Opinion ID: 2341882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: The Majority's Eligibility Distinction

Text: The majority maintains that  Ring only implicates the finding of aggravating circumstances, and not the process of weighing aggravating against mitigating factors. Maj. op. at 1121-22. It is correct that the Ring Court did not address specifically the issue of whether, in weighing the aggravators against the mitigators, Apprendi applies or whether the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt before death may be imposed. The Court did not do so, however, most likely because Ring did not argue anything with respect to mitigators or balancing. Ring presented a tightly delineated claim, Ring, 536 U.S. at 597 n. 4, 122 S.Ct. at 2437 n. 4, 153 L.Ed.2d at 569 n. 4, raising only the question of whether a trial judge, sitting alone, could determine the presence or absence of the aggravating factors required by Arizona law for imposition of the death penalty. [6] Ring, 536 U.S. at 588, 122 S.Ct. at 2432, 153 L.Ed.2d at 563. Ring argued that the Arizona death penalty statute violated the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments because it entrusted to a judge the finding of a fact raising the defendant's maximum penalty from life to death. Id. at 595, 122 S.Ct. at 2436, 153 L.Ed.2d at 568. Nonetheless, Ring set out the general principles that courts must apply in deciding what issues may be decided by a judge and those for which a defendant is entitled to a jury determination, as well as the applicability of the higher reasonable doubt standard at least as to the finding of aggravators. Moreover, as noted earlier, on remand, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected the contention that the requirement that mitigating circumstances be considered and weighed against aggravators was not a factual predicate for imposition of the death penalty. See State v. Ring, 65 P.3d at 942-43. The majority's thesis rests upon the view that due process only requires the finding of aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt, and not the process of weighing aggravating against mitigating factors. See maj. op. at 1121-22 (stating that  Ring only implicates the finding of aggravating circumstances, and not the process of weighing aggravating against mitigating factors). It is the majority's view that the Supreme Court death penalty jurisprudence requiring the reasonable doubt standard applies only to the part of the sentencing process which makes a defendant death-eligible, as opposed to those elements involved in selecting those death-eligible defendants who will be actually sentenced to death. The majority concludes that the selection process, that which determines whether in the judgment of the jury, the death penalty should be applied, may constitutionally be determined based on the preponderance of the evidence. See maj. op. at 1123-24. The majority's sole focus is upon the eligibility phase of the sentencing process. The majority concludes that the [Supreme] Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and its holding in Ring make clear, it is the finding of an aggravating circumstance, and only the finding of an aggravating circumstance, which makes a defendant death-eligible. Maj. op. at 1149-50. The majority recognizes that states must specify aggravating factors in order to direct and limit the sentencing authority's discretion as to the class of convicted defendants to which the death penalty may apply. See maj. op. at 1128. The Supreme Court's discussion of eligibility versus selection arose in the context of the Court's requirement that a capital sentencing scheme must genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty. The Supreme Court has stated that the cruel and unusual prohibition of the Eighth Amendment prohibits a state from imposing the death penalty in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Accordingly, the sentencing authority must be provided with standards which will genuinely narrow the class of crimes and the persons against whom the death penalty is imposed by allowing it to make an individualized determination on the basis of the character of the individual and the circumstances of the crime. Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 878-80, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2743-44, 77 L.Ed.2d 235, 250-51 (1983); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 206-07, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2940-41, 49 L.Ed.2d 859, 893 (1976); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 293-94, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2754-55, 33 L.Ed.2d 346, 380-81 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring). The majority ignores several important considerations. First, the majority underestimates the impact and reach of Ring. It has been said of Ring v. Arizona that it is clearly the most significant death penalty decision of the U.S. Supreme Court since the decision in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), invalidating the death penalty schemes of virtually all states. Bottoson v. Moore, 833 So.2d 693 (Fla.2002) (Anstead, C.J., concurring). Ring has been called a monumental decision that will have extensive implications across the country. Note, The Death Penalty and the Sixth Amendment: How Will the System Look After Ring v. Arizona ?, 77 St. John's L.Rev. 371, 399 (2003). Ring discusses the death penalty for the first time within the framework of the Sixth Amendment. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court's overruling of Walton raises questions about the viability of earlier capital cases. See Stevenson, supra, at 1111, 1122 (noting that A central difficulty in resolving these second-stage issues is that the jurisprudential tools that one would naturally use to analyze the questions-the Supreme Court's prior decisions on the jury's role in capital sentencing-are now inherently suspect in light of Ring. ). But even if the eligibility versus selection distinction holds in the context of the weighing process, the language and structure of the Maryland statute put the weighing process on the eligibility side rather than the selection side. I reiterate my analysis in Borchardt: Under § 412(b), a defendant is not `death-eligible' merely by having been found guilty of first degree murder. Rather, at the conclusion of the guilt/innocence phase and a finding of guilty of first degree murder, the defendant is eligible only for a sentence of life imprisonment. The defendant cannot receive a sentence of death unless the additional requirements of § 413 have been met, i.e., that at least one aggravating factor has been proven, that the defendant is a principal in the first degree, and that the aggravating circumstance[s] outweigh any mitigating circumstances. See § 413(h). Just as the presence of the hate crime enhancement in Apprendi transformed a second degree offense into a first degree offense under the New Jersey hate crime statute, the finding that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances transforms a life sentence into a death sentence under the Maryland death penalty statute. 367 Md. at 154-55, 786 A.2d at 668-69.