Source: https://hat.capdefnet.org/8th-amendment/lockett-doctrine
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 20:38:39+00:00

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Anyone involved in a capital litigation must have a firm grasp of the Lockett doctrine. In Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978), the Court established the bedrock Eighth Amendment principle emanates from the "the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment, [which mandates the ]. . 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. at 304; see also Roberts (Harry) v. Louisiana, 431 U.S. 633 (1977); Roberts (Stanislaus) v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976).1 Only through a process which requires the sentencer to "consider in fixing the ultimate punishment of death the possibility of compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse frailties of humankind," Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304 (1976), can capital defendants be treated "as uniquely individual human beings." Id. The Lockett principle "is the product of a considerable history reflecting, the law's effort to develop a system of capital punishment at once consistent and principled but also humane and sensible to the uniqueness of the individual. California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 537, 562 (1987) (Blackman, J. dissenting). Or, in Justice O'Connor's terms, "[u]nderlying Lockett and Eddings is the principle that punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal defendant." Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 319 (1989), overruled in part on other grounds by Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002).
Lockett followed from the earlier decisions of the Court and from the Court's insistence that capital punishment be imposed fairly, and with reasonable consistency, or not at all. . . . By holding that the sentencer in capital cases must be permitted to consider any relevant mitigating factor, the rule in Lockett recognizes that a consistency produced by ignoring individual differences is a false consistency.
It is important to note that the definition of "mitigating" is extremely broad. In Lockett, the Court defined a mitigating circumstance as "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 than death." 438 U.S. at 604. While this explanation seems to allow the defendant the freedom to define what is "mitigating," the Court has since given a more objective cast to this explanation. In Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1 (1986), the Court held that evidence of the defendant's good behavior during his pretrial incarceration was "'mitigating' in the sense that [it] might serve 'as a basis for a sentence less than death.'" 476 U.S. at 7 (quoting Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. at 604).2 Thus, any evidence which "might" serve to reduce the urge to punish harshly must be deemed mitigating. See also McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 440 (1990) (quoting State v. McKoy, 323 N. C. 1, 55-56, 372 S. E. 2d, 12, 45 (1988) (opinion of Exum, C. J.) ("`Relevant mitigating evidence is evidence which tends logically to prove or disprove some fact or circumstance which a fact-finder could reasonably deem to have mitigating value.'"); Tennard v. Dretke, 542 U.S. 274 (2004) (a defendant need not show a “uniquely severe permanent handicap” and that the capital offense was attributable to such handicap to establish relevant mitigation); but see Oregon v. Guzek, 546 U.S. 517 (2006) (at penalty phase retrial, Eighth Amendment does not provide defendant with the right to present new but previously available evidence showing he was not present at the scene of the crime).
1As Justice O'Connor noted in her concurring opinion in California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538 (1987), evidence about the defendant's background and character is relevant because of the belief, held by this society, that defendants who commit criminal acts that are attributable to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental problems, may be less culpable that defendants who have no such excuse. Id. at 545.
3 In Delo v. Lashley, 507 U.S. 272 (1993) (per curiam), the Court implicitly acknowledged that it would violate the Eighth Amendment for a state trial court to refuse to submit to the jury a statutory mitigating circumstance which was supported by record evidence.
4Green v. Georgia, 442 U.S. 95 (1979) (State cannot inflexibly apply its hearsay rule to exclude from penalty phase reliable hearsay evidence relevant to capital defendant's relative culpability).
6Penry, 492 U.S. at 326.
7 However, in Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639 (1990), the Court held that it did not violate the Eighth Amendment for a state to assign the burden of establishing the existence of a mitigating circumstance to the defendant.

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