Opinion ID: 783907
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The California Supreme Court's Application of Controlling Supreme Court Precedent

Text: 27 The California Supreme Court addressed Payton's argument that the trial court's instructions and the prosecutor's argument led the jurors to believe, incorrectly, that they were not permitted to consider [his] mitigating evidence. 13 Cal.Rptr.2d 526, 839 P.2d at 1047. The court acknowledged the teachings of Eddings, Lockett, and Skipper that the Eighth Amendment requires the sentencer in a capital case to consider evidence of character and background, including good behavior in prison. Id. at 1070. In analyzing Payton's claims, however, it focused entirely on the Supreme Court's decision in Boyde, id. at 1070-73, which was an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent because Boyde does not control this case and, in focusing almost exclusively on Boyde, the court did not give proper effect to clearly established Supreme Court cases such as Skipper and Penry that are controlling here. 28 Boyde does not control this case for several reasons. First, this case concerns post-crime mitigating evidence such as the evidence the Supreme Court considered in Skipper. 8 Boyde, however, addressed whether there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied factor (k) in a way that prevented it from considering pre-crime background evidence. The Court relied on the belief, long held by this society, that defendants who commit criminal acts that are attributable to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental problems, may be less culpable than defendants who have no such excuse.  Id. at 382, 110 S.Ct. 1190 (quoting Penry, 492 U.S. at 319, 109 S.Ct. 2934) (emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted). It saw no reason to believe that reasonable jurors would resist the view, `long held by society,' that in an appropriate case such evidence would counsel imposition of a sentence less than death. Id. Whereas there may be no reason to doubt, in light of society's long held views, that a jury would consider a defendant's pre-crime background in sentencing him, there is reason to doubt that a jury would similarly consider post-crime evidence of a defendant's religious conversion and good behavior in prison. 9 29 Boyde did not address the question presented here — whether, on its face, the unadorned factor (k) instruction is unconstitutionally ambiguous as applied to post-crime evidence. 10 Indeed, the Court explicitly distinguished the character and background evidence at issue there from evidence that pertain[s] to prison behavior after the crime for which [the petitioner] was sentenced to death, as was the case in Skipper.  Boyde, 494 U.S. at 382 n. 5, 110 S.Ct. 1190. Any natural reading of the words of the unadorned factor (k) does not support the inclusion of post-crime evidence because mitigation evidence occurring after a crime cannot possibly extenuate the gravity of the crime. Boyde's conclusions about the plain wording of factor (k) and the instruction's obvious inclusion of pre-crime background evidence therefore do not apply in this case. 30 Second, in Boyde, the Court rejected Boyde's argument that the prosecutor's comments at sentencing reinforced an impermissible interpretation of factor (k) suggesting to the jury that it could not consider Boyde's mitigating character and background evidence. Id. at 384-85, 110 S.Ct. 1190. The Court reasoned that the prosecutor's arguments are usually billed in advance to the jury as matters of argument, not evidence, ... and are likely viewed as the statements of advocates. Id. at 384, 110 S.Ct. 1190. In addition, [a]rguments of counsel which misstate the law are subject to objection and correction by the court. Id. Key to the Court's reasoning was the fact that there was no objectionable prosecutorial argument. Indeed, the prosecutor never suggested to the jury that it could not consider mitigating evidence of Boyde's character and background. Id. at 385, 110 S.Ct. 1190. The prosecutor  explicitly assumed that petitioner's character evidence was a proper factor in the weighing process. Id. (emphasis added). 31 Whereas the prosecutor in Boyde conceded that the jury must consider Boyde's mitigating character and background evidence, the prosecutor here repeatedly stated to the jury that factor (k) did not encompass Payton's mitigating evidence of his religious conversion and good behavior in prison. 11 For example, after listing the eleven factors in CALJIC 8.84.1, the prosecutor gave his interpretation of factor (k) to the jury: 32 `K' says any other circumstance which extenuates or lessens the gravity of the crime. What does that mean? That to me means some fact ... some factor at the time of the offense that somehow operates to reduce the gravity for what the defendant did. It doesn't refer to anything after the fact or later. That's particularly important here because the only defense evidence you have heard has been about this new born Christianity. (emphasis added) 33 After the court overruled the defense attorney's objection to the legal misstatements in the prosecutor's argument, the prosecutor continued arguing to the jury: 34 Referring back to `K' which I was talking about, any other circumstance which extenuates or lessens the gravity of the crime, the only defense evidence you've heard had to do with Defendant's new Christianity and that he helped the module deputies in the jail while he was in custody. The problem with that is that evidence is well after the fact of the crime and cannot seem to me in any way to logically lessen the gravity of the offense that the defendant has committed. [The defense] will tell you that somehow that becoming a newborn Christian, if in fact he really believed that took place, makes it a less severe crime, but there is no way that can happen when — under any other circumstance which extenuates or lessens the gravity of the crime, refers — seems to refer to a fact in operation at the time of the offense. What I am getting at, you have not heard during the past few days any legal evidence [of] mitigation. What you've heard is just some jailhouse evidence to win your sympathy, and that's all. You have not heard any evidence of mitigation in this trial. (emphasis added) 35 He then specifically told the jury that it had not heard anything to mitigate what [Payton's] done and that Payton's only mitigating evidence did not fit into factor (k): 36 I want to make a few comments about religion, the only evidence put on by the defendant. I don't really want to spend too much time on it because I don't think it's really applicable and I don't think it comes under any of the eleven factors. ... (emphasis added) 12 37 Indeed, the prosecutor focused the jury's attention on the eleven CALJIC factors, which he argued did not encompass Payton's mitigating evidence: 38 You shall consider, take into account and be guided by the applicable factors of aggravating and mitigating circumstances upon which you have been instructed. In other words, the factors I have just read to you. 39