Opinion ID: 222406
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Failure of the Indictment to Allege Statutory Aggravating Factors

Text: Gabrion argues that his indictment was fatally deficient under the Fifth Amendment because it did not allege any of the statutory aggravating factors that were legally necessary to render him eligible for the death penalty. [8] But one year before the trial, the government advised Gabrion of all the aggravating factors it would prove in a notice that it would seek the death penalty. Assuming for the sake of argument that the Fifth Amendment requires indictments under the Federal Death Penalty Act to allege statutory aggravating factors, [9] we nonetheless find that error to be harmless here. The court of appeals shall not reverse or vacate a sentence of death on account of any error which can be harmless, including any erroneous special finding of an aggravating factor, where the Government establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the error was harmless. 18 U.S.C. § 3595(c)(2)(C). Gabrion has not set out how he was harmed by the absence of statutory aggravating factors in the indictment. Nor does he tell us how stating the aggravating factors in the indictment is a per se requirement not subject to the Act's harmless-error provision. To determine whether the absence was harmless error, we look to the two primary functions of the indictment: (1) to provide notice of the crime, allowing the defendant to prepare a defense; and (2) to bring the public through a grand jury into the charging decision. See United States v. Robinson, 367 F.3d 278, 287 (5th Cir.2004) (citing Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 763-64, 82 S.Ct. 1038, 8 L.Ed.2d 240 (1962), and Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960)). As to the first function, Gabrion had notice of the aggravating factors one year in advance of trialmore than sufficient time to prepare a defense. As to the second function, no rational grand jury could fail to find that the prosecution lacked probable cause on any of the aggravating factors, because the evidence of probable cause on those factors was strong. See Robinson, 367 F.3d at 293. Moreover, the fact that Gabrion's sentencing jury later unanimously found all of the aggravating factors is, at a minimum, persuasive evidence of how a grand jury would find. Id. at 288-89. Any error was, therefore, harmless. We can summarize the situation here no better than Blackstone, who said the following regarding why courts should not reverse otherwise-proper convictions simply because the prosecution proceeded by information rather than by indictment: The same notice was given, the same process was issued, the same pleas were allowed, the same trial by jury was had, the same judgment was given by the same judges, as if the prosecution had originally been by indictment. 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries  (cited in Hurtado v. California, 110 U.S. 516, 538, 4 S.Ct. 111, 28 L.Ed. 232 (1884) (holding that the Indictment Clause of the Fifth Amendment is not incorporated against the states via the Due Process Clause)). The same, too, with Gabrion.