Opinion ID: 1494221
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to the Death Penalty Statute of the United States Supreme Court's Decision in Apprendi

Text: Capano's second constitutional challenge to Delaware's death penalty procedure is based on the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey. [501] Under Capano's reading of Apprendi, the Delaware statute violates the Due Process Clause because it permits the trial judge to find a statutory aggravating factor without being bound by a jury verdict on the underlying issues of fact. Capano's argument thus concludes that, in the language of the Apprendi decision, the Delaware statute remove[s] from the jury the assessment of facts that increase the prescribed range of penalties to which the defendant is exposed.  [502] But here, the penalty phase did not increase Capano's exposure to the prescribed range of penalties. His exposure to the death penalty had already been determined when the jury unanimously returned the verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of first degree murder. The New Jersey statute at issue in Apprendi was not a death penalty statute, and the holding in Apprendi does not bear on any issue involved in this case. The statute there was designed to provide punishment beyond the statutory maximum for the underlying crime where the criminal conduct was motivated by animus against minority groups. After a jury finds a defendant guilty of a statutory crime, the New Jersey statute provides for a separate proceeding in which the trial judge alone is authorized to impose an additional sentence beyond the statutory maximum. [503] Under the New Jersey statute struck down in Apprendi, the judge may impose the additional sentence if the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant's motivation in committing the underlying crime was to intimidate the victim based on the victim's race, gender, or religion. [504] The Supreme Court invalidated the New Jersey statute on the ground that the statute constituted an additional element of the underlying crime  i.e., the defendant's motivation  that must be submitted to a jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt before the maximum authorized penalty may be increased. [505] In our view, Apprendi neither explicitly nor implicitly invalidates the Delaware death penalty statute. First and most important, the Apprendi Court explicitly preserved the line of cases upholding death penalty procedures similar to Section 4209: [T]his Court has previously considered and rejected the argument that the principles guiding our decision today render invalid state capital sentencing schemes requiring judges, after a jury verdict holding a defendant guilty of a capital crime, to find specific aggravating factors before imposing a sentence of death. [506] The dissent in Apprendi characterizes this analysis as too formalistic because the Arizona first-degree murder statute [in Walton v. Arizona ] authorizes a maximum penalty of death only in a formal sense. [507] In reality, the dissent argues, the Arizona sentencing scheme removes from the jury the assessment of a fact that determines whether the defendant can receive that maximum punishment. [508] Although this analysis may present a valid criticism of the majority's reasoning, the fact remains that a majority of the Court concluded that the holding in Apprendi did not disturb the line of decisions approving of death penalty statutes like that in Delaware. Even if the Supreme Court had not explicitly preserved the death penalty cases, the language in Apprendi makes it clear that the Court did not intend to disturb the holdings in these cases. Notwithstanding the dissent's concern over their perception of the breadth of the majority's reasoning, the holding in Apprendi is narrow: Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. [509] Moreover, the Court previously held that the finding of aggravating facts fall[s] within the traditional scope of capital sentencing as a choice between a greater and a lesser penalty, not as a process of raising the ceiling of the sentencing range available.  [510] Under Delaware's death penalty procedure, when a jury finds a defendant guilty of first degree murder, the jury authorizes the statutory maximum penalty: the death sentence, subject to the penalty phase and the judge's decision on sentencing. Once the jury during the guilt phase of the trial authorizes the maximum penalty, `it may be left to the judge to decide whether that maximum penalty, rather than a lesser one, ought to be imposed....' [511] We therefore conclude that the holding in Apprendi does not implicitly or explicitly affect the Supreme Court's previous decisions permitting judges to find statutory aggravating factors without a jury verdict on the underlying factual questions. The New Jersey statute that was struck down in Apprendi is also distinguishable from Delaware's death penalty statute. The aggravating factors described in Delaware's Section 4209 do not constitute additional elements needed to establish guilt of a capital murder offense that a jury must unanimously find beyond a reasonable doubt. These aggravating factors relate only to the penalty phase where the jury acts as an advisory body to the sentencing judge. The Apprendi Court distinguished an element of a crime from a sentencing factor according to whether the required finding expose[s] the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's guilty verdict. [512] As we noted earlier, a conviction at the guilt phase by a unanimous jury under the first degree murder statute constitutes the authorization for the later imposition of the death penalty. [513] Because the finding of an aggravating factor does not expose the defendant to a greater punishment than that authorized  by a first degree murder conviction, the aggravating factor is not an additional element of the first degree murder offense. [514] In addition, the Delaware statute requires that the trial judge find aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. [515] The New Jersey hate crime statute, by contrast, required a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the underlying crime was motivated by a desire to intimidate. [516] Accordingly, we conclude that the death penalty process in 11 Del. C. § 4209 does not violate the right to a trial by jury under the Delaware Constitution and does not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.