Source: https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/supreme-court/1992/1900152-1.html
Timestamp: 2019-08-25 18:00:34
Document Index: 637484798

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 13']

Ex Parte Henderson :: 1992 :: Supreme Court of Alabama Decisions :: Alabama Case Law :: Alabama Law :: US Law :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Alabama Case Law › Supreme Court of Alabama Decisions › 1992 › Ex Parte Henderson
616 So. 2d 348 (1992)
Ex parte Curtis Lee HENDERSON. (Re Curtis Lee HENDERSON v. STATE).
Rehearing Denied June 12 and August 7, 1992.
B. Greg Wood of Wood, Hollingsworth & Willis, Talladega and James E. Malone of Ingram & Malone, Lineville, for petitioner.
Henderson appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that his right to due process had been violated because, he claimed, the prosecution had systematically used its peremptory strikes to exclude black individuals from the jury. His trial had taken place before the United States Supreme Court decided Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. 2d 69 (1986), and this Court decided Ex parte Branch, 526 So. 2d 609 (Ala. 1987).[1] On appeal, the Court of Criminal *349 Appeals heard arguments on this issue and remanded the cause to the trial court for a hearing pursuant to Ex parte Branch. Henderson v. State, 584 So. 2d 841, 844 (Ala.Cr.App.1988). The trial court complied.
On return to the remand, the Court of Criminal Appeals accepted the trial court's findings that the prosecutor had shown sufficiently race-neutral reasons for his peremptory strikes to comply with Branch and Scales v. State, 539 So. 2d 1074 (Ala. 1988). The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed as to the other issues raised by Henderson. However, pursuant to Ex parte Cochran, 500 So. 2d 1179, 1187 (Ala. 1985), the cause was remanded to the trial court "to enter specific written findings as to whether [Henderson's] I.Q. [intelligence quotient] score constituted a non-statutory mitigating circumstance in this case." Henderson v. State, 584 So. 2d 841, 862 (Ala.Cr.App.1988).
We granted certiorari review and remanded the case for the Court of Criminal Appeals to review the propriety of this death sentence pursuant to § 13A-5-53, Code of Alabama 1975, and to make findings consistent with the mandates of that statute. Ex parte Henderson, 584 So. 2d 862 (Ala.1991). The Court of Criminal Appeals made the following findings pursuant to the mandates of the statute:
"[I]n accordance with § 13A-5-53, we have reviewed the record, including the guilt and sentencing proceedings, for any error which adversely affected the rights of the appellant, and we have found none. Nor do we find any evidence that the sentence was imposed under influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor. "The trial court properly found the existence of one aggravating circumstance, that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, § 13A-5-49(6), Code of Alabama 1975. The propriety of this aggravating circumstance was previously discussed.... The trial court also properly found the existence of one mitigating circumstance, the absence of a prior criminal record, § 13A-5-51(1), Code of Alabama 1975. The trial court properly found the existence of no non-statutory mitigating circumstances. "After an independent weighing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in this case, we find that the evidence supports the trial court's conclusion and indicates that death was the proper sentence. The sentence of death in this case is neither excessive nor disproportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant."
Henderson v. State, 587 So. 2d 1071 (Ala. Crim.App.1991). (Citations omitted.)
The Court of Criminal Appeals stated that "[t]he trial court ... properly found the existence of one mitigating circumstance, the absence of a prior criminal record, § 13A-5-51(1), Code of Alabama 1975." 587 So. 2d 1071. The record reflects that the trial court had amended its findings on March 12, 1986, and had found that the defendant's age at the time of the offense (21 years) was a second mitigating factor, under § 13A-5-51(7). Thus, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed this sentence based upon the erroneous belief that only one mitigating factor existed.
*350 The Court of Criminal Appeals also affirmed the trial court's finding that Henderson's low I.Q. score did not constitute a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance. The United States Supreme Court held in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 606-08, 98 S. Ct. 2954, 2965-67, 57 L. Ed. 2d 973 (1978), 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 than death. Id. at 604, 98 S. Ct. at 2964. The Court held in Lockett that retardation may be a mitigating factor, specifically when the defendant had lacked specific intent.[2] The independent mitigating weight requirement of Lockett has been interpreted to mean that any relevant mitigating evidence must be considered by the court in order to ensure that capital sentencing is consistent with public standards of decency and fairness.[3]
Also before us is the question of whether the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in finding on the return to the remand that "the sentence of death in this case is neither excessive nor disproportionate to the penalties imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant." See § 13A-5-53(b)(3). Henderson argues that the trial court and the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in failing to consider the fact that the sentence imposed in the companion case against defendant Cleveland Turner, Jr., was remitted from death by electrocution to life in prison without benefit of parole.
The trial judge's finding of fact, recited in Henderson v. State, 584 So. 2d at 844, states that Cleveland Turner, Jr., had been having an affair with Christine Perkins, the wife of the victim, Willie Edward Perkins. Turner had been involved in an industrial accident, and he had received $38,000 in a worker's compensation settlement. Turner had given Christine Perkins money to go to Springfield, Ohio, and he had planned to *351 join her at a later date. Turner agreed to pay Henderson $2000 to "take care of" Willie Edward Perkins. Turner provided the .38 caliber pistol used in the murder.
[1] Although the trial court did not have the Batson or Branch opinions for guidance, the record reflects that the trial judge did, following the striking of the jury, hold a hearing at which he required the prosecutor to state for the record the nature of the reasons for his strikes of black members of the venire.
[2] Section 13A-5-51 provides that mitigating circumstances shall include: "(6) The capacity of the defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law was substantially impaired."
[3] Donald H.J. Hermann, Howard Singer, & Mary Roberts, Sentencing of the Mentally Retarded Criminal Defendant, 41 Ark.L.R. 765, at 795 (1988).