Opinion ID: 423527
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the constitutionality of the capital sentencing procedure.

Text: 139 O'Bryan contends that the Texas capital sentencing procedure, Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. art. 37.071 (Vernon 1981), is unconstitutional because it does not provide for instructions to the jury concerning mitigating circumstances. 12 He argues that in the absence of such instructions, the determination of punishment is left to the unbridled discretion of the jury, resulting in the imposition of the death penalty in an arbitrary and capricious manner, in violation of the eighth and fourteenth amendments. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). Relying on the Supreme Court's holdings in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982), that a sentencer must consider all of the mitigating evidence before sentencing someone to die, and in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), that the sentencer cannot be precluded from considering any mitigating factors, O'Bryan maintains that an instruction concerning mitigating evidence is constitutionally mandated. 140 The State claims that O'Bryan cannot be heard to complain about the trial court's failure to give a jury instruction on mitigating circumstances because he did not make a contemporaneous objection to the court's charge on this ground or request such an instruction at trial, as required by state law. Tex.Code Crim.Pro.Ann. arts. 36.14, .15 (Vernon 1981, superseded). It is, of course, settled law that when a procedural default bars state litigation of a constitutional claim, a state prisoner may not obtain federal habeas relief absent a showing of cause and actual prejudice. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 129, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982); accord, Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d 594 (1977). On the other hand, we are not barred from reviewing a claim by a state procedural rule when the state courts themselves have not followed the rule. Bell v. Watkins, 692 F.2d 999, 1004 (5th Cir.1982); accord, Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 154, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2223, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979); Henry v. Wainwright, 686 F.2d 311, 313 (5th Cir.1982). The problem here is that the state court did not say whether it was denying the petitioner habeas corpus relief on the basis of his procedural default or on the merits of his claim; it simply denied his petition without comment. 13 141 We were recently confronted with the problem of interpreting a state court's silence with respect to the grounds for its denial of a state habeas petitioner's claim in Preston v. Maggio, 705 F.2d 113 (5th Cir.1983). We determined that the same considerations should be applied to cases in which the state court has denied relief without offering any reasons for its denial as are applied to cases where a state court has been less than explicit. Id. at 116. We included among those considerations: 142 Whether the court has used procedural default in similar cases to preclude review of the claim's merits, whether the history of the case would suggest that the state court was aware of the procedural default, and whether the state court's opinions suggest reliance upon procedural grounds or a determination of the merits. 143 Id. (citing Ulster County Court, supra, 442 U.S. at 147-54, 99 S.Ct. at 2219-23). Applying the Preston criteria to O'Bryan's case, we conclude that the state court presumably denied his claim on the basis of his procedural default. The Texas courts have held that 144 in the absence of objections to the charge or a specially requested charge, no errors therein can be considered on appeal unless it appears that the defendant has not had a fair and impartial trial. Boles v. State, 598 S.W.2d 274, 278 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). And, in determining whether fundamental error is present, it is proper to view the charge as a whole. 145 White v. State, 610 S.W.2d 504, 506 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) (en banc). In Williams v. State, 622 S.W.2d 116 (Tex.Cr.App.1981) (en banc), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1008, 102 S.Ct. 1646, 71 L.Ed.2d 876 (1982), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to hear a capital murder defendant's contention that he was entitled to a mitigating circumstances instruction during the sentencing phase of his trial where he had failed to object or request such an instruction at trial. The court held: Absent such an objection or requested instruction, the trial court's failure to charge the jury as to the consideration of mitigating circumstances was not reversible error. Id. at 120. Williams' position was the same as O'Bryan's: Williams contended that his death sentence had been imposed unconstitutionally because the jury had not been given a mitigating circumstances instruction, but he had never requested such an instruction at trial. Under these circumstances, the Texas court concluded that Williams' procedural default precluded review of his constitutional claim. O'Bryan has not offered us any indication that the court would not have made the same decision here. 14 Further, we know that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had been made aware of O'Bryan's procedural default, since the State raised the matter in its answer opposing the petitioner's second application for habeas relief. 146 O'Bryan argues that his failure to object to the trial court's charge should not bar his claim because the Texas court's decisions in Williams, supra, and Quinones v. State, 592 S.W.2d 933 (Tex.Cr.App.) (en banc), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 893, 101 S.Ct. 256, 66 L.Ed.2d 121 (1980), placed him in a Catch-22 situation. As discussed above, the court of criminal appeals held in Williams that it would not review a challenge to the sentencing instructions where the defendant had made no objection to those instructions at trial. In Quinones, the defendant had requested and been denied a charge on mitigating circumstances. The court of criminal appeals held that no such charge was necessary and overruled his exception: 147 Appellant was entitled to present evidence of any mitigating circumstances and did present such evidence, including a broad discussion of his personal and family background. The question then is whether the language of the special issue is so complex that an explanatory charge is necessary to keep the jury from disregarding the evidence properly before it. In King v. State, 553 S.W.2d 105 (Tex.Cr.App.1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1088, 98 S.Ct. 1284, 55 L.Ed.2d 793 (1978), this Court held that the questions in Art. 37.071 used terms of common understanding which required no special definition. The jury can readily grasp the logical relevance of mitigating evidence to the issue of whether there is a probability of future criminal acts of violence. No additional charge is required. 148 Id. at 947. Contrary to O'Bryan's assertion, these two decisions do not present him with a Catch-22 situation, since they do not hold that a trial judge may not give a mitigating circumstances instruction if he or she is disposed to grant the defendant's request. The purpose of a contemporaneous objection requirement is to give the trial judge the opportunity to rule on the defendant's constitutional claim, see Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 128-29, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 1572, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982); this is what O'Bryan failed to do. 15 149 Accordingly, we hold that the defendant is barred from raising his claim about the absence of a mitigating circumstances instruction in these federal habeas proceedings. See also O'Bryan v. Estelle, 691 F.2d 706, 710 (5th Cir.1982) (Gee, J., dissenting). We note further that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Zant v. Stephens, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2744, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983) (holding that death sentence need not be set aside where one of three statutory aggravating circumstances found by juror was subsequently held to be invalid by state supreme court but other two were specifically upheld, and stating that the absence of legislature or court-imposed standards to govern the jury in weighing the significance of either or both of those aggravating circumstances does not render [capital sentencing statute] invalid as applied) makes the defendant's argument on the merits far more difficult. O'Bryan also contends that his 150 punishment of death, based solely upon the evidence introduced at the guilt stage of trial, the state having elected to present no evidence bearing upon the special issue required by article 37.071(b)(2), V.A.C.C.P., violated the plurality conclusion in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 [92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346] (1972); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 [96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944] (1976); Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 [96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974] (1976). 151 The defendant never explains precisely what he means by this statement, but it seems to refer to the contention that he made in his direct criminal appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's finding that there was a probability that he would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. O'Bryan v. State, supra, 591 S.W.2d at 480. 16 We agree with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that the State's reintroduction of the evidence presented during the guilt phase of the trial provided sufficient evidence of O'Bryan's future dangerousness to support the jury's findings. 17 In particular, we note that O'Bryan carefully planned the poisoning of his own son so that he could collect life insurance proceeds, and that he gave the poisoned pixy styx to four other children, including his own daughter, in an attempt to cover up his crime. We cannot say that no rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that such a man posed a continuing threat to society. See note 18. 152