Opinion ID: 48706
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Death is Different

Text: 38 Expanding the scope of our inquiry beyond Gardner, the Supreme Court's more general death is different jurisprudence does not call into doubt either the relevance or the persuasiveness of Williams on the question presented in the instant case. An examination of Court precedent regarding the Sixth and Eighth Amendments indicates that at least with regard to the rights listed in the Sixth Amendment, the Court's rules for capital sentencing are essentially the same as for noncapital sentencing . . . . When it comes to Sixth Amendment rights at sentencing, it seems, death is not so different after all. Douglass, Confronting Death, 105 COLUM. L.REV. at 1993.
39 Since Williams was decided, certain Sixth Amendment rights have been applied incrementally to the sentencing process, capital and noncapital. Now criminal defendants have a right to counsel throughout sentencing. 17 Likewise, they have a right to a jury finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, of any facts necessary to expose a defendant to a higher maximum penalty, including death, regardless of whether those facts are labeled sentencing factors rather than elements of the offense. 18 40 When it comes to the ultimate selection of an appropriate punishment out of a range of available options, however, there is no constitutional right to jury sentencing in a noncapital or capital case. 19 And with regard to the confrontation right, caselaw definitively maintains the Williams principle in the noncapital context and establishes that the right does not apply at sentencing. In particular, the Confrontation Clause does not operate to bar the introduction of testimonial hearsay at noncapital sentencing. 20 41 Here we are asked to decide whether the confrontation right applies with full force throughout capital sentencing, despite the fact that it is nonexistent at ordinary sentencing. Given that, as shown above, no other Sixth Amendment right has been applied ( vel non ) differently at capital sentencing from how it is applied at noncapital sentencing, there is little reason to establish divergent rules with regard to the confrontation right when the sentencing authority is selecting a sentence from within an authorized range. 42 On the basis of the Supreme Court's consistent treatment of Sixth Amendment rights across capital and noncapital cases alone, we find unpersuasive the dissent's textual argument for why the Confrontation Clause should extend through the entirety of the capital sentencing process, in light of the fact that the jury right extends only as far as the eligibility determination. The dissent contends that 43 [t]he Jury Clause has a unique second limitation that does not apply to the Right to Counsel or the Confrontation Clause: only a jury trial is required. A jury is only required at trial, whereas both the Right to Counsel and the Confrontation Clause apply more broadly to the whole criminal prosecution, and thus to sentencing. 44 (Internal quotations and citations omitted.) This textual argument proves too much, for it would apply equally at noncapital sentencing, where it has already been established that the right of confrontation is nonexistent. 21 45 The dissent's argument in favor of the application of the Confrontation Clause throughout capital sentencing based on the interplay of the right to counsel and the right of confrontation falters on similar grounds. The dissent states that [t]he Sixth Amendment extends the rights both to counsel and to confrontation in `all criminal prosecutions,' suggesting that where one right applies, the other does too. The dissent further asserts that [r]equiring confrontation in the FDPA's trial-like sentencing regime is particularly appropriate given the interdependence of adversarial rights. . . . [A] meaningful Right to Counsel at capital sentencing depends on confrontation rights. But if, as the dissent suggests, the right to counsel and the right of confrontation are adversarial tools that move in lock step, that again begs the question: Why is the confrontation right admittedly nonexistent at noncapital sentencing, even though the right to counsel plainly applies throughout such proceedings? 46 To address this dilemma, the dissent emphasizes that capital sentencing is more adversarial than is noncapital sentencing: The Confrontation Clause should apply fully because FDPA sentencing, unlike noncapital sentencing, involves a trial-like adversarial proceeding. For this proposition the dissent relies on Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 438-39 & n. 10, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981), by stating that [t]he Supreme Court applies certain `trial rights' to adversarial sentencing hearings that bear the `hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence.' 47 Bullington, however, is a Fifth Amendment double jeopardy case, and the Court in Spaziano stated as follows: 48 The fact that a capital sentencing is like a trial in the respects significant to the Double Jeopardy Clause . . . does not mean that it is like a trial in respects significant to the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial. The Court's concern in Bullington was with the risk that the State, with all its resources, would wear a defendant down, thereby leading to an erroneously imposed death penalty. There is no similar danger involved in denying a defendant a jury trial on the sentencing issue of life or death. The sentencer, whether judge or jury, has a constitutional obligation to evaluate the unique circumstances of the individual defendant and the sentencer's decision for life is final. More important, despite its unique aspects, a capital sentencing proceeding involves the same fundamental issue involved in any other sentencing proceeding—a determination of the appropriate punishment to be imposed on an individual. . . . The Sixth Amendment never has been thought to guarantee a right to a jury determination of that issue. 49 Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 459, 104 S.Ct. 3154 (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted). The Court's analysis indicates that despite the unique aspects of a capital sentencing proceeding, it is not, with respect to the ultimate issue to be decided (the selection of an appropriate punishment), any more trial-like than is ordinary sentencing, where the Confrontation Clause has been held inapplicable. 22 50 Further to justify its proposed anomalous divergent treatment of capital and noncapital sentencing with regard to the Confrontation Clause, the dissent also relies on the history of capital murder trials, stating that [a]t the time the Confrontation Clause was written, a capital trial was a single, unified proceeding at which both guilt and sentence were decided. The Framers knew nothing of capital sentencing proceedings separate from trial. If one was convicted of a capital felony, one was automatically sentenced to death. According to the dissent, the trial became a  de facto sentencing proceeding in which the jury would render a verdict in favor of a lesser crime if it did not think the death penalty was warranted. The dissent asserts that 51 [t]he critical point is this: because these de facto capital sentencing proceedings took the form of full criminal trials, the defendant possessed full trial rights of confrontation. However, the notion that capital sentencing might be conducted outside of an adversarial trial is strictly a post-constitutional phenomenon. 52 The dissent goes on to state that at the time of the Founding, cases suggest that judges conducted noncapital sentencing in informal proceedings featuring testimonial hearsay. Therefore, according to the dissent, [h]istory supports constraining confrontation rights in noncapital sentencing, but capital sentencing has a different history that suggests the Confrontation Clause should apply. 53 This logic is flawed. The Framers did not know of an institution analogous to our capital sentencing procedure, because there was no mechanism in the trials that operated as so-called  de facto sentencing proceedings for the exercise of discretion even after a jury determined that a defendant was eligible for the death penalty by convicting him of a capital felony. A sentencing authority's ability to select a lesser punishment in a capital case in spite of death-eligibility is indeed a post-constitutional phenomenon, and nothing in the history related by the dissent explains why the presumption should not be as follows: Now that capital sentencing includes such discretion, the exercise of it should be treated in the same manner in which the Framers understood discretionary sentencing in the noncapital context to be treated with respect to the use of testimonial hearsay. 54 Neither the text of the Sixth Amendment nor the history of murder trials supports the extension of the Confrontation Clause to testimony relevant only to penalty selection in a capital case. Furthermore, the manner in which the Supreme Court has proceeded in applying ( vel non ) Sixth Amendment rights during sentencing proceedings suggests there is no distinction between capital and ordinary sentencing for Sixth Amendment purposes, and accordingly the Court provides no indication that the reasoning of Williams has been abandoned in the capital context.
55 The Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence likewise does not dictate that capital sentencing should be treated differently from ordinary sentencing with regard to the application of the Confrontation Clause. Rather, the Court's emphasis on individualized sentencing in its Eighth Amendment decisions lends support to the animating principle behind Williams: When it comes to sentencing, the more information available for consideration by the sentencing authority, the more confidence we can have in the appropriateness of the sentence. The dissent asserts that 56 [t]he stringent trial-like procedures that govern capital sentencing derive from the Supreme Court's unique concern with reliability in death penalty cases. In capital proceedings generally, th[e] Court has demanded that fact-finding procedures aspire to a heightened standard of reliability. This especial concern is a natural consequence of the knowledge that execution is the most irremediable and unfathomable of penalties; that death is different. Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 411, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986) (internal citations omitted). Confrontation is essential to reliability. 57 Notably absent from the passage the dissent pulls from Ford is the citation the Court uses to support the notion that capital factfinding procedures aspire to a heightened standard of reliability. The Ford Court pointed to Spaziano, wherein it had opined that 58 [t]he absence of a lesser included offense instruction increases the risk that the jury will convict, not because it is persuaded that the defendant is guilty of capital murder, but simply to avoid setting the defendant free. In Beck [ v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980)], the Court found that risk unacceptable and inconsistent with the reliability this Court has demanded in capital proceedings. The goal of the Beck rule, in other words, is to eliminate the distortion of the factfinding process that is created when the jury is forced into an all-or-nothing choice between capital murder and innocence. Requiring that the jury be instructed on lesser included offenses for which the defendant may not be convicted, however, would simply introduce another type of distortion into the factfinding process. We reaffirm our commitment to the demands of reliability in decisions involving death and to the defendant's right to the benefit of a lesser included offense instruction that may reduce the risk of unwarranted capital convictions. 59 Spaziano, 468 U.S. at 455-56, 104 S.Ct. 3154. 60 Importantly, as Spaziano indicates, where the Court discusses the need for reliability in the Eighth Amendment context, it is not talking about the appropriate sources for information introduced at sentencing or even, more generally, about the reliability of evidence. It is instead focusing on (1) the need to delineate, ex ante, the particular offenses for which death is a proportionate punishment and (2) the need for the jury to be able to consider all factors (particularly mitigating, but also aggravating) relevant to choosing an appropriate punishment once the death penalty is in play. Reliable death sentences, under the Eighth Amendment, are those that result from a sentencing scheme that guards against arbitrariness by streamlining discretion at the eligibility stage, and then allows for the exercise of wide-ranging discretion at the selection stage. 61 In chastising a defendant for failing to recognize the differing constitutional treatment accorded to the eligibility and selection phases of capital sentencing, the Court has stated that [i]t is in regard to the eligibility phase that we have stressed the need for channeling and limiting the jury's discretion to ensure that the death penalty is a proportionate punishment and therefore not arbitrary or capricious in its imposition. Buchanan v. Angelone, 522 U.S. 269, 275, 118 S.Ct. 757, 139 L.Ed.2d 702 (1998). With regard to the selection decision, the Court in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 305, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976), stated that [b]ecause of [the] qualitative difference [between death and imprisonment], there is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case. 62 The Court explained that the need for greater reliability in the selection of an appropriate punishment entails not stricter evidentiary rules, but the assurance of individualized sentencing once a defendant is eligible for the death penalty: 63 Consideration of both the offender and the offense in order to arrive at a just and appropriate sentence has been viewed as a progressive and humanizing development. See Williams v. New York, 337 U.S., at 247-249, 69 S.Ct. 1079, 93 L.Ed. 1337 . . .; Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S., at 402-403, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 . . . (Burger, C.J., dissenting). While the prevailing practice of individualizing sentencing determinations generally reflects simply enlightened policy rather than a constitutional imperative, we believe that in capital cases the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment, see Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S., at 100, 78 S.Ct. 590 . . . (plurality opinion), 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. 64 Id. at 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978. Likewise, in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 203, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), the Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the wide scope of evidence and argument allowed at presentence hearings. 65 We think that the Georgia court wisely has chosen not to impose unnecessary restrictions on the evidence that can be offered at such a hearing and to approve open and far-ranging argument. So long as the evidence introduced and the arguments made at the presentence hearing do not prejudice a defendant, it is preferable not to impose restrictions. We think it desirable for the jury to have as much information before it as possible when it makes the sentencing decision. 66 Id. at 203-04, 96 S.Ct. 2909. 67 All of this is not to suggest that evidentiary reliability is unimportant at capital sentencing. Rather, the salient point is that the particular reliability concern that distinguishes capital sentencing from ordinary sentencing under the Eighth Amendment is not evidentiary reliability. 68 Evidentiary reliability surely is important at capital sentencing, just as it is at noncapital sentencing. 23 The Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, however, does not make evidentiary reliability any more important at capital sentencing than it is at noncapital sentencing, where the Confrontation Clause does not apply. 69 A defendant in any sentencing proceeding must be given the opportunity to deny or explain the evidence against him, and Crawford does not suggest that confrontation is the only mechanism through which the reliability of testimony can be assessed. Cf. Whorton v. Bockting, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1173, 1183, 167 L.Ed.2d 1 (2007). Rather, Crawford stands for the proposition that, where the clause applies, confrontation is the only permissible method of assessing reliability: 70 To be sure, the Clause's ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. 71 Crawford, 541 U.S. at 61, 124 S.Ct. 1354. 72 Our conclusion—that the Confrontation Clause is inapplicable to the presentation of testimony relevant only to the sentencing authority's selection decision—does not doom defendants to being sentenced to death on the basis of unreliable hearsay evidence. Although the Confrontation Clause does not apply at sentencing proceedings, this is not to say that there are no constitutional limitations on the use of hearsay evidence at such proceedings. A defendant may not be sentenced on the basis of `misinformation of constitutional magnitude.' Wise, 976 F.2d at 402 (citing Tucker, 404 U.S. at 447, 92 S.Ct. 589). Accordingly, [d]ue process requires that some minimal indicia of reliability accompany a hearsay statement, United States v. Petty, 982 F.2d 1365, 1369 (9th Cir.1993), and a significant possibility of misinformation justifies the sentencing court in requiring the Government to verify the [hearsay] information, Fatico, 579 F.2d at 712-13. 73 The FDPA in particular sets up a procedural framework at capital sentencing that adequately balances (1) the requisite access to a wide range of information to achieve individualized sentences and (2) the need to protect defendants from being sentenced on the basis of misinformation of a constitutional magnitude. Though the FDPA states that the Federal Rules of Evidence do not apply at capital sentencing, it also provides that a defendant may rebut any information received at a hearing and must be given a fair opportunity to present argument as to the adequacy of the information presented to establish the existence of any aggravating or mitigating factor. 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c). Additionally, under the FDPA a sentencing judge may exclude information if its probative value is outweighed by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.