Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/527/373/case.html
Timestamp: 2017-08-20 10:05:08
Document Index: 94442468

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3593', '§ 3591', '§ 1201', '§ 3595', '§848', '§ 3591', '§848', '§ 3592', '§ 3592', '§ 3592', '§ 3592', '§ 3592', '§ 848', '§848']

Jones v. United States (full text) :: 527 U.S. 373 (1999) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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3. Assuming, arguendo, that the District Court erred in allowing the jury to consider nonstatutory aggravating factors that were vague, overbroad, or duplicative in violation of the Eighth Amendment, such error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. An appellate court may conduct harmless-error review by considering either whether absent an invalid factor, the jury would have reached the same verdict or whether the result would have been the same had the invalid aggravat-
THOMAS, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III-B, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III-A, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O'CONNOR and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and SOUTER, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER, J., joined as to Parts I, II, III, and V, post, p. 405.
* Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson filed a brief for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation as amicus curiae urging affirmance. tJUSTICE SCALIA joins all but Part III-A of the opinion.
The District Court then conducted a separate sentencing hearing pursuant to § 3593. As an initial matter, the sentencing jury was required to find that petitioner had the requisite intent, see § 3591(a)(2); it concluded that petitioner intentionally killed his victim and intentionally inflicted serious bodily injury resulting in her death. Even on a finding of intent, however, a defendant is not death eligible unless the sentencing jury also finds that the Government
"2(C). The defendant LOUIS JONES committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse to Tracie Joy McBride." App.51-52.
In theory, the District Court's failure to instruct the jury as to the consequences of deadlock could give rise to an Eighth Amendment problem of a different sort: We also have held that a jury cannot be "affirmatively misled regarding its
6 It is not insignificant that the Courts of Appeals to have addressed this question, as far as we are aware, are uniform in rejecting the argument that the Constitution requires an instruction as to the consequences of a jury's inability to agree. See, e. g., Coe v. Bell, 161 F.3d 320, 339-340
(CA6 1998); Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865,890 (CA4 1998); United States v. Chandler, 996 F.2d 1073, 1088-1089 (CAll 1993); Evans v. Thompson, 881 F.2d 117, 123-124 (CA4 1989). Indeed, the Fifth Circuit, in the alternative, reached the same conclusion in this very case. See 132 F.3d 232, 245 (1998).
To put petitioner's claim in the proper context, we must briefly review the jury instructions and sentencing proce-
8 Petitioner does not argue that the District Court's instructions on the lesser sentence option, standing alone, constituted reversible error although the parties agree that, after the jury found petitioner guilty of kidnaping resulting in death, the only possible sentences were death and a life sentence. See Brief for Petitioner 18-19; Brief for United States 13, n. 2; see also 18 U. S. C. § 1201. Petitioner made such an argument below; the Fifth Circuit, however, concluded that the instructions as to the lesser sentence option did not rise to the level of plain error. 132 F. 3d, at 246-248.
The statute does not explicitly announce an exception to
Petitioner's argument-which depends on the premise that the instructions and decision forms led the jury to believe that it did not have to recommend unanimously a lesser
9 Petitioner concedes that the Boyde standard applies to the extent that he is advancing a constitutional claim, but relying on our prior decision in Andres v. United States, 333 U. S. 740, 752 (1948), he contends that a more lenient standard applies to the extent that he seeks relief under the statute directly. Our decisions in Boyde and Estelle, however, foreclose that reading of Andres. In Boyde we noted that our prior decisions, including Andres, had been "less than clear" in articulating a single workable standard for evaluating claims that an instruction prevented the jury's consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence. 494 U. S., at 378. In order to supply "a single formulation for this Court and other courts to employ in deciding this kind of federal question," we announced the "reasonable likelihood" standard. Id., at 379. We made this same point later in Estelle, noting that "[i]n Boyde ... we made it a point to settle on a single standard of review for jury instructions-the 'reasonable likelihood' standard-after considering the many different phrasings that had previously been used by this Court." 502 U. S., at 72-73, n. 4.
Petitioner parses these passages too finely. Our decisions repeatedly have cautioned that instructions must be evaluated not in isolation but in the context of the entire charge. See, e. g., Bryan v. United States, 524 U. S. 184, 199 (1998); United States v. Park, 421 U. S. 658, 674 (1975); Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 147 (1973); Boyd v. United States, 271 U. S. 104, 107 (1926). We agree with the Fifth Circuit that when these passages are viewed in the context of the entire instructions, they lack ambiguity and cannot be given the reading that petitioner advances. See 132 F. 3d, at 244. We previously have held that instructions that might be ambiguous in the abstract can be cured when read in conjunction with other instructions. Bryan, supra, at 199; Victor,
10 The relevant portion of the instruction read: "You will also recall that I previously told you that all twelve of you had to unanimously agree that a particular aggravating circumstance was proved beyond a reasonable doubt before you consider it. Quite the opposite is true with regard to mitigating factors. A finding with respect to a mitigating factor may be made by anyone or more of the members of the jury, and any member who finds by a preponderance of the evidence the existence of a mitigating factor may consider such factor established for his or her weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors regardless of the number of other jurors who agree that such mitigating factor has been established." App. 43.
Petitioner also places too much weight on the fact that Decision Form D required only the foreperson's signature. Although it only contained a space for the foreperson's signature, Form D, like the others, used the phrase "We the jury recommend ... ," thereby signaling that Form D represented the jury's recommendation. Id., at 59. Moreover, elsewhere, the jury foreperson alone signed the jury forms to indicate the jury's unanimous agreement. Specifically, only the jury foreperson signed the special findings form on which the jury was required to indicate its unanimous agreement that an aggravating factor had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 51-53. In these circumstances, we do
The Eighth Amendment, as the Court of Appeals correctly recognized, see 132 F. 3d, at 250, permits capital sentencing juries to consider evidence relating to the victim's personal characteristics and the emotional impact of the murder on the victim's family in deciding whether an eligible defendant should receive a death sentence. See Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827 (1991) ("A State may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the victim's family is relevant to the jury's decision as to whether or not the death penalty should be im-
The Government here renews its argument that the nonstatutory aggravators in this case were constitutionally valid. At oral argument, however, it was suggested that this case comes to us on the assumption that the nonstatutory aggravating factors were invalid because the Government did not cross-appeal on the question. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25. As the prevailing party, the Government is entitled to defend the judgment on any ground that it properly raised below. See, e. g., El Paso Natural Gas Co. v. Neztsosie, 526 U. S. 473, 479 (1999); Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, 510 U. S. 355, 364 (1994) ("A prevailing party need not cross-petition to defend a judgment on any ground properly raised below, so long as that party seeks to preserve, and not to change, the judgment"). It further was suggested that because we granted certiorari on the Government's rephrasing of petitioner's questions and because the third question-"whether the court of appeals correctly held that the submission of invalid nonstatutory aggravating factors was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt"-presumes error, we must assume the nonstatutory aggravating factors were erroneous. Tr. of Oral Arg. 25-27. We are not convinced that the reformulated question presumes error. The question whether the nonstatutory aggravating factors were constitutional is fairly included within the third question pre-
12 The dissent would treat this aspect of the Government's argument as waived. Post, at 420-421, n. 24. As JUSTICE GINSBURG explained, for a unanimous Court, in Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61 (1996): "Under this Court's Rule 15.2, a nonjurisdictional argument not raised in a respondent's brief in opposition to a petition for a writ of certiorari 'may be deemed waived.''' Id., at 75, n. 13 (emphasis added). But we have not done so when the issue not raised in the brief in opposition was "predicate to an intelligent resolution of the question presented." Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Caterpillar, 519 U. S., at 75, n. 13. In those instances, we have treated the issue not raised in opposition as fairly included within the question presented. This is certainly such a case. Assessing the error (including whether there was error at all) is essential to an intelligent resolution of whether any such error was harmless. Moreover, here, as in Caterpillar, "[t]he parties addressed the issue in their briefs and at oral argument." Ibid. By contrast, in the cases that the dissent looks to for support for its position, there were good reasons to decline to exercise our discretion. In Roberts v. Galen of Va., Inc., 525 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1999) (per curiam), the "claims [we declined to consider did] not appear to have been sufficiently developed below for us to assess them," and in South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Alabama, 526 U. S. 160, 171 (1999), the argument respondent raised for the first time in its merits brief was "so far-reaching an argument" that "[w]e would normally expect notice [of it]," especially when, unlike this case, the respondent's argument did not appear to have been raised or considered below.
13 The Tenth Circuit, in a decision subsequent to McCullah, has emphasized that factors do not impermissibly overlap unless one "necessarily subsumes" the other. Cooks v. Ward, 165 F.3d 1283, 1289 (1998).
problems with the Fifth Circuit's application of the theory in this case. The phrase "personal characteristics" as used in factor 3(C) does not obviously include the specific personal characteristics listed in 3(B)-"young age, her slight stature, her background, and her unfamiliarity with San Angelo"especially in light of the fact that 3(C) went on to refer to the impact of the crime on the victim's family. In the context of considering the effect of the crime on the victim's family, it would be more natural to understand "personal characteristics" to refer to those aspects of the victim's character and personality that her family would miss the most. More important, to the extent that there was any ambiguity arising from how the factors were drafted, the Government's argument to the jury made clear that 3(B) and 3(C) went to entirely different areas of aggravation-the former clearly went to victim vulnerability while the latter captured the victim's individual uniqueness and the effect of the crime on her family. See, e. g., 25 Record 2733-2734 ("[Y]ou can consider [the victim's] young age, her slight stature, her background, her unfamiliarity with the San Angelo area .... She is barely five feet tall [and] weighs approximately 100 pounds. [She is] the ideal victim"); id., at 2734 ("[Y]ou can consider [the victim's] personal characteristics and the effects of the instant offense on her family .... You heard about this young woman, you heard about her from her mother, you heard about her from her friends that knew her. She was special, she was unique, she was loving, she was caring, she had a lot to offer this world"). As such, even if the phrase "personal characteristics" as used in factor 3(C) was understood to include the specific personal characteristics listed in 3(B), the factors as a whole were not duplicativeat best, certain evidence was relevant to two different aggravating factors. Moreover, any risk that the weighing process would be skewed was eliminated by the District Court's instruction that the jury "should not simply count the number of aggravating and mitigating factors and reach a deci-
14 Petitioner argues that the term "personal characteristics" was so vague that the jury may have thought it could consider the victim's race and the petitioner's race under factor 3(e). In light of the remainder of the factor and the Government's argument with respect to the factor, we fail to see that possibility. In any event, in accordance with the Death
15We reiterate the point we made in Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U. S. 967 (1994)-we have held only a few, quite similar factors vague, see, e. g., Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356 (1988) (whether murder was "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel"), while upholding numerous other factors against vagueness challenges, see 512 U. S., at 974 (collecting cases).
Petitioner claims that the court's analysis was so perfunctory as to be infirm. His argument is largely based on the following passage from Clemons: "Under these circumstances, it would require a detailed explanation based on the record for
The same "detailed explanation ... on the record" that we required in Clemons may not have been necessary in this case. Cf. Sochor v. Florida, 504 U. S. 527, 540 (1992) (there is no federal requirement that state courts adopt "a particular formulaic indication" before their review for harmless error will pass scrutiny). But even if the Fifth Circuit's harmless-error analysis was too perfunctory, we think it plain, under the alternative mode of harmless-error analysis, that the error indeed was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See § 3595(c)(2) (federal death sentences are not to be set aside on the basis of errors that are harmless beyond a reasonable doubt). Had factors 3(B) and 3(C) been precisely defined in writing, the jury surely would have reached the same recommendation as it did. The Government's argument to the jury, see, e. g., 25 Record 2733-2734, cured the nonstatutory factors of any infirmity as written. We are satisfied that the jury in this case actually understood what each factor was designed to put before it, and therefore have
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit confronted these two questions and resolved both for the prosecution. The Fifth Circuit also tolerated the trial court's submission of two nonstatutory aggravating factors to the jury, although
2The predecessor Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 authorized the death penalty for murder resulting from certain drug-related offenses. See 21 U. S. C. §848(e). The FDPA states that its procedures apply to "any [federal] offense for which a sentence of death is provided," 18 U. S. C. § 3591(a)(2), but does not repeal the 1988 Act, which differs in some respects. See, e. g., 21 U. S. C. §§848(q)(4)-(9) (mandatory appointment of habeas counsel and provision of investigative and expert services).
"(C) intentionally participated in an act, contemplating that the life of a person would be taken or intending that lethal force would be used in
"Again, unless all twelve members of the jury determine that Mr. Jones should receive the death penalty, I will impose a sentence of life imprison-
n The jury rejected the following aggravators: (1) the crime involved substantial planning and premeditation, see 18 U. S. C. § 3592(c)(9); (2) the crime created a grave risk to a person other than the victim, see § 3592(c)(5); and (3) Jones posed a future danger to the lives and safety of other persons. It found as aggravators: (1) Jones killed the victim during the commission of kidnaping, see § 3592(c)(I); (2) the crime was especially heinous, cruel, and depraved, see § 3592(c)6); (3) the victim's young age, slight stature, background, and unfamiliarity with San Angelo, Texas; and (4) the victim's personal characteristics and the effect of the offense on her family. See 132 F. 3d, at 238, and nn. 1, 2.
12 One or more jurors found each of Jones's ten specific mitigating factors. None found the eleventh, a catchall stating that "other factors in the defendant's background or character militate against the death penalty," see 18 U. S. C. § 3592(a)(8), but seven found the existence of an additional mitigating factor not submitted by Jones. See 132 F. 3d, at 238-239, n. 3.
The Fifth Circuit also considered Jones's challenge to the nonstatutory aggravators presented to the jury at the Government's request. The court held that the two found by the jury-the victim's "young age, her slight stature, her background, and her unfamiliarity with San Angelo, Texas," and her "personal characteristics and the effect of the ... offense on [her] family"-were "duplicative" of each other, and also impermissibly "vague and overbroad." Id., at 250251. The court declined to upset the death verdict, however, because it believed "the death sentence would have been imposed beyond a reasonable doubt had the invalid ag-
13 The problem was not, as the Court describes it, a failure to give the jury "[a] bit of information that might possibly influence an individual juror's voting behavior," ante, at 382; rather, the jury was" 'affirmatively misled,'" cf. ante, at 381, by the repeated misinformation the charge and decision forms conveyed.
17The Court, in a footnote, appears to recognize what should be beyond genuine debate: For Jones, "the only possible sentences were death and a life sentence." Ante, at 387, n. 8. In face of the District Court's lesser sentence instructions, four times given to the jury, it is difficult to comprehend why this Court "cannot see that any error occurred." See ante, at 390.
19 While precedent supports the Fifth Circuit's affirmation that statements attesting to the juror's understanding of the instructions are inadmissible, see 132 F. 3d, at 245-246, the statements Jones submitted do assert that apprehension of a lesser sentence the judge might impose in fact caused jurors to vote for a death sentence, see App. 68, 79. On a matter so grave, I would not discount those statements altogether. Cf. Jorgensen v. York Ice Machinery Corp., 160 F.2d 432, 435 (CA2 1947)
20 Misinformation, not the District Court's failure to repeat the unanimity requirement each time it mentioned the jury's sentencing options, or to advise on the consequences of a deadlocked jury, is the harmful error at the heart of Jones's case. I therefore see no cause to dispute that "the Eighth Amendment does not require that the jury be instructed as to the consequences of their failure to agree." Ante, at 381. In my judgment, however, the court was obliged, in this life or death case, to make clear to the jury that Jones's minimum sentence was life without possibility of release.
22 Like the FDPA, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act provides for a new sentencing jury if the guilt-phase jury "has been discharged for good cause," 21 U. S. C. § 848(i)(1)(B)(iii), and states, immediately after providing for the death sentence upon jury recommendation, that "[o]therwise the court shall impose a sentence, other than death, authorized by law," §848(l). Under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, unlike the FDPA, the only binding recommendation the jury can make is for death.
24 The Government now argues, contrary to the Fifth Circuit's conclusion, that aggravating factors 3(B) and 3(C) are not duplicative, vague, or overbroad. See Brief for United States 40-45. The Court granted certiorari on the Government's reformulated questions, which presumed the incorrectness of the aggravators. See supra, at 406, n. 1. In its brief
It is evident that the issue held back by the Government was not "predicate to an intelligent resolution of the question presented." Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted). But see ante, at 397, n. 12. JUSTICE THOMAS treats the two issues as separate and independent. He maintains first that there was no error. Writing for the Court, he then proceeds to assume there was error and concludes that any error was harmless. Either holding would do to support the Court's disposition. See, e. g., United States v. Hasting, 461 U. S. 499,506, n. 4, 510-512 (1983) (holding presumed error harmless rather than deciding whether there was, in fact, error; Court explains "[t]he question on which review was granted assumed that there was error and the question to be resolved was whether harmless-error analysis should have applied"); id., at 512-513 (STEVENS, J., concurring) (Court should decide case on the ground that there was no error, without reaching harmless-error question).