Opinion ID: 2569354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Dunlap Issues

Text: The defendant raises a cluster of sentencing phase issues that are fully resolved by our analysis in Dunlap, which was decided after his trial. Therefore, we address these and closely related claims together.
Harlan contends that the trial court committed reversible error in admitting evidence of his prior sexual misconduct as a nonstatutory aggravating factor to rebut mitigating factors he asserted during the sentencing phase of the trial. Moreover, the defendant asserts that the trial court erred by failing to exclude this evidence under CRE 401-403. We do not agree.
We first address Harlan's contention that evidence of his prior sexual misconduct constituted impermissible nonstatutory aggravating factor evidence. We considered and rejected a similar argument in Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 739-40. Under Colorado's capital sentencing statute, the jury decides whether the defendant is eligible for the death penalty by weighing aggravating factors against mitigating evidence. See id. at 739. This determination comprises the first three steps in the decision-making process, during which the jury may consider (1) evidence related to statutory aggravating factors; (2) all mitigating evidence; and (3) prosecution evidence offered to rebut mitigating factors raised by the defendant.  Id. (emphasis added). We find that evidence of the defendant's prior sexual misconduct was admissible to rebut mitigating factors that the defendant himself raised during the sentencing phase of the trial. The prosecution presented the testimony of five women regarding Harlan's prior sexual misconduct. The evidence is as follows. Terrilynn Carlson testified that when she was at Sandra Harlan's house, before Sandra Harlan and the defendant were married, she became ill and went to the bathroom. Harlan followed her into the bathroom, locked the door, unzipped his pants, and made sexual remarks to her. He grabbed her and put her mouth on his penis, but Carlson pulled away and threw up. Harlan left the bathroom. Because she was still sick, Carlson slept at Sandra Harlan's home, only to awaken with the defendant on top of her. She told him she would scream and put up her knees in defense, at which point Harlan again retreated. Tracie Schoenberger testified that Harlan asked her to kiss him while they were at work. She refused, saying, No. I guess you don't always get what you want, Robert. He responded, I always get what I want, and placed his hand on her back beneath her blouse. Laura Jennings testified that Harlan tied her up and sexually assaulted her for two hours at his grandmother's house in 1991. Following a mistrial on felony sexual assault charges, Harlan accepted a plea bargain, and was convicted of third degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor. Colleen Harlan testified that in October 1990, after their divorce, she sat in a parked car with the defendant, and he told her [t]hat he drove around at night looking for  excuse me  looking for women walking alone so that he could think of ways to rape and kill them and get away with it. She also testified that Harlan told her in a telephone conversation in 1989 that an automobile accident that had occurred five years earlier while she was a passenger in the car he was driving was actually an attempt to kill her, because he didn't think I loved him any more and if he couldn't have me, no one else could. [50] The trial court instructed the jury that this testimony was admitted only for the purpose of rebutting certain mitigating evidence of the defendant: During the penalty phase of this trial, the Court admitted certain evidence for a limited purpose. The testimony from Terilynn [sic] Carlson, Traci [sic] Schoenberger, Laura Jennings and Colleen Harlan was admitted solely for the purpose of rebutting the following specific mitigating factors: 1. 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. 2. The influence of drugs or alcohol. 3. The defendant is not a continuing threat to society. 4. Any factor, or factors, listed in Instruction 16, upon which you think this evidence may have any bearing. You may consider the testimony from those four witnesses for this limited purpose and for no other purpose whatsoever. If you, as an individual juror, determine that the evidence you heard from those witnesses has any bearing on the issue of mitigation, then you may consider the evidence for the limited purpose of determining whether the specific mitigating factors, listed above, exist or what weight to give those specific mitigating factors, if they exist, in the third and fourth steps of your deliberations. You cannot consider the testimony from those witnesses as an aggravating factor. Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 22 (emphasis added). In addition, prior to the testimony of each of these prosecution witnesses, the trial court admonished the jury that they could only consider the testimony of the witness for the limited purpose of rebutting specific mitigating factors, and for no other purpose. We find that the trial court's instructions adequately guided the jury's consideration of the prosecution's rebuttal evidence. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 742-43. We hold that the sexual misconduct evidence was relevant to rebut the statutory mitigating factor that the defendant is not a continuing threat to society. See § 16-11-103(4)(k). [51] The defendant presented extensive evidence that he would not be a continuing threat to society if he were sentenced to life imprisonment. The trial court qualified Dr. Michael L. Radelet, one of Harlan's sentencing phase witnesses, as an expert in sociology, criminology, and predictability of future dangerousness. Dr. Radelet defined dangerousness as serious assaultive conduct which is reasonably likely to cause significant bodily injury to the victim so that what I'm looking for is significant bodily injury. After considering eight factors  the presence of remorse; whether the crime was impulsive rather than premeditated; Harlan's age at the time of the crime; prior felony convictions; history of psychosis or mental hospitalizations; institutional adjustment to confinement; the alternative to a death sentence which in Colorado is life without parole; and the social support of family and friends  Dr. Radelet testified that he believed that Mr. Harlan has an extremely high probability of being able to make a satisfactory adjustment to prison. All of the factors that I've outlined and when compared with other people convicted of aggravated murder, make him a very, very safe bet in my opinion for being able to have a prison term rather than being sentenced to death. On cross-examination, however, Dr. Radelet acknowledged that the best predictor of future behavior was past behavior. He also agreed with the prosecutor that the Laura Jennings assault was a horrible, horrible incident. Dr. Radelet also testified as to the incidents involving Terrilynn Carlson, Tracie Schoenberger, Laura Jennings, and Colleen Harlan. While he contested the weight that these incidents should be given in determining future dangerousness, he did not testify that they were irrelevant to that issue. The jury reasonably could have viewed the evidence of sexual misconduct as relevant to the issue of the defendant's future threat to society. Therefore, the trial court properly admitted it in rebuttal of the defendant's evidence on that question. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 739. We conclude, moreover, that the jury reasonably could have found that the sexual misconduct evidence was relevant to some of the nonstatutory mitigating factors set forth in Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 16. For example, the defendant's mitigating factor 12 stated, For most of Robert Harlan's life he has been law abiding and a positive member of society. Factor 19 provided, The Robert Harlan that [his father] knows is a good man. Belt Harlan believes that his son's violent acts are due to drugs. And, although the use of drugs does not excuse Robert's actions, the use of drugs explains, at least in part, how a good man could do something so wrong. A juror could reasonably conclude that the sexual misconduct evidence was relevant to the weight to be given these mitigating factors. Similarly, many of Harlan's witnesses testified that they were shocked when they heard what he was charged with, and that it did not comport with the person they knew. See, e.g., Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 16, factors 41, 53, 63, 65, 66, and 70. It was proper for the jurors to consider the prosecution's rebuttal evidence insofar as it related to the credibility of these witnesses and the weight to give the nonstatutory mitigating factors that Harlan submitted. In sum, the evidence of Harlan's prior sexual misconduct was properly admitted to rebut evidence of mitigating factors that the defendant submitted to the jury. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 739. The jury was carefully instructed as how to consider this evidence and we presume that those instructions were followed. See id. at 743. Therefore, we deny the defendant's claim.
Harlan also alleges that the evidence should have been excluded under CRE 401-403. We have already found that this evidence was relevant to mitigation issues Harlan raised during the sentencing phase. Therefore, CRE 401 and 402 are satisfied. [52] We conclude here that evidence of the defendant's sexual misconduct is admissible under CRE 403. [53] Trial courts have broad discretion to make evidentiary determinations under CRE 403. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 741; People v. Ibarra, 849 P.2d 33, 38 (Colo.1993). A determination that the probative value of evidence outweighs prejudice to the defendant is left to the discretion of the trial court and will not be overturned on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion. People v. Czemerynski, 786 P.2d 1100, 1108 (Colo.1990). We will reverse the trial court's CRE 403 ruling only if the decision is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. King v. People, 785 P.2d 596, 603 (Colo.1990). In determining whether the trial court abused its discretion, we evaluate the trial court's decision by considering the maximum probative value of the evidence as weighed against the minimum prejudicial effect. See People v. Gibbens, 905 P.2d 604, 607 (Colo.1995). This is a very deferential standard of review because CRE 403 strongly favors admission of relevant evidence. See id. Under these principles of review, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision to admit the sexual misconduct evidence. The evidence of sexual misconduct from several witnesses reveals a pattern of physically intimidating and often dramatically violent behavior toward women. Under the Gibbens standard, we cannot conclude that the trial court's decision was manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. King, 785 P.2d at 603. Our review of the record compels this conclusion, even if we, if in the trial court's position, may have excluded some or all of the evidence under CRE 403 due to its potential for injecting improper racial considerations into the jury's decision-making process. See infra Part V.B.
Harlan next raises several issues concerning the role of nonstatutory aggravating factors. We conclude that they are all without merit in light of our analysis in Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 740-41.
In Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 740, we held that evidence of nonstatutory aggravating factors is admissible in a capital sentencing hearing, but the jury may only consider it in the final step of their deliberations. We found that the scope of admissible evidence for purposes of this step of the sentencing process is set forth in section 16-11-103(1)(b): All admissible evidence presented by either the prosecuting attorney or the defendant that the court deems relevant to the nature of the crime, and the character, background, and history of the defendant, including any evidence presented in the guilt phase of the trial, and any matters relating to any of the aggravating or mitigating factors enumerated in subsections (4) and (5) of this section may be presented. Any such evidence which the court deems to have probative value may be received, as long as each party is given an opportunity to rebut such evidence. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 740 (quoting § 16-11-103(1)(b)). We held that the admissibility of rebuttal mitigation evidence for purposes of Tenneson step four is constrained only by familiar evidentiary principles concerning the relevance of the evidence and the potential for that evidence to inflame the passion or prejudice of the jury. Id. at 741.
The defendant first claims that the trial court erroneously refused to instruct the jurors that the fourth step of their sentencing decision-making process had to be based solely on the statutory aggravating factors and the mitigating factors introduced during the sentencing phase. He asserts that this refusal wrongly allowed the jurors to consider during the final stage of their deliberations nonstatutory aggravating evidence as reasons to impose the death penalty. In the present case, the trial court did not allow the jury to consider nonstatutory aggravating factors in a way that is fundamentally inconsistent with our reasoning in Dunlap. If anything, the trial court's treatment of nonstatutory aggravating factors worked to the defendant's benefit. Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 5 provides as follows: If all of the jurors unanimously agree that they are each convinced and persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the mitigating factors do not outweigh the specified aggravating factors, each juror will then decide, based on the mitigation and specified aggravating factor or factors, whether they are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that death, rather than life, is the appropriate sentence. If any one or more of the jurors is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the appropriate sentence is death, instead of life in prison, the jury must return a sentence of life in prison, without possibility of parole. See also Sentencing Phase Instruction Nos. 18 and 19. The specified aggravating factor, for the purposes of Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 5, is a statutory aggravating factor. See Sentencing Instruction No. 6. Moreover, the jury was instructed that it could not consider any of the prosecution's mitigation rebuttal evidence as an aggravating factor. See Sentencing Phase Instruction No. 22. Therefore, the jury was shielded from considering nonstatutory aggravating evidence in its sentencing deliberations as an independent basis for imposition of a death sentence. The nonstatutory aggravating factors functioned solely as rebuttal evidence to the defendant's mitigating factors. The jury, we note, was not instructed that it could consider nonstatutory aggravating evidence in the fourth step of their deliberations, although section 16-11-103(1)(b) allows such evidence to play a role at that stage. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 741. Therefore, in effect, the trial court kept from the jury aggravating evidence that we held in Dunlap was relevant to the final stage in the capital sentencing process. This error certainly could not prejudice the defendant; thus, Harlan's claim is denied.
Harlan also alleges that the trial court should have instructed the jurors that they had to unanimously find the existence of nonstatutory aggravating factors before they could be considered for any purpose. We reject this argument for two reasons. First, the court did not affirmatively instruct the jury that it could consider nonstatutory aggravating evidence at the fourth step of the sentencing process, although the trial court could have. See Dunlap, 975 P.2d at 741. Second, the only requirement of unanimity imposed by section 16-11-103 in the final step of the sentencing process is that all of the jurors must be convinced, beyond a reasonable doubt, that death, rather than life, is the appropriate sentence. See Tenneson, 788 P.2d at 796. There is no additional requirement that the jury be unanimous as to the basis for that determination. Consequently, the trial court did not err when it refused the defendant's instruction to the contrary.