Opinion ID: 154173
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instructions on Mitigating Factors:

Text: Mr. Davis argues that other instructions erroneously conveyed to the jury that they must find any mitigating circumstances unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. He particularly challenges Instruction No. 5: If in the first two steps of your deliberations you have made unanimous findings that the prosecution has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that one or more aggravating factors exist and that no mitigating factors exist, or that a mitigating factor or factors exist, you must now decide whether the prosecution has proven that any factors in aggravation outweigh any factors in mitigation. In the third step of your deliberations you must weigh the aggravating factor or factors found to exist against any and all mitigating factors. . . . Your deliberations during this step of the proceeding can lead to one of two results: -54- 1. If all, or one or more of the jurors believe that a mitigating factor or factors outweigh the aggravating factor or factors found to exist, then the jury shall enter a verdict of life imprisonment. 2. If all jurors unanimously agree that the aggravating factor or factors found to exist outweigh the mitigating factors or that there are no mitigating factors, then you shall continue your deliberations in accordance with these instructions. R. Vol. IV, Vol. 2 at 394-95 (emphasis added). Instruction No. 6 provided: Each of you must also decide for yourself what weight to give each mitigating circumstance that you find exists. Your decision as to what weight to give any mitigating circumstances does not have to be unanimous. You do not have to take the decisions, opinions or feelings of any other juror into account, although you may do so if you wish. Id. at 396. While, read in isolation, the first paragraph of Instruction No. 5 could be read to require unanimity in the existence of mitigating factors, and that they must be found beyond a reasonable doubt, Instruction No. 6 makes it clear that there is no such unanimity requirement, nor is there a requirement that they be established beyond a reasonable doubt. This is reinforced by the third paragraph of Instruction No. 5, which referred to “one or more of the jurors,” as well as Instructions 2, 3, and 4, which stated repeatedly that aggravating factors must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but stated no such requirement for mitigating factors. Instruction No. 4 specifically stated that “[t]here is no burden of proof as to proving or disproving mitigating factors.” Id. at 392. Moreover, in his closing argument to the jury, after reminding the jury that it must find that aggravating circumstances exist beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecutor stated, “we discussed the fact that you [the jury] decide what weight to give mitigating -55- circumstances, whether or not any mitigating circumstances exist.” R. Vol. V, Vol. 33 at 41. Considered as a whole, there is no “reasonable likelihood” that the jury interpreted the instructions to require it to find mitigating factors unanimously or beyond a reasonable doubt. Nothing in the jury instructions rendered Mr. Davis’s trial and sentencing so fundamentally unfair that habeas relief is required. C. Mitigating and Aggravating Factors in Equipoise: Mr. Davis argues that the weighing process mandated by Colorado’s capital sentencing statute, as reflected in the court’s jury instructions, permitted the jury to return a sentence of death if mitigating and aggravating factors were of equal weight. Mr. Davis argued to the Colorado Supreme Court that the capital sentencing statute impermissibly authorized a death sentence when the aggravating and mitigating circumstances were of equal weight. The Colorado court noted that it had already rejected that very argument in People v. Tenneson, 788 P.2d 786 (Colo. 1990). Thus, Colorado’s highest court has held that the statute itself does not permit the imposition of death when the aggravating and mitigating circumstances are in equipoise. The question remains whether the instructions in this case permitted such a sentence. While Mr. Davis points to a few selected places where the instructions refer to mitigating factors “outweighing” aggravating ones, he neglects to point out the five other places throughout the jury instructions where the jury was clearly told that it must find -56- that one or more specified aggravating factors “outweigh” the mitigating factors.24 Furthermore, the prosecutor in his closing argument reminded the jury that he, representing the people, bore the “burden of proof as to the weighing process, as to whether the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors.” R. Vol. V, Vol. 33 at 40. In discussing the law, he told the jurors they must put mitigating circumstances “into this equation, and then you determine whether or not the aggravating circumstances you found beyond a reasonable doubt outweigh the mitigating circumstances.” Id. at 41. In sum, there can be no doubt the jury knew that it had to find that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating before it could return a death sentence.