Opinion ID: 550707
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The age of the defendant at the time of the offense.

Text: 59 You may also consider any circumstances which you find from the evidence in extenuation or mitigation of punishment. If you unanimously decide that a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances exist which outweigh the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found by you to exist, then you must return a verdict fixing defendant's punishment at imprisonment for life by the Division of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole until he has served a minimum of fifty years of his sentence under Count I. Instruction 60 60 Even if you decide that a sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances do not exist which outweigh the aggravating circumstance or circumstances found to exist, you are not compelled to fix death as the punishment. Whether that is to be your final decision rests with you. 61 Byrd v. Delo, 733 F.Supp. at 1342-43. 62
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
70 In Ground G of his second petition, Byrd claims that Instructions 54-56 unconstitutionally required him to prove mitigating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, or were at least so confusing that a reviewing court could not determine whether the jury reached its conclusion on the basis of an unconstitutional understanding. The district court rejected this claim as an abuse of the writ and on the merits. Byrd v. Delo, 733 F.Supp. at 1344-45. 71 On appeal, Byrd makes the same procedural argument which we rejected in our discussion of Ground A, i.e., that the actual innocence exception should apply because Byrd would not have been sentenced to death if the jury had been properly instructed. 72 As noted in our discussion of Ground A, the evidence of multiple aggravating circumstances was compelling and Byrd's evidence of mitigating circumstances is weak. We therefore hold that the actual innocence exception, as it applies in the penalty phase, does not apply because Byrd would have been sentenced to death even if the jury instructions had been less confusing. 5. Proportionality--Ground I 73 In Ground I of his second petition, Byrd claims that his death sentence is disproportionate when compared with those of similar offenders. Byrd states that he did not raise this claim in his first petition because he only recently discovered evidence that the Missouri Supreme Court had based its proportionality review of his sentence on inaccurate information. Under Missouri law, the Missouri Supreme Court's staff is required to prepare a synopsis of all cases in which a sentence of death or life without parole was imposed after May 26, 1977. Brief of Appellant at 19. Byrd claims that the Missouri Supreme Court's records are incomplete and inaccurate, and that the court therefore could not have engaged in the required proportionality review. Id. at 21. 74 Where, as here, the petitioner's claim is based on newly discovered evidence, the cause and prejudice test is inapplicable. Instead, the court must determine whether the newly discovered evidence would have resulted in an acquittal or a lesser sentence on retrial. See Mastrian, 554 F.2d at 823. As noted above, Byrd's crimes and the evidence at trial were quite similar to those in Gilmore and other cases where the death penalty has been imposed. Cf. State v. Gilmore, 661 S.W.2d 519, 525 (Mo.1983) (banc) (citing similar cases), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 945, 104 S.Ct. 1931, 80 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983). The court therefore finds that a more comprehensive database would not have changed the Missouri Supreme Court's holding that his death sentence was not disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant. State v. Byrd, 676 S.W.2d at 507. 11