Opinion ID: 2466508
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: implied acquittal: the green exception

Text: As set forth in Bullington , under Missouri's capital sentencing procedure, once a defendant has been found guilty of a capital crime, the trial moves on to the sentencing phase. Bullington at 433, 101 S.Ct. at 1855, 68 L.Ed.2d at 275. The jury is only given two sentencing options during the sentencing phase: death or life without the possibility of parole for 50 years. Id. at 432, 101 S.Ct. at 1854-55, 68 L.Ed.2d at 275. A sentence of life without the possibility of parole for 50 years is automatically imposed if the jury does not render a verdict of death. Id. at 435, 101 S.Ct. at 1856, 68 L.Ed.2d at 276. As set forth in Rumsey , Arizona's capital sentencing procedure is indistinguishable from Missouri's for the purposes of this discussion. Rumsey at 210, 104 S.Ct. at 2309-10, 81 L.Ed.2d at 171. Thus, during the penalty phase pursuant to both Missouri's and Arizona's capital sentencing procedure, in actuality, the only issue to be decided by the sentencer is whether death is an appropriate punishment. This either/or decision of death or life lends itself fairly well to an analogy between a decision of guilt or innocence by the jury, and, thus, by further analogy to the implied acquittal exception of Green. However, the same extended analogy is a poor fit with Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure. Under Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure, the issue before the jury is not whether death is an appropriate sentence, but rather, the issue is what sentence is appropriate for the defendant. Even if the jury finds the existence of an aggravating factor, the jury may still recommend a sentence within the entire range of possible sentences. Marlowe v. Commonwealth, Ky., 709 S.W.2d 424, 432, cert. denied, 479 U.S. 946, 107 S.Ct. 427, 93 L.Ed.2d 378 (1986). In other words, the jury is not required to choose between death and not death. Thus, Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure does not have this particular hallmark of a trial on guilt or innocence in common with the capital sentencing procedures found in Missouri and Arizona. This restriction of the sentencer to only two choices was clearly important to the Bullington Court's analysis: In contrast, the sentencing procedures considered in the Court's previous cases did not have the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence. In Pearce, Chaffin , and Stroud , . . . the sentencer's discretion was essentially unfettered. . . . In Pearce, the judge had a wide range of punishments from which to choose . . . . And in Chaffin , the discretion given to the jury was extremely broad. That defendant, . . . could have been sentenced to death, to life imprisonment, or a prison term of between 4 and 20 years. Bullington , at 439-40, 101 S.Ct. at 1858-59, 68 L.Ed.2d at 279. We note that the sentencing range available under Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure is remarkably similar to that outlined above in Chaffin . Taken to its extreme, the implied acquittal theory results in any sentence being an implied acquittal of any higher sentence. This result is incompatible with Pearce and our decision in Bruce . We reject any such outcome out of hand. Thus, had Eldred's jury returned a recommendation of 20 years' imprisonment, this recommendation would not have been an implied acquittal of a term of years greater than 20 or an implied acquittal of life. Nor would it have been an implied acquittal of Life-25, even though a sentence of Life-25, like the death penalty, requires a written finding of the existence of at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt. See Monge v. California, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 2246, 141 L.Ed.2d 615 (1988), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Bullington exception has no application beyond the death penalty. Consequently, the only conceivable way that Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure can be amenable to an analogy with the implied acquittal exception found in Green and extended to capital sentencing Bullington , is to view any sentence other than death as a sentence of not death, but at the same time, in order to be consistent with Pearce, not to view this same sentence as an implied acquittal of any greater offense other than death. Going back to the above example, a recommended sentence of 20 years would have to be viewed as an implied acquittal of death, but it could not be viewed as an implied acquittal of a term of years greater than 20 years, an implied acquittal of life, or an implied acquittal of Life-25. This result stretches the implied acquittal exception of Green to the breaking point. Further, this result cannot be squared with the function and purpose of Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure. The purpose of Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure is to determine what sentence is appropriate for the defendant. This is the same issue that is present during the penalty phase of a bifurcated, felony trial. The only relevant difference between the two penalty phases is that in a capital case a jury may not consider death or Life-25 unless the Commonwealth meets its burden of proving aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. However, after the Commonwealth has met its burden, the ultimate issue in both penalty phases is identical: What punishment is appropriate for the particular defendant? The difference in the gravity of the offense committed in a capital case and the gravity of the corresponding possible punishment does not in this case create a constitutional distinction. We acknowledge that death is different from other forms of punishment. However, under Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure, the difference remains one of degree rather than one of kind. This conclusion is supported by Bullington itself. Bullington did not overrule Stroud , in which the death penalty at retrial was at issue. On the contrary, Bullington began its discussion with Stroud and how the general rule of Stroud has survived and been reaffirmed in a number of subsequent and important Supreme Court cases. Thus, we can only conclude that the death penalty has not been exorcised from the general rule, which was first laid down in Stroud , that the imposition of a lesser sentence does not prevent the prosecution from seeking a higher sentence at retrial. Therefore, we find no constitutional distinction between death and all the other possible sentencing options available to a jury in the penalty phase of a capital trial in Kentucky. Accordingly, because death is only one of many possible punishments for the jury to consider during the penalty phase of a capital trial in Kentucky, we find that the implied acquittal exception of Green does not apply to Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure set out in KRS 532.025. We hold that, under Kentucky's capital sentencing procedure, after a conviction of a capital crime and upon a written finding by a jury of a statutory aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt, an imposed sentence of less than death at the defendant's first trial does not prevent, in the case of a successful appeal, the Commonwealth from again seeking the death penalty at a subsequent trial. Therefore, the Bullington exception does not preclude the Commonwealth from seeking the death penalty at Eldred's new trial. For the reasons set forth above, the order of the Russell Circuit Court is reversed. COOPER, GRAVES and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur. STEPHENS, C.J., dissents by separate opinion, with LAMBERT and STUMBO, JJ., joining that dissent. LAMBERT, J., dissents by separate opinion, with STEPHENS, C.J., and STUMBO, J., joining that dissent.