Opinion ID: 1440383
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rejecting the Death Sentence

Text: Appellant acknowledges that this Court, in a plurality decision, recently rejected a similar challenge to this instruction. See Appellant's Brief at 81 (citing Marinelli, 910 A.2d at 682-84 (Opinion Announcing Judgment of Court)). In fact, he admits that Marinelli rejected his precise claim. Id. He nonetheless contends that Marinelli was wrongly decided because it did not consider the United States Supreme Court's holding in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), or conduct a constitutional analysis of competing instructions. [22] We disagree with both of his reasons for revisiting Marinelli. We first note that, although Marinelli was a plurality decision, a majority of Justices joined the holding and reasoning of Madame Justice Newman's resolution of Marinelli's challenge to the relevant instruction. Mr. Justice Eakin and Madame Justice Baldwin joined Madame Justice Newman's Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court, and Mr. Justice Saylor concurred, expressly joining Madame Justice Newman's resolution of this claim. See Marinelli, 910 A.2d at 690 (Saylor, J., concurring). [23] Appellant argues that the Marinelli plurality was required to evaluate the jury instructions in light of Ring because, he claims, the United States Supreme Court emphasized that the burden of proof for aggravating factors lies with the Commonwealth. Appellant's Brief at 81-82. We fail to see, however, why this Court was required to discuss Ring in evaluating the propriety of the instruction. The Ring Court held that the Sixth Amendment forbids a judge from undertaking the jury's function of determining whether aggravating circumstances justifying a death sentence existed. Ring, 536 U.S. at 609, 122 S.Ct. 2428. The Marinelli Court was not confronted with the issue of whether an improper arbiter determined the existence of aggravating factors, nor are we confronted with that issue now. Regardless, the Marinelli plurality applied the exact standard Appellant claims Ring espouses: Thus, the three-sentence excerpt upon which Appellant relies appears in the context of the trial court's repeated emphasis on the more exacting requirements that the Commonwealth faced in attempting to prove its two aggravating circumstances, compared to the relatively lenient standards applicable to Appellant with respect to his two mitigating circumstances. Marinelli, 910 A.2d at 684 (emphasis added). In evaluating the entirety of the court's instruction to the jury, the plurality noted that the trial court clearly differentiated between the preponderance standard for defendants in proving mitigating circumstances, and the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard required of the Commonwealth in proving aggravating circumstances. Id. at 683. The Marinelli trial court also instructed the jury, If you do not all agree on one or the other of these findings, then the only verdict that you may return is a sentence of life imprisonment. Id. (emphasis added). The plurality concluded that the trial court aptly described the appropriate burdens of proof and presumptions to the jury. Id. at 684. We can discern no reason why Ring required a different analysis or conclusion. Appellant also cites Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990), for the proposition that the Marinelli Court should have examined whether competing instructions, one of which is unconstitutional, renders a death sentence illegal. Appellant's reliance on Boyde is misplaced. He specifically relies on the following statement from Boyde: In some instances, to be sure, we have held that when a case is submitted to the jury on alternative theories the unconstitutionality of any of the theories requires that the conviction be set aside. In those cases, a jury is clearly instructed by the court that it may convict a defendant on an impermissible legal theory, as well as on a proper theory or theories. Although it is possible that the guilty verdict may have had a proper basis, it is equally likely that the verdict . . . rested on an unconstitutional ground, and we have declined to choose between two such likely possibilities. Id. at 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190 (quotations and citations omitted). [24] However, the instant, challenged instruction did not clearly instruct the jury to sentence the defendant to death on an impermissible legal theory. Rather, Appellant surmises that instructing the jury to explain[ ] why you're rejecting the death sentence and imposing a life sentence equates to an instruction that it may return a life sentence only if it rejects the death sentence. We cannot agree. While Boyde reflects the sound principle that jury instructions should not put appellate courts in a position where they must determine whether a jury relied on a proper or illegal basis of guilt, it does not prevent courts from examining the propriety of a portion of an instruction by considering it in the context of the entire instruction. Therefore, if the instruction does not clearly require the jury to rely on an unconstitutional basis, then the courts may examine the instruction as a whole to determine the context of the challenged statement. In point of fact, the Boyde Court found that the instruction at issue there was ambiguous and therefore subject to an erroneous interpretation. Id. at 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190. Although Appellant claims that the instant instruction is not ambiguous, he argues only that it implies a presumption of a death sentence. Thus, he is, in actuality, arguing that it was subject to an erroneous interpretation of presuming a sentence of death, which triggers the Boyde Court's reasonable probability test. See id. In Marinelli, and instantly, the statement in question instructs the jury to place a checkmark next to the reason why it is imposing a life sentence. This requirement was entirely consistent with Section 9711(c)(1)(iv), which mandates that the jury must return a sentence of death if it finds at least one aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d) and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(c)(1)(iv). In the context of the entire jury instruction, the instruction at issue, which required only a written notation of the statutorily-mandated reason for imposing a life sentence, did not actually conflict with the clear and overwhelming instructions pertaining to the heightened burden of proof and unanimous votes necessary to impose a sentence of death, and also of the lower burden of proof and fewer number of votes necessary to find mitigating factors. See Marinelli, 910 A.2d at 682-84. We therefore find no error in the analysis in Marinelli, and because Appellant argues only that Marinelli was wrongly decided, he is not entitled to relief. Moreover, Appellant cannot correctly argue that the jury was forced to render a sentence of death by the instruction. In addition to requiring the jury to note the reasons for imposing a life sentence, the court also required the jury to explain why it was imposing a sentence of death rather than a life sentence, and also to list the specific aggravating and mitigating circumstances found. See Verdict Sheet at 1; N.T., 11/12/97, at 150-51. We therefore hold that an instruction requiring the jury to explain why it is rejecting a death sentence is not per se unconstitutional, and Appellant's claim fails. See Boyde, supra ; Marinelli, supra .