Opinion ID: 553434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Florida Supreme Court as Sentencer.

Text: 37 Given the holding of Clemons and the cases preceding it, we know that the Florida Supreme Court constitutionally may act as a sentencer by independently reweighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. I show in this section that although the Florida Supreme Court sometimes has assumed this role, it did not purport to do so on this occasion.
38 The Florida Supreme Court has stated several times that it does not reweigh evidence when reviewing a death sentence. See, e.g., Hudson v. State, 538 So.2d 829, 831 (Fla.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 212, 107 L.Ed.2d 165 (1989). In Brown v. Wainwright, 392 So.2d 1327 (Fla.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1000, 102 S.Ct. 542, 70 L.Ed.2d 407 (1981), the court stated unequivocally that its role after a death sentence has been imposed is 'review,' a process qualitatively different from sentence 'imposition.'  Id. at 1331. According to the court, it has two discrete functions, the first involving review of the procedural history of the case and the second involving proportionality review. Id. The court went on to explain that 39 [n]either of our sentence review functions, it will be noted, involves weighing or reevaluating the evidence adduced to establish aggravating and mitigating circumstances.... If the findings of aggravating and mitigating circumstances are ... supported [by the record], if the jury's recommendation was not unreasonably rejected, and if the death sentence is not disproportionate to others properly sustainable under the statute, the trial court's sentence must be sustained even though, had we been triers and weighers of fact, we might have reached a different result in an independent evaluation. 40 Id. (footnote omitted). 41 Despite the Florida Supreme Court's protestations to the contrary, the court has engaged in what the United States Supreme Court would term sentencing or reweighing. First, the Florida Supreme Court, like the Mississippi Supreme Court, engages in proportionality review on direct appeal. See id. As the Court in Clemons noted, proportionality review requires weighing aggravating and mitigating evidence. --- U.S. at ----, 110 S.Ct. at 1448; see Ford, 696 F.2d at 837 (Tjoflat, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (proportionality review is a form of sentencing because court considers sentencing standards not considered by the original sentencer). In essence, proportionality review involves comparing the balance between aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the case at hand with the balance in other cases (not considered by the jury in recommending, or the trial judge in fashioning, the sentence to be given) in which the death penalty has been imposed. Thus, the court uses its prior cases to establish sentencing norms with which it tests each new case. Such a normative process, by definition, requires the court to weigh aggravating and mitigating circumstances--circumstances, moreover, that are not considered by the advisory jury and sentencing judge. 42 Furthermore, the Supreme Court has expressly recognized an instance in which the Florida Supreme Court acted as an independent sentencer or reweigher. In Wainwright v. Goode, 464 U.S. 78, 104 S.Ct. 378, 78 L.Ed.2d 187 (1983) (per curiam), the state trial judge may have relied on an aggravating factor that was not included in Florida's statutory list of permissible aggravating factors. 13 After his sentence was affirmed on direct appeal, Goode v. State, 365 So.2d 381 (Fla.1978), Goode unsuccessfully sought habeas corpus relief in the Florida Supreme Court, Goode v. Wainwright, 410 So.2d 506 (Fla.1982) (per curiam). Goode sought the same relief in federal district court, and it too denied him the writ. This court, however, reversed and granted Goode relief on the ground that his sentence was imposed in an arbitrary and capricious manner because the trial judge considered an impermissible aggravating circumstance. Goode v. Wainwright, 704 F.2d 593 (11th Cir.1983). The Supreme Court, however, took a different approach. It first noted that on direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, the court independently weighed the evidence in the case and compared the aggravating and mitigating circumstances with those in other cases. 464 U.S. at 86, 104 S.Ct. at 383 (the Florida Supreme Court had stated: Comparing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances with those shown in other capital cases and weighing the evidence in the case sub judice, our judgment is that death is the proper sentence. 365 So.2d at 384-85). The Court then held that 43 [w]hatever may have been true of the sentencing judge, there is no claim that in conducting its independent reweighing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances the Florida Supreme Court considered [the impermissible aggravating circumstance]. Consequently, there is no sound basis for concluding that the procedures followed by the State produced an arbitrary or freakish sentence forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. 44 Id. 464 U.S. at 86-87, 104 S.Ct. at 383 (emphasis added). In essence, the Supreme Court held that the Florida Supreme Court had acted as a reweigher or sentencer and thereby cured the error committed by the trial judge. 45 We learn from these cases an important lesson: the Florida Supreme Court's definition of sentencer and reweigher is different from the United States Supreme Court's definition of those terms. For example, although the Florida Supreme Court has stated that it never reweighs aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the United States Supreme Court has stated that a form of reweighing occurs every time a state court conducts proportionality review. Additionally, the Supreme Court has held that a state appellate court, by independently reweighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, may cure constitutional sentencing errors. Consequently, we must analyze what the Florida Supreme Court did in this case, not necessarily what it says it has done in prior cases, particularly since the court has not had an opportunity to characterize its role in light of Clemons.
46 In light of these principles of interpretation, I analyze what the Florida Supreme Court did in this case. In characterizing the Hitchcock error at issue, the Florida Supreme Court found that the jury had heard all of the defendant's mitigating evidence but that, because of the prosecutor's arguments and the judge's instructions, the jury considered this evidence exclusively within the statutory categories. 14 According to the court, Booker argued that, even though the evidence concerning his mental and emotional condition did not rise to the level of statutory mitigating circumstances, with the proper instructions the jury would have found it sufficient to recommend against death, and the judge would have accepted the jury's recommendation. Booker, 520 So.2d at 249. The court rejected this argument because in its view, even without the erroneous instruction and the prosecutor's comment, the jury would still have recommended death and the judge would still have accepted its recommendation. Id. [I]t would be unreasonable, the court held, to conclude that even though the jurors did not find the mitigating evidence strong enough to offset the aggravating circumstances and thereby recommend life imprisonment, they would have done so had they realized that the same evidence could be considered as nonstatutory as well as statutory mitigation. Id. 47 The court's holding, that Booker was not prejudiced by the trial court's Hitchcock error, represents a substantial departure from the very cautious approach to second-guessing the jury exhibited in other Florida Supreme Court cases. In accordance with those prior decisions, the court could not hold that if the jury had heard all of the nonstatutory mitigating evidence and considered it independently of the statutory categories, it still would have recommended the death penalty. 15 Nor could the court be sure that, absent the Hitchcock error, the judge would have sentenced Booker to death whatever the jury's recommendation might have been. According to its caselaw, the court should have determined that the error was prejudicial and have granted the writ. 48 Two explanations can be posited for this judicial aberration. The first is that the Florida Supreme Court, acting as a pure reviewing court, conducted harmless error analysis and simply acted arbitrarily--this is the position implicitly adopted by the majority. 16 If this explanation is correct, then it follows that the majority's conclusion is also correct. I cannot conceive of a situation in which a pure reviewing court would not be acting arbitrarily in affirming a death sentence after finding a sentencing error that relates, as the error does here, to the balancing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. It is simply impossible to tell what recommendation a properly instructed jury would have made or the decision the sentencing judge would have reached. 49 The second explanation is that the Florida Supreme Court reweighed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in this case--including the nonstatutory mitigating circumstances that the advisory jury and sentencing judge failed to consider--and concluded that Booker still should be sentenced to death. The Supreme Court's decision in Clemons recognizes that a state appellate court can resentence and thereby cure trial court error--the Florida Supreme Court could have exercised this power, resentencing Booker and curing the sentencing court's Hitchcock error. Although the court's result more closely corresponds with this approach than with a harmless error approach, it is clear that, in framing its analysis, the court undertook a purely reviewing function. After determining that a Hitchcock error occurred during the sentencing phase of the case, the court states that, the only remaining question is whether such error can be considered harmless. Id. at 248 (emphasis added). It then concluded: 50 We are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that even with the proper jury instruction and without the prosecutor's compounding comment, the jury would not have made a recommendation for life imprisonment. There was simply no nonstatutory mitigating evidence sufficient to offset the aggravating circumstances upon which the jury could have reasonably predicated such a recommendation. We are also convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the judge would have sentenced Booker to death regardless of the jury's recommendation and that an override would have been consistent with the rationale of Tedder v. State, 322 So.2d 908 (Fla.1975). 51 Id. at 249 (citation omitted). 17 Taken as a whole, the Florida Supreme Court's opinion demonstrates that the court only intended to undertake harmless error analysis of the Hitchcock error--an analysis that the court conducts in its capacity as a pure reviewing court under the strict criterion of Chapman v. California. Under this analysis, unless the court can say for sure that the error at issue would have made no difference to the outcome of the sentencing hearing, the court cannot hold that the error was harmless. If, without such certainty, the court holds an error harmless, its decision is arbitrary and, therefore, unconstitutional. That is the conclusion that I must reach in this case. Although the Florida Supreme Court had the power to resentence Booker and cure the error, it chose not to exercise it. 52 When an appellate court purports to act only as a pure reviewing court under Chapman, we will not articulate a state law premise that would have allowed that court constitutionally to reach the same result--that is the state appellate court's responsibility. Only where some ambiguity surrounds the court's rationale and we are therefore unable to frame the federal constitutional question at issue will we remand the case, as in Clemons, to the state court and allow it to articulate which approach it adopted. Here, there simply was no ambiguity.
53 After carefully reviewing the Florida Supreme Court's opinion in this case, it is obvious that the court conducted harmless error review of Booker's death sentence. Since the court could not determine with certainty what the jury's recommendation or the judge's decision would have been if the nonstatutory mitigating evidence had been considered properly, I believe that, in accordance with the majority opinion, we must affirm the district court's disposition of the case.