Opinion ID: 528434
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: error at the penalty phase

Text: 76
77 During the sentencing phase of Bertolotti's trial, the prosecutor argued to the jury as follows: 78 And he says he didn't rape her.... But the evidence would show otherwise. And here she is found nude from the waist down, her underwear and pants and shoes on the floor of the kitchen. And what does that tell you? The man raped her. And yet he comes in here with the audacity to tell us, I didn't have sex with her. 79 The Florida Supreme Court decided that this remark was  'fairly susceptible' of being interpreted as a comment on the defendant's exercise of his right to remain silent, and as such was improper. Bertolotti v. State, 476 So.2d at 132-33. Nevertheless, the Florida court determined that the comment was not so outrageous as to taint the validity of the jury's recommendation in light of the evidence of aggravation presented. Id., 476 So.2d at 133. Bertolotti strenuously urges that the decision of the Florida court is a factual finding that his fifth-amendment rights were violated, binding on a federal habeas court to the extent stated in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2254(d). We disagree; the Florida decision is a non-binding opinion on a mixed question of law and fact. See Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 341-42, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 1714-15, 64 L.Ed.2d 333 (1980). Although the prosecutor's comment may have been improper under Florida law, it was not a violation of Bertolotti's fifth-amendment right to remain silent. 80 Our test for determining whether the prosecutor's comments infringed the fifth-amendment right to silence is to ask whether the statement was manifestly intended or was of such character that a jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify. Hall v. Wainwright, 733 F.2d 766, 772-73 (11th Cir.) (quoting United States v. Vera, 701 F.2d 1349, 1362 (11th Cir.1983) and United States v. Dearden, 546 F.2d 622, 625 (5th Cir.), 18 cert. denied, 434 U.S. 902, 98 S.Ct. 295, 54 L.Ed.2d 188 (1977)), reh. in banc den., 749 F.2d 733 (11th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1107, 105 S.Ct. 2344, 85 L.Ed.2d 858 (1985). The reviewing court must look to the context in which the statement was made in order to determine the manifest intention which prompted it and its natural and necessary impact upon the jury. Hall, 733 F.2d at 773 (quoting Samuels v. United States, 398 F.2d 964, 967 (5th Cir.1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1021, 89 S.Ct. 630, 21 L.Ed.2d 566 (1969)). 81 Bertolotti's explanation of the circumstances in which the victim was found was provided to the jury through his taped confessions. Review of the prosecutor's closing argument shows that the attorney's intent was to argue a point in the evidence, not to comment on the fact that Bertolotti declined to take the stand. Nor do we think the jurors would have understood the prosecutor's remarks as a surreptitious comment on Bertolotti's failure to testify; the jury most likely took the comment as an exhortation to conclude from all the evidence admitted that Bertolotti had sexually abused his victim. The comment was within the bounds of reasonable prosecutorial argument, and did not so infect[ ] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 1871, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974). 19
82 Bertolotti argues that the jury was instructed to presume that a sentence of death was the appropriate penalty in his case unless the defense proved otherwise. See Jackson v. Dugger, 837 F.2d 1469, 1474 (11th Cir.), reh. in banc den., 842 F.2d 339 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 2005, 100 L.Ed.2d 236 (1988). Review of the jury instructions shows that this was manifestly not the case. The trial judge properly fulfilled his constitutional duty of explaining to the jury the function of mitigating and aggravating circumstances. See Peek v. Kemp, 784 F.2d 1479, 1494 (11th Cir.) (in banc), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 939, 107 S.Ct. 421, 93 L.Ed.2d 371 (1986). The judge instructed the jury as follows: 83 [I]t is your duty to follow the law that will now be given you by the court and render to the court an advisory sentence based upon your determination as to whether sufficient aggravating circumstances exist to justify the imposition of the death penalty and whether sufficient mitigating circumstances exist to outweigh any aggravating circumstances found to exist. 84 The judge then explained Florida's statutory aggravating circumstances to the jury. Following the explanation, the judge instructed the jurors: 85 If you find the aggravating circumstances do not justify the death penalty, then your advisory sentence should be one of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for twenty-five years. 86 Should you find sufficient aggravating circumstances do exist, it will then be your duty to determine whether mitigating circumstances exist that outweigh the aggravating circumstances. 87 The judge next explained the mitigating circumstances, concluding by informing the jury that it could consider in mitigation [a]ny other aspect of the defendant's character or record and any other circumstance of the offense. The judge further cautioned the jury that any aggravating circumstance must be established beyond a reasonable doubt, but that mitigating circumstances need not be so established. If the jury found an aggravating circumstance, it was to then consider all of the evidence tending to establish one or more mitigating circumstances and give that evidence such weight as you feel it should receive in reaching your conclusion as to the sentence that should be imposed. 88 The jury was not instructed that it should presume death to be the appropriate penalty once an aggravating circumstance was established. Cf. Adamson v. Ricketts, 865 F.2d 1011, 1041-44 (9th Cir.1988) (in banc) (Arizona capital statute unconstitutional because it required defendant to establish the existence of a mitigating circumstance once an aggravating circumstance had been established, and defendant bore risk of non-persuasion that mitigating circumstances outweighed aggravating circumstances); Jackson, 837 F.2d at 1473 (jury instructed that death is presumed to be the proper sentence unless aggravating factors are overridden by mitigating factors). Rather, Bertolotti's jury was instructed that it must find an aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt before it need consider mitigating circumstances, and even then it need not look for mitigating circumstances if it found that the aggravating circumstances do not justify the death penalty. If the jury did find that the aggravating circumstances justified the death penalty, it was to determine whether any other aspect of Bertolotti's record or character or offense stood in mitigation of his crime. This set of instructions adequately described the plan of Florida's capital-sentencing statute, see Proffitt v. Florida, 428 U.S. 242, 248-51, 96 S.Ct. 2960, 2965-66, 49 L.Ed.2d 913 (1976) (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell & Stevens, JJ.), quite reasonably focused the jury's attention on the circumstances of the offense and the character of the offender, and adequately bridled the jury's discretion. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976) (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell & Stevens, JJ.). 20 89
90 Bertolotti requested the following jury instruction: 91 The Death Penalty is warranted only for the most aggravated and unmitigated of crimes. The law does not require that death be imposed in every conviction in which a particular set of facts occur. Thus, even though the factual circumstances may justify the sentence of death by electrocution, this does not prevent you from exercising your reasoned judgment and recommending life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for twenty-five years. 92 The trial judge denied this instruction, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the instruction was subsumed within the standard jury charge given by the trial judge. Bertolotti v. State, 476 So.2d at 132. In Proffitt v. Wainwright, we noted that the Constitution did not mandate an instruction explicitly authorizing the jury to disregard the trial evidence and to exercise its power of mercy. 756 F.2d 1500, 1504 n. 5 (11th Cir.), reh. in banc den., 774 F.2d 1179 (11th Cir.1985). 21 What our cases require is that the trial court correctly explain the function of aggravating and mitigating circumstances under state law. Peek, 784 F.2d at 1494. As we concluded supra Part II.C.2, the trial judge's explanation was adequate in this regard. 93
94 Bertolotti argues that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Maynard v. Cartwright invalidates the death sentence he received. 486 U.S. 356, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988). In Cartwright, the Supreme Court vacated an Oklahoma death sentence because the trial judge did not give the sentencing jury an adequately narrow explanation of the term especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, as that term was used in a statutory aggravating circumstance found by the sentencing jury. Bertolotti reasons that because identical language was used to establish one of the three statutory aggravating circumstances that supported his sentence, and because the trial judge did not give the jury a narrowing construction of the term, his sentencing process was unconstitutionally flawed. We reject this claim. 95 In Lindsey v. Thigpen, 875 F.2d 1509 (11th Cir.1989), we recently interpreted Cartwright and Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980), to establish three factors for a federal habeas court to consider in ruling on eighth-amendment vagueness challenges such as the one here asserted: 96 First, the appellate courts of the state must have narrowed the meaning of the words heinous, atrocious or cruel by consistently limiting their application to a relatively narrow class of cases, so that their use inform[s] [the sentencer of] what [it] must find to impose the death penalty. Cartwright, 108 S.Ct. at 1858. Second, the sentencing court must have made either an explicit finding that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel or an explicit finding that the crime exhibited the narrowing characteristics set forth in the state-court decisions interpreting those words. Third, the sentencer's conclusion--that the facts of the case under consideration place the crime within the class of cases defined by the state court's narrowing construction of the term heinous, atrocious or cruel--must not have subverted the narrowing function of those words by obscuring the boundaries of the class of cases to which they apply. 97 875 F.2d at 1514. 98 A plurality of the United States Supreme Court decided in 1976 that Florida courts had adequately limited the class of capital murders to which this aggravating circumstance can be applied consistently with the requirements of the eighth amendment. Florida's appellate construction, holding the term to mean the conscienceless or pitiless crime which is unnecessarily torturous to the victim, provides sufficient guidance to those charged with the duty of recommending or imposing sentences in capital cases. Proffitt, 428 U.S. at 255-56, 96 S.Ct. at 2968 (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell & Stevens, JJ.). Cf. Lindsey, 75 F.2d at 1514 (identical construction). 99 Second, the trial judge, who under the Florida death-penalty statute is the sentencer, Fla.Stat.Ann. Sec. 921.141(3), explicitly found the facts to warrant the aggravating circumstance. Thus, the sentencing judge specifically concluded that: 100 The capital felony was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. After hearing the Defendant's own account of this murder and considering the physical evidence it is difficult for the mind to imagine the horror and pain that Carol Ward must have suffered during the defendant's clumsy and protracted efforts to kill her. There is no question that she was stripped or forced to disrobe, threatened, bludgeoned, strangled and repeatedly stabbed. Her wounds clearly demonstrate that she tried to defend herself. A knife was actually broken from its handle in the first series of stabbings. Because she was still moving the defendant left the area and then returned with a second knife to continue the stabbing. 101 See Palmes v. Wainwright, 725 F.2d 1511, 1523-24 & n. 12 (11th Cir.), reh. in banc den., 729 F.2d 1468 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 873, 105 S.Ct. 227, 83 L.Ed.2d 156 (1984). We have no reason to doubt that the sentencing judge, who is presumed to know and apply the appropriate, narrow construction of the aggravating circumstance, was guided by the Florida appellate construction of the words especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. Lindsey, 875 F.2d at 1514 n. 5. Nor do the circumstances recounted by the sentencing judge give any indication that Bertolotti was sentenced to death as a result of the sentencer's belief that any intentional murder is especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. Cf. Cartwright, 108 S.Ct. at 1859; Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 428-29, 100 S.Ct. at 1765. 102 Finally, by finding that these facts exemplified heinous, atrocious or cruel behavior, the sentencer did not subvert the eighth-amendment channelling function of that term as narrowed by the Florida supreme court. Even though not required by the eighth amendment, the aggravating circumstance here was applied to a case presenting torture or serious physical abuse, Cartwright, 108 S.Ct. at 1859; we therefore can see a principled way to distinguish this case, in which the death penalty was imposed, from the many cases in which it was not. Godfrey, 446 U.S. at 433, 100 S.Ct. at 1767. 103
104 Bertolotti was convicted of felony murder; later, following the penalty phase of his trial, the sentencer found in aggravation of Bertolotti's crime the circumstance that he murdered while in the course of a robbery. Bertolotti argues that his conviction during the guilt phase thus insured a sentence of death during the penalty phase, and as such the death penalty was unconstitutional. 105 The Supreme Court recently rejected a nearly identical claim. Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 S.Ct. 546, 98 L.Ed.2d 568 (1988). In Lowenfield, the petitioner had been convicted of a death-eligible murder under a statute that required the jury to find that the offender has a specific intent to kill or to inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person. 484 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 554. The only aggravating circumstance found by the jury to justify the death penalty was that the offender knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person; the statute and the aggravating circumstance were interpreted in a 'parallel fashion'  under state law. Id. Rejecting the petitioner's assignment of error, the Supreme Court noted that [t]he use of 'aggravating circumstances' is not an end in itself, but a means of genuinely narrowing the class of death-eligible persons and thereby channeling the jury's discretion. We see no reason why this narrowing function may not be performed by jury findings at either the sentencing phase of the trial or the guilt phase. Id. 106 The Lowenfield reasoning applies to the instant case: Florida may narrow the class of death-eligible defendants at either the guilt phase or the penalty phase of capital trials. Moreover, consistent with the judge's instructions, see supra Part II.C.2, the jury could have found Bertolotti guilty of felony murder and yet still not have concluded that the parallel aggravating circumstance justified the imposition of capital punishment; nor need the sentencing judge have agreed with the jury's determination that felony murder had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Cf. supra Part II.B.1 (judge did not agree with jury's finding that burglary and sexual battery had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt). In no sense did the jury's verdict of felony murder automatically predestine the judge's imposition of Florida's highest penalty. See Adams, 709 F.2d at 1447. 22
107 During the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecutor engaged the victim's husband in the following colloquy: 108 A: If I was home, my wife would open a door, although she would prefer I do so. Throughout our marriage she often was upset if I opened the door to strangers, mentioning the danger there might be. I did not feel that danger, but my wife did. 109 Q: All right, sir. Now, was she particularly concerned with black strangers? 110 Defense: Your Honor, I'm going to object to leading the witness and suggesting the answer. 111 Court: Sustained. Reframe your question. 112 Q: Did she have any particular concerns about who the strangers were that would come to the door? 113 A: All strangers upset my wife if they were young and male. 114 Bertolotti argues that this colloquy introduced impermissible victim-impact evidence into the trial. See South Carolina v. Gathers, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 2207, 104 L.Ed.2d 876 (1989); Booth v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987). This evidence was not introduced for the purpose of establishing the personal worth of the victim, decrying the emotional impact of the murder upon the Ward family, or describing the family's perception of the crime. Cf. Gathers, 109 S.Ct. at 2210; Booth, 482 U.S. at 498, 107 S.Ct. at 2531. Rather, the prosecutor introduced the evidence to rebut Bertolotti's defense to burglary--that he had been invited into the Ward home. This evidence relate[d] directly to the circumstances of the crime, and was relevant to rebut an argument offered by the defendant. Booth, 482 U.S. at 507 n. 10, 107 S.Ct. at 2535 n. 10; cf. Gathers, 109 S.Ct. at 2211 (text of papers carried by victim not relevant to circumstances of the crime because there was no likelihood that petitioner had read the text or murdered the victim because of the text). Moreover, and as the district court concluded, this colloquy is of a markedly different scope and tone from the evidence condemned by the Booth Court. As the evidence was relevant to prove a fact in issue, cf. Fed.R. Evid. 401 & 402, and not overly prejudicial or inflammatory, cf. Fed.R.Evid. 403, we cannot say that this information was constitutionally impermissible or totally irrelevant to the sentencing process. Cf. Booth, 482 U.S. at 502, 107 S.Ct. at 2533 (quoting Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 885, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 2747, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983)).