Opinion ID: 550707
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instructions 56-59--Ground A

Text: 63 In Ground A of his second petition, Byrd argues that Instructions 56-59 unconstitutionally prohibited the jury from considering mitigating evidence unless such circumstances were unanimously found to exist. Byrd v. Delo, 733 F.Supp. at 1343. The district court rejected this claim as abusive and as without substantive merit. Id. at 1343-44. 64 On appeal, Byrd argues that the actual innocence exception of Murray requires habeas relief in this case. 9 This doctrine is applicable to sentencing if, had the jury had been properly instructed, it would not have sentenced petitioner to death. Gilmore v. Delo, 908 F.2d 385, 387 (8th Cir.1990), aff'g No. 89-1167(C)(2), slip op. at, 1989 WL 109554 (E.D.Mo. June 20, 1989) (Gilmore ). 65 Byrd concedes that in Gilmore, the district court held that this very instruction was constitutional. Brief of Appellant at 14 n. 11. 10 On appeal, the Gilmore court declined to reach the merits, and instead affirmed the denial of habeas relief based on the abuse of the writ defense. Gilmore, 908 F.2d at 386-87. The Gilmore petitioner, like Byrd, sought to bring himself within the actual innocence exception to the abusiveness doctrine. We rejected this argument and held that the petitioner would have been sentenced to death even if the jury had been properly instructed. The court so held for two reasons. First, the jury had found several aggravating circumstances, including two other murders, numerous prior criminal convictions, and the fact that the murder was for the purposes of receiving money and preventing the victim from testifying. Id. at 387. Similarly, multiple aggravating circumstances existed in this case. See State v. Byrd, 676 S.W.2d 494, 498, 507 (Mo.1984) (banc) (murders committed in commission of other capital murders and for purpose of receiving money, and Byrd commended the practice of either killing or incapacitating robbery victims ... to prevent them from testifying), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1230, 105 S.Ct. 1233, 84 L.Ed.2d 370 (1985). 66 Second, the evidence of mitigating circumstances in Gilmore was quite weak. The only mitigating evidence consisted of one witness who testified that the petitioner had been abused as a child, another who testified that the petitioner was borderline mentally retarded, and the petitioner's own testimony that at the time of the murder he was an alcoholic and a drug abuser. Gilmore, 908 F.2d at 387-88. Byrd's trial counsel presented four witnesses. One of the witnesses was Byrd's mother, who testified that Byrd's father died when he was very young and that Byrd was a Korean War veteran. The other three witnesses cited in Byrd's brief, James Gilsinan, Steven Puro, and Father Francis Cleary, criticized the death penalty generally without discussing Byrd himself. Thus, Byrd's mitigating evidence is as weak, if not weaker, than that of the petitioner in Gilmore. 67 In sum, we hold that the actual innocence exception, as it applies to the penalty phase, does not apply because Byrd would have been sentenced to death even if the jury had been instructed differently. See Gilmore, 908 F.2d at 387. 68 Accordingly, we affirm the district court's denial of Ground A. 69