Opinion ID: 585300
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eighth Amendment Error

Text: 47 In Johnson, the sentencing jury found three aggravating circumstances regarding Johnson's murder of a Mississippi highway patrolman, one of which was that Johnson had previously been convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person of another. 8 The sole evidence supporting this aggravating circumstance was an authenticated copy of petitioner's commitment following his 1963 conviction in New York State for second-degree assault with intent to commit first-degree rape. The prosecutor repeatedly referred to this conviction during sentencing. Because the three aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the Mississippi jury, the sentencer under Mississippi law, sentenced Johnson to death. In 1987, after the Mississippi jury passed its sentence, the New York Court of Appeals reversed Johnson's conviction for second-degree assault with intent to commit first-degree rape on the grounds that Johnson's confession was coerced. 9 Despite the sentencing jury's consideration of this invalid conviction, the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Johnson's death sentence. 48 The United States Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case to the state courts for resentencing. The Court held that the sentencing jury's consideration of the invalid conviction violated the Eighth Amendment because the decision to sentence Johnson to death was predicated on factors that are constitutionally impermissible or totally irrelevant to the sentencing process. Johnson, 486 U.S. at 585, 108 S.Ct. at 1986 (quoting Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 884-85, 887 n. 24, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2747, 2748 n. 24, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983)). 49 Thus, Johnson stands for the proposition that a sentencing jury's consideration of a vacated conviction in establishing aggravating factors violates the Eighth Amendment because such consideration undermines the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment. Id. at 584, 108 S.Ct. at 1986 (citations omitted). In assessing Duest's Johnson claim, the Florida Supreme Court implicitly recognized the existence of an Eighth Amendment violation. Duest v. Dugger, 555 So.2d at 851. The State does not dispute the existence of Constitutional error in this case.