 

Near the close of his argument in chief, the prosecutor in 

this case made the following remarks: 

And then you may say, well, you know, yeah, I still mean 

it, I could, without doing violence to my conscience if 

this was a proper case; but, you know, I really don't 

want it on my hands that I had anything to do with anybody dying. So for that reason, although this is a 

proper case, I don't want to as~ess the death penalty 

because I just don't want to have to think about that. 

I don't want it on my conscience. 

Well, I don't think it's on Robyn Parks' conscience 

that he took an innocent person's life away; and I don't 

believe in observing him throughout this trial and his 

testimony and listening to his voice on the tapes--I 

don't feel like there's the least bit of remorse in him 

over what he did. But, you know, as you as jurors, you 

really, in assessing the death penalty, you're not yourself putting· Robyn Parks to death. You just have become 

a part of the criminal-justice system that says when 

anyone does this, that he must suffer death. So all you 

are doing is you're just following the law, and what the 

law says, and on your verdict--once your ver~ict comes 

back in, the law takes over. The law does all of these 

things, so it's not on your conscience. You're just 

part of the criminal-justice system that says when this 

type of type of [sic] thing happens, that whoever does 

such a horrible, atrocious thing must suffer death. 

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Now, that's man's law. But God's law is the very 

God's law says that the murderer shall suffer 

So don't let it bother your conscience, you 

same. 

death. 

know. 

Record, vol. 6, at 707-08. 

Such an argument was designed to do precisely what Caldwell 

specifically prohibits: allow the jurors to minimize their sense 

of personal responsibility for imposing the death sentence. By 

implying that the law affirmatively mandated the death penalty in 

this case, the prosecutor allowed the jurors to feel as if their 

hands were tied. He allowed them to feel as if they were not 

choosing to impose the death penalty, the law required it. In 

essence, he told the jurors that they were not responsible for 

sentencing Robyn Parks to death; the ephemeral "criminal justice 

system" was. 

Portions of the prosecutor's argument merit repeating for 

illustration: 

You just have become a part of the criminal-justice system that says when anyone does this, that he must suffer 

death. . [ O] nee your verdict comes back in, the law 

takes over. The law does all of these things •••• 

You're just part of the criminal-justice system that 

says when this type of type of [sic] thing happens, that 

whoever does such a horrible, atrocious thing must suffer death. 

Record, vol. 6, at 707 (emphasis added). The-prosecutor's remarks 

in this case are clearly improper because they diffuse the jurors' 

sense of responsibility for the death sentence by intimating that 

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the jury is performing a dispassionate, mechanical, and ministerial, rather than discretionary function by "just following the 

law, and what the law says." Record, vol. 6, at 708. 

The majority opinion finds the statements made in this case 

similar to those we found constitutional in both Dutton v. Brown, 

812 F.2d 593 (10th Cir. 1987) (en bane), and Coleman v. Brown, 802 

F.2d 1227 (10th Cir. 1986). Maj. op. at 12. I strongly disagree 

and set out in the margin the challenged statements made in those 

cases for purposes of comparison. 3 

3 The challenged statements in Dutton were as follows: 

First of all, [Defense Counsel] argues that the 

final decision is yours, and of course, to some degree 

it is. But you are, as I am, as Judge Theus is, as all 

the courts are, part of the process. We are not functioning as individuals. I am not here as Andy Coats. I 

am here as the District Attorney. 

And you are not here in your individual capacities. 

You are here as the jury. And Judge Theus is not our 

good friend, Harold, off the Bench. He is his Honor, 

Judge Harold Theus, when he is in this Courtroom. 

And we are all part of the law and it is the law 

that makes us work. So it has to be in that attitude, 

in that frame of mind, that you approach the p~ohlem. 

Dutton, 812 F.2d at 596. 

The challenged statements in Coleman were as follows: 

In closing I say to you that they try to put the 

responsibility on you, like it's all your fault. To a 

certain extent--I don't mean to imply, I don't mean to 

imply that it's put on you like it's your fault if you 

do something in this case. I don't mean to imply that 

nece.ssar i ly, but let me m·ake it real clear that you' re 

not writing the verdict in this case. Don't--don't be 

mistaken into believing that it's your responsibility 

that this happened, that you're, you're writing the ver-

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The prosecutor in Dutton attempted to define the juror's 

roles functionally, instead of individually, but did not minimize 

the juror's sense of responsibility within those roles. As for 

the remarks in Coleman, the prosecutor stressed that the defendant 

was responsible for his own plight but did not intimate that the 

awesome responsibility of imposing the death sentence did not rest 

solely with the jury. The statements made in the present case are 

much more troublesome because they are squarely directed at 

attempting to ameliorate any sense of accountability for the decision that this man must be executed. 

Moreover, we found it critical in both Dutton and Coleman 

that the prosecutor made subsequent remarks stressing the importance and exclusivity of the jury's role in the sentencing determination. "It is clear that, when taken in context, the statement 

of the prosecutor was not constitutionally impermissible .•.• 

Indeed, the tenor of the remainder of the closing was that the .. · 

crucial determination of punishment was the sole function of the 

jury." Dutton, 812 F.2d at 596-97 (emphasis added). In Coleman, 

we quoted the prosecutor's subsequent remarks at length. See 

Coleman, 802 F.2d at 1241. We found that "viewing [the Coleman] 

argument in context, it is evident that the prosecutor had no 

diet. I, I say to you, this man wrote the verdict on 

February 9th, and all those days after when he got out 

of jail and went on [sic] spree of knifing and kidnapping and killing, He wtote the verdict. This man. He 

wrote it in blood over and over. 

Coleman, 802 F.2d at 1240. 

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intention of diminishing the jury's sense of responsibility." Id. 

(emphasis added). In the present case, the prosecutor made no 

additional remarks that could have neutralized 'his impermissible 

comments. Essentially, he closed his argument-in-chief with the 

unconstitutional statements. 

In addition, the court's instructions, although a correct 

statement of the law regarding juror responsibility, were buried 

in conventional boilerplate jury responsibility language. 

Moreover, the court in this case did not contemporaneously, or 

subsequently, effectively neutralize the prosecutor's 

impermissible remarks. As Chief Judge Holloway has so cogently 

noted in his concurring and dissenting opinion in which I fully 

concur, under Oklahoma procedure the trial court had a duty to do 

so after the prosecutor's remarks. 

The Supreme Court's concluding statement in Caldwell is pa~-

ticularly applicable here: 

This Court has always premised its capital punishment decisions on the assumption that a capital sentencing jury recognizes the gravity .of its task and proceeds 

with the appropriate awareness of its "truly awesome 

responsibility." In this case, the State sought to minimize the jury's sense of responsibility for determining 

the appropriateness of death. Because we cannot say 

that this effort had no effect on the sentencing decision, that decision does not meet the standard of reliability that the Eighth Amendment requires. 

Caldwell, 472 U.S. at 341 (emphasis added). The jury's verdict in 

this case is unreliable because it is possible that impropet 

remarks have influenced its determination. Because I cannot say 

that the prosecutor's efforts to reduce the jury's sense of 

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responsibility in this case had no effect on the jury's conducting 

of its task, I join in the majority-•s mandate for this reason as 

well as for the reason relied on by the majority. 

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86-1400 - Robyn Leroy Parks v. John N. Brown, etc., et al. 

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge, Concurring and Dissenting in part, with 

whom TACHA, BALDOCK, and BRORBY, Circuit Judges, join: 

I concur in Part I of the majority opinion, but I disagree 

with the majority's holding on the instruction which tells the 

jury to avoid the arbitrary influence of emotions such as 

sympathy, sentiment, passion and prejudice. 

I • 

The iQstruction in question, a general one following a series 

of more specific instructions, reads: 

"In arriving at your determination as to what 

sentence is appropriate under the law, you are 

authorized to consider all the facts and circumstances 

of this case whether presented by the State or the 

defendant and whether presented in the first proceeding 

or this sentencing proceeding. 

"All of the previous instructions given you in the 

first part of this trial apply where applicable and must 

be considered along with these additional Instructions; 

together they contain all the law of any kind to be 

applied by you in this case, and the rules by which you 

are to weigh the evidence and determine the facts in 

issue. You must consider them all together, and not a 

part of them to·the exclusion of the rest. 

"You are the judges of the facts. The importance 

and worth of the evidence is for you to determine. You 

must avoid any influence of sympathy, sentiment, 

~assion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factor when 

imposing sentence. You should discharge your duties as 

jurors impartially, conscientiously and faithfully under 

your oaths and return such verdict as the evidence 

warrants when measured by these Instructions. 

"The Court has made rulings during the sentencing 

stage of this trial. In doing so, the Court has not 

expressed nor intimated in any way the-conclusions to be 

reached by you in this case. The Court specifically has 

has (sic) not expressed any opinion as to whether or not 

any statutory aggravating circumstances exist, or 

whether or not any mitigating circumstances exist. 

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"You must not use any method of chance in arriving 

at a verdict but must base it on the judgment of each 

juror concurring therein. 

"You have already elected a Foreman. Your verdict 

must be unanimous. Proper forms of verdict will be 

furnished you from which you shall choose one to express 

your decision. When you have reached a verdict, all of 

you in a body must return it into open Court. 

"This law provides that you should now listen to 

and consider the further argument of counsel." 

R. Vol. II, Instruction No. 9 (emphasis supplied), 

The majority opinion proceeds on the premise that the jury 

focused on-the word "any" in the sentence about passions, ignoring 

the words and sense of the sentence as a whole. Upon that very 

slight and hypertechnical premise the majority constructs large 

conclusions: that the instruction is unconstitutional on its face 

because it commands the jurors to denigrate mitigating circumstances evidence; that this general instruction overrides or 

otherwise nullifies the specific instructions on mitigating 

circumstances, as well as other specific instructions; and that 

California v. Brown, 107 S. Ct. 837 (1987), does not apply since 

the instruction there used the word "mere" preceding the 

enumerated emotions. 

The majority misconceives the sense of the instruction. A 

reasonable juror would not stop part way through the sentence in 

question (at "any ... sympathy") as the majority presumes. The 

sentence by its express terms refers to arbitrary factors ("any 

influence of sympathy, sentiment, passion, prejudice, or other 

arbitrary factor"), Thus, 1t sensibly cautions the jury against 

imposing sentence simply on the basis of arbitrary emotions. That 

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is not qualitatively different from the meaning imparted by the 

instructions in Brown. In Brown the jury was directed not to 

divorce its considerations from the evidence and render an 

essentially whimsical decision based on mere sympathy. Here, the 

same directive is couched in terms of any arbitrary sympathy. 

The context in which the sentence appears makes that clear. 

The next sentence in the instruction stresses impartiality. The 

preceding sentences state flatly that the jurors alone are the 

judges of the facts and that "the importance and worth of the 

evidence is for you to determine." Earlier, the jury was 

specifically instructed that it was not limited in any way in its 

consideration of mitigating circumstances: 

"You are further instructed that mitigating 

circumstances, if any, must also be considered by you, 

and although they are not specifically enumerated in the 

statutes of this State, the general law of Oklahoma and 

the United States sets up certain minimum mitigating 

circumstances for you to follow as guidelines in 

determining which sentence should be imposed in this 

case. You must consider all the following minimum 

mitigating circumstances and determine whether any one 

or more of them apply to all of·the evidence, facts and 

circumstances of this case. You are not limited in your 

consideration to the minimum mitigating circumstances 

·set out herein, and you may consider any other or 

additional mitigating circumstances, if any, that you 

may find from the evidence to exist in this case. What 

facts or evidence that may constitute an additional 

mitigating circumstance is for the jury to determine. 

"The minimum mitigating circumstances are: 

· 1. The •defendant has no significant history 

of prior criminal activity; 

2. The murder was committed while the 

defendant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance. 

3. The victim was a participant 

defendant's homicidal conduct 

sented to the homicidal act; 

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in the 

or conAppellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 52 
4. The murder was committed under circumstances which the defendant believed to 

provide a moral justification or 

extenuation for his conduct; 

5. The defendant was an accomplice in a 

murder committed by another person and 

his participation in the homicidal act 

was relatively minor; 

6. The defendant acted under duress or under 

the domination of another person; 

7, At the time of the murder the capacity of 

the defendant to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or 

to conform his conduct to the requirement 

of law was impaired as a result of mental 

disease or intoxication; 

8. The age of the defendant at the time of 

the crime." 

R, Vol. II, Instruction No. 6 (emphasis supplied). 

Furthermore, all t~e instructions came after a sentencing 

proceeding in which the defendant's father testified about the 

defendant's character, friendly personality, and childhood 

circumstances, including the facts that the defendant was, a 

product of a broken home and his father had served tim~ in prison. 

And, the prosecution devoted its attention to the same sort of 

individualized evidence regarding Park's childhood, character and 

record, as well as the circumstances of the crime. 

Under the circumstances, the reasoning in Brown to the effect 

that it is constitutional to instruct a jury not to be arbitrarily 

emotional applies directly to this case: 

"Even a juror who insisted on focusing on this one 

phrase in the instruction would likely interpret the 

phrase as an admonition to ignore emotional responses 

that are not rooted in the aggravating and mitigating 

evidence introduced during the penalty phase. While 

strained in the abstract, respondent's interpretation is 

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simply untenable~when viewed in light of the surrounding 

circumstances. This instruction was given at the end of 

the penalty phase, only after respondent had produced 13 

witnesses in his favor. Yet respondent's interpretation 

would have these two words transform three days of 

favorable testimony into a virtual charade. We think a 

reasonable juror would reject that interpretation, and 

instead understand the instruction not to rely on 'mere 

sympathy' as a directive to ignore only the sort of 

sympathy that would be totally divorced from the 

evidence adduced during the penalty phase. 

"We also think it highly unlikely that any 

reasonable juror would almost perversely single out the 

word 'sympathy' from the other nouns which accompany it 

in the instruction: conjecture, passion, prejudice, 

public opinion, and public feeling. Reading the 

instruction as a whole, as we must, it is no more than a 

catalog of the kind of factors that could improperly 

influence a juror's decision to vote for or against the 

death penalty. The doctrine of noscitur ~ soc11s is 

based on common sense, and a rational juror could hardly 

hear this instruction without concluding that it was 

meant to confine the jury's deliberations to 

considerations arising from the evidence presented, both 

aggravating and mitigating. 

"An instruction prohibiting juries from basing 

their sentencing decisions on factors not presented at 

the trial, and irrelevant to the issues at the trial, 

does not violate the United States Constitution. It 

serves the useful purpose of confining the jury's 

imposition of the death sentence by cautioning it 

against reliance on extraneous emotional factors, which, 

we think, would be far more likely to turn the jury 

against a capital defendant than for him. And to the 

extent that the instruction helps to limit the jury's 

consideration to matters introduced in evidence before 

it, it fosters the Eighth Amendment's 'need for 

reliability in the determination that death is the 

appropriate punishment in a specific case.' Woodson, 

supra, 428 U.S., at 305, 96 s.ct., at 2991. Indeed, by 

limiting the jury's sentencing considerations to record 

evidence, the State also ensures the availability of 

meaningful judicial review, another safeguard that 

improves the reliability of the sentencing process. See 

Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 335, and n. 11, 96 

s.ct. 3001, 3007, and n.11, 49 L.Ed.2d 974 (1976) 

{opinion of Stewart, POWELL and STEVENS, JJ.)." 

California v. Brown, 107 s.ct; at 840 (emphasis supplied). 

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Appellate Case: 86-1400 Document: 010110042913 Date Filed: 10/28/1988 Page: 54 
II. 

In her concurring opinion in Brown, Justice O'Connor 

identified a tension between two central principles of Supreme 

Court Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, stating: 

"In Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 s.ct. 2909, 

2932, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), we concluded that 'where 

discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter so 

grave as the determination of whether a human life 

should be taken or spared, that discretion must be 

suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk 

of wholly arbitrary and capricious action.' In capital 

sentencing therefore, discretion must be '''controlled by 

clear and objective standards so as to produce 

nondiscriminatory application."' Id., at 198, 96 s.ct., 

at 2936 (quoting Coley v. State, 231Ga. 829, 834, 204 

S.E.2d 612, 615 (1974)). See also Proffitt v. Florida, 

428 U.S. 242, 253, 96 s.ct. 2960, 2967, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 

(1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, POWELL, and STEVENS, 

JJ.) (State must provide 'specific and detailed 

guidance' to the sentencing body). On the other hand, 

this Court has also held that a sentencing body must be 

able to consider any relevant mitigating evidence 

regaroing the defendant's character or background, and 

the circumstances of the particular offense. Eddings v. 

Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 s.ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 

(1982); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 u.s. 586, 98 s.ct. 2954, 57 

L.Ed.2d 973 (1978)(plurality opinion). 

California v. Brown, 107 s.ct. at 841. 

The tension described by Justice O'Connor, and considered by 

her in Brown, is reduced in this case because the instructions on 

mitigating evidence are much stronger. Under these instructions 

the jury was clearly informed that the listed mitigating 

circumstances were the minimum to be considered, and that the jury 

was entitled · to consider any other or additional mitigating 

circumstances it found from the evidence to exist. The 

instructions went· on to emphasize that "[w]hat facts or evidence 

-that may constitute an additional mitigating circumstance is for 

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the jury to determine. 111 It is simply not reasonable to assume, 

as does the majority opinion, that the jury would be led to 

denigrate this instruction, and further instructions regarding 

their exclusive right to judge the importance and worth of the 

evidence, because the judge also cautioned against being 

arbitrarily emotional. This is especially true in view of the 

fact that the entire sentencing proceeding was devoted to wideranging, unrestricted and wholly individualized evidence regarding 

Parks' character, record, upbringing, and the circumstances of the 

crime. 2 

The fallacy of the majority's assumption that the jury was 

likely to ignore mitigating evidence is evidenced by the verdict 

itself. The jury expressly rejected two of the three aggravating 

circumstances upon which the prosecution strenuously sought an 

affirmative jury finding: that the murder was especially heinous, 

atrocious or cruel; and, the probability that Parks would commit 

criminal acts of violence that would tonstitute a continuing 

threat to society. R. Vol. II, Instruction No. l; Tr. Vol.Vat 

696-98, 734-35. That verdict necessarily resulted from the jury's 

individualized 

evidence. 

assessment of Parks based on the mitigating 

1 The instruction was reinforced by Instruction No. 8, and the 

verdict form, which told the jury it was required to reduce to 

writing any aggravating circumstances it found but was not 

required to r~duce to writing or otherwise explain any mitigating 

circumstances it found. 

2 The Court emphasized to Parks' counsel that, "[Y)ou put 

whatever evidence you want in mitigation." Tr. Vol.Vat 659. 

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The majority's slant toward a constitutional right to an 

emotional jury (neatly -- and erroneously -- translated from the 

context of arbitrary emotion into the more appealing concept of 

considered mercy), violates the principles of reasoned, channeled, 

reliable and reviewable sentences. A defendant's life should not 

hang on the ability or inability of defendant or lawyer to "move" 

the jury. Stated another way, the problem lies not so much with 

the life sentence imposed out of random sympathy, as with the 

death sentence imposed because the defendant or his lawyer were 

insufficieQtly articulate to generate sympathy. The focus in all 

cases is upon capriciousness in the imposition of the death 

penalty. In Booth v. Maryland, 107 S.Ct. 2529 (1987), the Supreme 

Court ruled that the introduction of a victim impact statement 

("VIS") at the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial violated 

the Eighth Amendment. The Court's ruling rests partly on the 

facts that a VIS focuses on the victim rather than the defendant 

and serves only to inflame the jury and divert it from deciding 

the case on relevant evidence. Id. at 2534, 2536. But the ruling 

also stresses that it is arbitrary to make sentencing decisions 

based on the ability of a family member to express his grief. Id. 

at 2534. The same principle applies to supplications 

defendants and their lawyers. 

I agree with Justice O'Connor that: 

"[T]he sentence imposed 

reflect a reasoned moral 

background, character, 

sympathy or emotion. 

at the penalty stage should 

response to the defendant's 

and crime rather than mere 

by 

California v. Brown 107 s.ct. at 841. See also Fran~lin v. 

Lynaugh, 108 s.ct. 2320, 2333 (1988) (O'Connor, J., concurring). 

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The requirement that sentencing decisions must be rational has 

been emphasized over and over again by the Supreme Court since 

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). 

In Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 358 (1976), the Court 

stated: "It is of vital importance to the defendant and to the 

community that any decision to impose the death sentence be, and 

appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion." 

That standard has been referred to repeatedly by the Court in its 

later decisions. Sumner v. Shuman, 107 s.ct. 2716, 2723, n.5 

(1987) ("sentence imposed at the penalty stage should reflect a 

reasoned moral response to the defendant's background, character, 

and er ime" quoting California v. Brown, 107 S. Ct. at 8 41 

(O'Connor, J., concurring)); Booth v. Maryland, 107 s.ct. at 2536 

("[A]ny decision to impose the de~th sentence must 'be, and appear 

to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.'", quoting 

Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. at 358; "reasoned decision making" 

required in 

1789 (1987) 

rationality 

dissenting)); 

("[M]any of 

capital 

("[W]e 

cases); Mccleskey v. Kemp, 107 s.ct. 1756, 

have demanded a uniquely high degre~ of 

in imposing the death penalty." (Brennan, J., 

_c_a_l_d_w_e_l_l __ v_. __ M_i_s_s_i_s_s_i_..p"""'p i .r 4 7 2 U. S . 3 2 O ( 19 8 5 ) 

the limits that this Court has placed on the 

imposition of capital punishment are rooted in a concern that the 

sentencing process should facilitate the responsible and reliable 

exercise of sentencing discretion." Id. at 329; "[T]his Court has 

gone to extraordinary measures to insure that the prisoner 

sentenced to be executed is afforded process that will guarantee, 

as much as is humanly possible, that the sentence was not imposed 

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out of whim, passion, prejudice, or mistake." Id. at 329, n.2, 

quoting Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 118 (1982) (O'Connor, 

J., concurring)); Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 53 (1984) 

(upholding the constitutionality of a 

guaranteed that the jury's discretion will 

state statute which 

be guided and its 

consideration 

1018-21 (1983) 

decisions must 

"deliberate"); California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 

(Marshall, J., dissenting) (capital punishment 

be "rational," "meaningful," "principled," and 

"reliable"); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 433 (1980) (death 

sentence must be based on reason rather than caprice or emotion, 

quoting Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. at 358); Beck v. Alabama, 447 

U.S. 625, 637-38 (1980) (reason rather than caprice or emotion 

required); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 190 (1976) ("reasoned 

determination" by a jury); Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 274 

(1976) (Texas procedure "guides and focuses the jury's objective 

consideration of the particularized circumstances of the 

individual offense and the individual offender.") ( empha,sis 

supplied); Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 259 (1975) ("[T)here 

shall be an informed, focused, guided, and objective inquiry into 

the question whether [a convicted person] should be sentenced to 

death."). 

Indeed, the only circuit decision on point since Brown 

upholds the constitutionality of an absolute antisympathy 

instruction, essentially pointing to the reasoning in Brown that 

"a rational juror could. hardly hear this instruction without 

concluding that it wa~ meant to confine the jury's deliberations 

to considerations arising from the evidence presented, both 

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aggravating and mitigating.'' Byrne v. Butler, 847 F.2d 1135, 1140 

(5th Cir. 1988) (quoting California v. Brown, 107 s.ct. at 840). 

Since the instruction in this case before us is not an absolute 

antisympathy 

Fifth Circuit 

instruction, the majority's disagreement with the 

goes farther than splitting the circuits, it 

represents an extreme position lacking any support at all in 

existing cases. The maiority's emphasis on the role of emotion is 

nothing less than a return to standardless and whimsical capital 

sentencing. It is important to stress again that a jury, 

especially. one that previously sat through the guilt or innocence 

stage of the trial and found the defendant guilty of· murder, is 

more likely to have sympathy for the victim and the victim's 

family than for the defendant. Thus, an instruction like that in 

question is more apt to help than to harm defendants. 

III. 

The majority opinion makes no holding on the question of •the 

influence of the prosecutor's statements regarding sympathy. I do 

not regard them, either alone or in combination with Instruction 

No. 9, as rendering the jury's sentence constitutionally 

defective. The overriding reason is discussed in the foregoing 

sections: the jury instructions clearly guided the jury with 

respect to its role and power in general, and with respect to 

mitigating circumstances in particular. The court made it 

absolutely clear to the jury that the instructions, not comments 

by counsel, contained the law; and that the jurors were the sole 

judges of the facts and the court the sole judge of the law, Tr. 

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Vol. I at 67-68, Tr. Vol. II at 179; Tr. Vol.Vat 660; R. Vol. 

II, Court's Explanation of Instructions, Instructions 2, 6, and 9. 

Furthermore, the prosecutor's few references to sympathy and 

prejudice were combined with references to the jurors' right to 

consider anything in mitigation (Tr. Vol.Vat 703-04), and duty 

to return a verdict under the law and the evidence (Id. at 730). 

Finally, the prosecutor's comments responded to fervent appeals to 

generalized sympathy by Parks' counsel. Those appeals were based 

largely upon emotion-generating matters wholly irrelevant to the 

type of individualized evidence of the defendant's character, 

record and circumstances of the crime, referred to in the cases 

cited by the majority: Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 

(1986); Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862 (1983); Eddings v. 

Oklahoma, 455 U.S. at 104; Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978); 

and Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976). 

Thus, for example, Parks' counsel dwelt on his own 

experiences in Vietnam, and the death of his buddies, Tr. Vol ... V 

at 708-09, 711 ("I've had to put some of my friends in plastic 

bags .••. 11 ), as well as the tragedy of his own terminal illness 

("I understand that feeling [having your days numbered] very well 

myself because I've suffered a serious disease and I very well 

might not be around much longer .... 11 Id. at 718). Those are 

appeals to arbitrary sympathy· (just as were the prosecutor's 

passionate 

family). It 

remarks seeking sympathy for 

was justifiable to respond 

the 

to 

victim and 

such appeals 

his 

by 

referring the jury to the court's instruction cautioning against 

the influence of arbitrary emotions. 

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,, 

IV. 

Borrowing from the Supreme Court's language in Brown, it is 

utterly implausible that a reasonable juror would almost 

perversely single out the word "any" buried in a general 

instruction, to the exclusion of the sense of the entire 

instruction, and rely upon it to disregard the court's specific 

and unequivocal instructions on mitigating circumstances evidence. 

Judicial exercises in semantic metaphysics aside, what it 

boils down,to is this: Did the instructions and proceedings as a 

whole direct these jurors to deliberate reasonably and impose a 

sentence based on all the evidence? An affirmative answer to that 

question is unavoidable. There is no substantial possibility3 

that Instruction No. 9, either alone or in combination with 

remarks by the prosecutor, prevented "the sentencing jury from 

giving mitigating effect to any evidence relevant to petitioner's 

character or background or to the,circumstances of the offense." 

Franklin v. Lynaugh, 108 s.ct. at 2335 (O'Connor, J., concurring). 

3 I use this standard because it is the one relied upon in 

majority opinion. 

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