Opinion ID: 2096091
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Use of Prior Uncharged Robbery in Penalty Phase

Text: During the death penalty phase of the trial, the State introduced evidence that Williams participated in the armed robbery of a seventy-one year old man named James Jackson. Jackson was beaten and robbed by three assailants who broke into his house about a month before the Reases were murdered. Williams had not been charged with the Jackson robbery at the time of his trial for robbing and killing the Reases. Evidence of Williams' participation in the Jackson robbery was offered and admitted, over defendant's objection, for the purpose of disproving the statutory mitigating factor of no significant history of prior criminal conduct.  Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(c)(1) (emphasis added). Williams claims on appeal that our decision in State v. McCormick (1979), 272 Ind. 272, 397 N.E.2d 276, prohibits the State from attempting to prove an independent crime during the penalty phase. To allow otherwise, Williams argues, would violate due process by heightening the possibility of arbitrary or capricious recommendations by death penalty juries. In McCormick, this Court held that the State could not use a prior unrelated murder not yet reduced to conviction as a statutory aggravating factor in the death penalty phase. Justice Pivarnik wrote for the Court: We hold that Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(b)(8) is unconstitutional as applied to this defendant. The procedure to be utilized in this case as provided for by statute and case law will be, in fact, two trials. The defendant will first be tried to a jury for the killing of Douglass Overby. If he is convicted, a sentencing hearing will take place. At this sentencing hearing, the defendant will, in essence, be tried for the murder of Harold Lewis. This hearing will be before the same jury which will have just recently convicted the defendant of another, unrelated murder. The trial court noted that if McCormick were tried in an actual criminal trial for the murder of Harold Lewis, any evidence relating to the Overby killing would be inadmissible in the State's case in chief. Likewise, no evidence of the Lewis killing may be admitted in this case in the trial of Count I, the Overby killing. Thus, the effect of the statutory procedure in the present case is obvious: defendant McCormick would be fully tried on two separate, unrelated charges before the same jury. He would be tried on the second count to a jury which has been undeniably prejudiced by having convicted him of an unrelated murder. As the trial court pointed out in its ruling: ... This opens the door to death penalty recommendations upon a level of proof lower than beyond a reasonable doubt. McCormick, 272 Ind. at 278, 397 N.E.2d at 280. Williams asserts that the rationale of this Court in McCormick applies with at least equal force to the facts of the present case. Appellant's Brief at 74. His interpretation of McCormick, however, is too broad. As Justice Pivarnik wrote at the conclusion of the majority opinion, our holding is confined to those cases in which the murder alleged as an aggravating circumstance is not related to the principal murder charge. Id., 272 Ind. at 280, 397 N.E.2d at 281 (emphasis added). The holding in McCormick was motivated by the fact that our death penalty statute requires aggravating factors be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(a). The concern reflected in Justice Pivarnik's opinion was plain: a death penalty jury could be prejudiced to the point where it might determine an aggravating circumstance on lesser proof. This danger is much reduced when a jury considering the death penalty assesses the presence of mitigators, which need only be established by a preponderance. Similarly, when a jury makes its ultimate determination of whether to recommend the death penalty, it need only find that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(e). The jury is not required to reach this conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Daniels v. State (1983), Ind., 453 N.E.2d 160, 171. The weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors is not equivalent to a trial on guilt or innocence. Therefore, the due process guarantees insured by McCormick are not implicated in the case at bar, and McCormick does not preclude the State from offering evidence of independent crimes to disprove the lack of significant prior criminal conduct. Ind. Code § 35-50-2-9(c)(1). The trial court did not err in admitting evidence of Williams' prior criminal acts.