Opinion ID: 778660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Religious Statements in the Victim Impact Testimony

Text: 49 Appellants argue that religious references in the victim impact testimony violated their First Amendment, Eighth Amendment and Due Process rights and contravene provisions of the FDPA prohibiting the introduction of unduly prejudicial testimony. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3593(c) and 3595(c)(2)(A). Four types of religious references appear in the testimony: (1) descriptions of the religious beliefs and activities of Todd and Stacie Bagley; (2) the bereaved parents' statements that they relied on their own religious beliefs to find comfort from the pain caused by the murders; (3) a religious plea by Stacie's mother directed at Appellants; and (4) religious remarks by Thelma Bernard, appellant's mother, when pleading for her son's life. 50 With regard to the first category of religious statements, we find no error in the introduction of testimony regarding the victims' religious activities. Payne holds that a court must consider the victims of an offense as it finds them, not in the light most favorable to the defendant. Indeed, concurring in Payne, Justice Souter described the serious practical problems caused by the Booth standard with a hypothetical illustration of a minister killed by a stranger while running an errand to his church. Payne, 501 U.S. at 840-42, 111 S.Ct. at 2616-17 (Souter, J., concurring). Justice Souter explained: 51 The jury will not be kept [at the guilt phase] from knowing that the victim was a minister, with a wife and child, on an errand to his church ... because the usual standards of trial relevance afford factfinders enough information about surrounding circumstances to let them make sense of the narrowly material facts of the crime itself. No one claims that jurors in a capital case should be deprived of such common contextual evidence.... 52 Id. In this case, testimony regarding the religious activities of the Bagleys is common contextual evidence. The Bagleys were youth ministers who were attending a revival meeting at their former church on the day that they were murdered. These contextual facts are not inadmissible simply because they concern religion. 53 In addition to being relevant contextual evidence, the fact that Todd and Stacie Bagley were deeply religious and harmless individual[s] who exhibited [their] care for [their] community by religious proselytization... was relevant to the community's loss at [their] demise. Gathers, 490 U.S. at 821, 109 S.Ct. at 2216 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). 10 Because religion played a vital role in Todd and Stacie Bagleys' lives, it would be impossible to describe their uniqueness as individual human beings without reference to their faith. See Pickren v. State, 269 Ga. 453, 500 S.E.2d 566, 568-69 (1998) (finding description of victim's faith and church activities an essential part of a `glimpse into his life.') (citations omitted). We find no error in admitting statements regarding the religious beliefs and activities of the victims. 54 The second category of religious statements includes the parents' reliance on their religious belief for comfort and relates to the harm caused by the Appellants' crime. Stacie Bagley's father, for example, explained that the only thing that made his daughter's tragic death bearable was his belief that he would see her again someday in heaven. Such statements are relevant to the impact of the Appellants' crimes on the victims' families. Thus, the statements are admissible under Payne. 55 We are troubled, however, that Stacie Bagley's mother, Donna McClure, addressed Bernard and Vialva personally during the course of her victim impact statement, warned them that heaven and hell are real, and called on them to put their faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Since these admonitions neither describe Todd and Stacie nor relate to the harm inflicted on Ms. McClure by appellants' crime, they were irrelevant and might have been excluded upon timely objection. Nevertheless, Appellants have failed to demonstrate that the admission of this testimony affected their substantial rights for purposes of the third prong of the plain error test. Unlike cases finding religious statements inadmissible, neither McClure nor any of the witnesses in this case nor, most important, the prosecutor urged the jurors to use a religious standard in reaching their verdict. See, e.g., Sandoval v. Calderon, 241 F.3d 765, 776 (9th Cir.2000) (stating that prosecutorial invocation of a higher law or extra-judicial authority in argument to jury violates the Eighth Amendment). In this case, the witness urged Appellants to put their faith in God. Precisely because such statements are not relevant to the jury's sentencing decision, we do not believe they could have inflamed or prejudiced the jury against appellants, they were not designed to do so, and in sum, such statements do not constitute plain error. 56 Vialva also complains that his right to a fair trial was violated when Bernard's mother, in mitigating testimony, urged the jurors to use a religious standard in their deliberations. This is the fourth type of religious reference complained of by Vialva. Bernard's mother, testifying on Bernard's behalf in the punishment phase, urged the jury to reject the death penalty because Jesus wouldn't do lethal injection. As noted earlier, Bernard's mitigating evidence of his religious conversion was admissible. These statements generated no specific prejudice to Vialva, however, as Bernard's mother urged the jury to reject the death penalty. Furthermore, the court's instructions to the jury sufficiently addressed the risk of prejudice. The jurors also signed a certification, as required by the FDPA, that religion played no part in their sentencing decision. The statements of Bernard's mother did not deny Vialva a fair trial. 57