Title: Ex Parte Bryant
Citation: 951 So. 2d 724
Docket Number: 1990901
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: June 21, 2002

951 So. 2d 724 (2002)
Ex parte Jerry Devane BRYANT.
(In re Jerry Devane Bryant
v.
State).
1990901.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
June 21, 2002.
Rehearing Denied January 31, 2003.
*725 Michael Crespi, Dothan; and Deanna S. Higginbotham, Dothan, for petitioner.
William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen., Thomas F. Parker IV, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
Jerry Devane Bryant was indicted for, tried for, and convicted of the murder of Donald Hollis made capital because it occurred during a kidnapping in the first degree, 13A-5-40(a)(1), Ala.Code 1975. The jury which found Bryant guilty recommended a sentence of death by a vote of 11-1, and the trial court sentenced Bryant to death. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction and death sentence. Bryant v. State, 951 So. 2d 702 (Ala.Crim. App.1999). Bryant petitioned this Court for certiorari review as a matter of right pursuant to the then existing Rule 39(k), Ala. R.App. P., and we granted his petition as we were obliged to do.
Bryant argues nine issues. The Court of Criminal Appeals addressed all nine in its opinion. Id. Our review of the record, the briefs, the law, and the opinion of the *726 Court of Criminal Appeals reveals that three issues warrant discussion or reservation by this Court and that one of those three issues requires a reversal of the defendant's death sentence. The adjudication of guilt will be affirmed. We will explain.
Bryant claims that the penalty-phase jury instructions by the trial court violated § 13A-5-46, Ala.Code 1975, by implying that the jury could not recommend a penalty of life in prison without parole instead of death unless the mitigating circumstances outweighed, rather than just equaled, the aggravating circumstances. This claim is addressed as Issue III both in Bryant's brief and in the opinion by the Court of Criminal Appeals.
During the penalty phase, before the opening arguments and the presentation of witnesses, the trial court instructed the jury:
(R. 1005.) (Emphasis added.) After closing arguments and at the beginning of the main jury charge for the penalty phase, the trial court instructed the jury:
(R. 1094-95.) (Emphasis added.) Thereafter, however, the trial court instructed the jury:
(R. 1096-1103.) (Emphasis added.) Bryant concedes, and the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals recognizes, that Bryant did not object to any of these instructions at trial. Therefore, we must determine whether these instructions constitute plain error.
"`"Plain error" arises only if the error is so obvious that the failure to notice it would seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judicial proceedings.'" Ex parte Womack, 435 So. 2d 766, 769 (Ala. 1983) (quoting United States v. Chaney, 662 F.2d 1148, 1152 (5th Cir.1981)). See also Ex parte Woodall, 730 So. 2d 652 (Ala. 1998). "`In other words, the plain-error exception to the contemporaneous objection rule is to be "used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result." '" Ex parte Land, 678 So. 2d 224, 232 (Ala.1996) (quoting United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 15, 105 S. Ct. 1038, 84 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1985) (quoting in turn United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 163 n. 14, 102 S. Ct. 1584, 71 L. Ed. 2d 816 (1982))). "To rise to the level of plain error, the claimed error must not only seriously affect a defendant's `substantial rights,' but it must also have an unfair prejudicial impact on the jury's deliberations." Hyde v. State, 778 So. 2d 199, 209 (Ala.Crim.App.1998), aff'd, 778 So. 2d 237 (Ala.2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 907, 121 S. Ct. 1233, 149 L. Ed. 2d 142 (2001) (emphasis added). This Court may take appropriate action when the error "has or probably has adversely affected the substantial rights of the appellant." Rule 45(A), Ala. R.App. P. "[A] failure to object at trial, while not precluding our review, will weigh against any claim of prejudice." Ex parte Woodall, 730 So. 2d  at 657 (citing Kuenzel v. State, 577 So. 2d 474 (Ala.Crim. App.1990), aff'd, 577 So. 2d 531 (Ala.1991)).
Section 13A-5-46, Ala.Code 1975, requires the jury to find that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances before the jury can recommend a sentence of death:
This statutory law entitles a defendant to a recommendation of life imprisonment without parole even if the mitigating circumstances do not outweigh the aggravating circumstances, if the mitigating circumstances at least equal the aggravating circumstances. In other words, of the three possibilities  that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances, that the mitigating circumstances only equal the aggravating circumstances in weight, or that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances  only the third  that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances  will allow a death penalty recommendation.
Three of our cases address the issue raised by Bryant. The first is Ex parte Trawick, 698 So. 2d 162 (Ala.1997):
698 So. 2d  at 173-74 (some emphasis original; some emphasis added). The second case addressing the weighing issue is Ex parte Cothren, 705 So. 2d 861, 870-71 (Ala. 1997), wherein the defendant complained of the following instruction by the trial court to the jury:
The defendant argued that this instruction "constituted reversible error" because, he said, it "created an impermissible presumption in favor of a death sentence." 705 So. 2d  at 870. The Cothren Court did not state whether the defendant objected to this instruction at trial and did not quote any other instructions given by the trial court. The Cothren Court held:
Ex parte Cothren, 705 So. 2d  at 871 (emphasis added). While the Cothren opinion does not explicitly quote other instructions given by the trial court during the penalty phase, the holding of the Cothren Court implies that the trial court, as in Trawick, did give further instructions that forbade a death penalty recommendation even if the jury found the mitigating circumstances not to outweigh the aggravating circumstances, if the mitigating circumstances were to equal the aggravating circumstances in weight.
The third case which addresses the weighing issue, albeit in the context of a sentencing order rather than a jury instruction, is Ex parte Melson, 775 So. 2d 904 (Ala.2000):
775 So. 2d  at 907 (emphasis added). The opinion by the Court of Criminal Appeals contains additional procedural facts that explain the opinion by this Court in Melson:
Melson v. State, 775 So. 2d 857, 902 (Ala. Crim.App.1999) (emphasis added). This information reveals that the trial judge himself knew the correct test even though the text of his sentencing order misstated the test.
In the case now before us, the jury instructions erroneously allow the conclusion that the death penalty is appropriate even if the aggravating circumstances do not outweigh the mitigating circumstances so long as the mitigating circumstances do not outweigh the aggravating circumstances. The trial judge in this case did not add the caveat which sufficed in Trawick, supra, that the jury was to "recommend the death penalty only if [the jury] found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances." Trawick, 698 So. 2d  at 173. Indeed, at the end of the instructions on this topic, the trial judge implicitly told the jury that it might recommend death even if the jury did not find an aggravating circumstance at all: "if you do not find that an alleged aggravating circumstance was proved, that does not automatically or necessarily mean that you should sentence Mr. Bryant to death. . . ." (R. 1103, quoted supra.) (Emphasis added.)
No other instructions by the trial court and no other feature of the record instills us with any confidence that the jury did not, within the parameters of the erroneous instructions, base the death penalty recommendation on a finding that the mitigating circumstances did not outweigh the aggravating circumstances even though the mitigating circumstances did equal the aggravating circumstances. Such a recommendation would be contrary to § 13A-5-46(e). Therefore, the erroneous jury instructions on the topic of weighing the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating circumstances constitute plain error.
Bryant argues that, during the penalty phase, the prosecutor made comments "trivializ[ing] the awesome responsibility of the jury" in recommending the death penalty, as discussed in Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S. Ct. 2633, 86 L. Ed. 2d 231 (1985). (Brief, p. 28.) Specifically, Bryant complains of the prosecutor's comments about the respective roles of the jury and the judge in sentencing. This claim is addressed as part of Issue IV both in Bryant's brief and in the opinion by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Because the erroneous penalty-phase jury instructions we have already discussed in *731 Part A of this opinion require us to reverse the sentence (not the adjudication of guilt) and to remand for a new sentencing trial, we need not address this issue about the prosecutor's comments, and we express no opinion on it.
Finally, Part IX of the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals cites Boyd v. State, 715 So. 2d 825, 851 (Ala.Crim.App. 1997), aff'd, 715 So. 2d 852 (Ala.), to say, "Because no single instance of alleged error constituted reversible error, we will not consider the cumulative effect to be any greater." Bryant v. State, 951 So. 2d  at 722. This Court has expressly condemned and rejected this proposition. Ex parte Woods, 789 So. 2d 941 n. 1 (Ala.2001). "The correct rule is that, while, under the facts of a particular case, no single error among multiple errors may be sufficiently prejudicial to require reversal under Rule 45, if the accumulated errors have `probably injuriously affected substantial rights of the parties,' then the cumulative effect of the errors may require reversal." Id. (citing Rule 45, Ala. R.App. P.; Ex parte Tomlin, 540 So. 2d 668, 672 (Ala.1988); Blue v. State, 246 Ala. 73, 80, 19 So. 2d 11, 16-17 (1944); Jetton v. State, 435 So. 2d 167 (Ala. Crim.App.1983); McGriff v. State, 908 So. 2d 961, 989 (Ala.Crim.App.2000); United States v. Rivera, 900 F.2d 1462, 1470 (10th Cir.1990); and United States v. Canales, 744 F.2d 413, 430 (5th Cir.1984) (parenthetical quotes omitted)). See also Ex parte Ferguson, 814 So. 2d 970 (Ala. 2001) (Johnstone, J., concurring specially), and Ex parte Johnson, 820 So. 2d 883 (Ala. 2001) (Johnstone, J., concurring in the result). We again disapprove of this language. However, we do not find that an accumulation of individually non reversible errors in this case "probably injuriously affected the substantial rights" of the defendant in the guilt phase of the trial. Rule 45, Ala. R.App. P. The error in the penalty-phase jury instructions that we have discussed (considered as a whole) is individually so prejudicial as to require reversal, even without application of the cumulative error rule.
Having reviewed the record and the applicable law, we conclude that the Court of Criminal Appeals correctly addressed all the other issues raised by the defendant. Thus, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals insofar as it affirms the defendant's conviction. However, because we hold that the trial court erred in the penalty-phase jury instructions as we have explained, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals insofar as it affirms the defendant's death sentence. We remand for that court to remand the case to the trial court for a new sentencing trial.
AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART; AND REMANDED.
HOUSTON, SEE, LYONS, BROWN, HARWOOD, and WOODALL, JJ., concur.
MOORE, C.J., concurs in part and dissents in part.
MOORE, Chief Justice (concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the Court's decision to affirm Bryant's conviction. I must dissent, however, from the conclusion that the trial court committed reversible error in its instructions to the jury during the penalty-phase of the trial. Just as in Ex parte Cothren, 705 So. 2d 861, 871 (Ala.1997), "those instructions, taken as a whole, sufficiently informed the jury of the weighing process required under the law," and thus did not rise to the level of reversible error. (Emphasis added.) See also Ex parte Trawick, 698 So. 2d 162 (Ala.1997). Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the *732 Court's reversal of the death sentence in this case.