Opinion ID: 2569354
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 38

Heading: Whether the submission of straw men mitigating factors was error.

Text: Harlan contends that the trial court erred when it submitted certain statutory mitigating factors for the jury to consider over defense counsels' objection. The court instructed the jury on the following statutory mitigating factors: 1. The age of the defendant at the time of the crime. 2. The defendant's capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the defendant's conduct or to conform the defendant's conduct to the requirements of the law was significantly impaired, but not so impaired as to constitute a defense to prosecution. 3. The defendant was under unusual and substantial duress, although not such duress as to constitute a defense to prosecution. 4. The defendant could not reasonably have foreseen that the defendant's conduct in the course of the commission of the offense for which the defendant was convicted would cause, or would create a grave risk of causing, death to another person. 5. The emotional state of the defendant at the time the crime was committed. 6. The absence of any significant prior conviction. 7. The extent of the defendant's cooperation with law enforcement officers or agencies and with the office of the prosecuting attorney. 8. The influence of drugs or alcohol. 9. The defendant is not a continuing threat to society. 10. Any other evidence which bears on the question of mitigation. You may not in any fashion consider any of these types of factors as aggravation or reasons in favor of a death sentence. Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 12 (emphasis added). These mitigating factors tracked the factors listed in section 16-11-103(4)(a)( l ) with two omissions: (4)(d) (the defendant was only a minor participant in an offense committed by another); and (4)(j) (good faith, but mistaken, belief that the defendant's conduct was morally justified). The defendant complains that he did not want four of these statutory mitigating factors to be submitted to the jury that were not raised by the evidence. According to Harlan, their submission served only to distract the jurors from the actual mitigating factors in the case, bias the jury against him for raising non-existent mitigation, and allow the prosecution to argue the factors did not exist. In particular, Harlan objects to the introduction of the significant impairment (no. 2), duress (no. 3), unforeseeability (no. 4), and cooperation with law enforcement (no. 7) mitigating factors. Even assuming for the sake of argument that these four mitigating circumstances were not raised by the evidence, their submission to the jury was, at most, harmless error. First, these four factors were only a small number of the 107 mitigating factors that Harlan submitted to the jury. Second, and more importantly, Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 12 instructed the jurors that: You may not in any fashion consider any of these types of factors as aggravation or reasons in favor of a death sentence. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we will presume that the jury understood and heeded the court's instructions. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 743.