Opinion ID: 170350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: reasonable-doubt standard in weighing process

Text: Consistent with 18 U.S.C § 3593(e), the jury was instructed that it could impose the death penalty if it determined that the aggravating factor or factors sufficiently outweigh the mitigating factor or factors to justify a sentence of death. R. Vol. 22 at 3404. Fields insists the jury should have been instructed that it was necessary to make this determination beyond reasonable doubt. This issue is controlled by our decision in Barrett, which followed the Fifth Circuit in holding that a reasonable-doubt standard is not required in the weighing process. Barrett, 496 F.3d at 1107-08 (following United States v. Fields, 483 F.3d 313, 346 (5th Cir.2007)). While Barrett involved the death penalty scheme for continuing criminal enterprises and drug activities in 21 U.S.C. § 848, that scheme was identical to the FDPA in this and most respects, see id. § 848(k). The objection raised here and in Barrett is constitutionally based, and its rejection in Barrett obviously applies with equal force in connection with the FDPA-indeed, the Fifth Circuit precedent Barrett explicitly followed was an FDPA case.