Opinion ID: 688709
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: incorporation of guilt stage instructions

Text: 76 A sentencing jury must be allowed to consider relevant mitigating evidence, including evidence of mental illness that falls short of constituting a legal excuse. See Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 113-16, 102 S.Ct. 869, 876-77, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982). Jury instructions permitting full consideration of mitigating circumstances established by the evidence are essential if the jury is to give a reasoned moral response to the defendant's background, character, and crime. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 327-28, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2951, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). An instruction is erroneous if there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied it in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence in mitigation. Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 1198, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990). Jury instructions are not considered in isolation; rather, we view them in the context of the entire sentencing proceeding. Boyde, 494 U.S. at 378, 380-81, 110 S.Ct. at 1196, 1198; High v. Kemp, 819 F.2d 988 (11th Cir.1987); Peek v. Kemp, 784 F.2d 1479 (11th Cir.1986) (en banc), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 939, 107 S.Ct. 421, 93 L.Ed.2d 371 (1986). 6 A petitioner claiming that the challenged instruction prevented the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence in mitigation must show that there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction in such a manner. Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. at 380, 110 S.Ct. at 1198. 77 At the beginning of his sentence stage charge to the jury, the judge included the following language, which forms the basis for Waters' challenge: 78 The instructions given you earlier in this case and the rules of law outlined to you in this portion of the instructions apply also to your deliberations as to penalty, that is the rules of law outlined to you in the Charge that I gave you earlier, also apply to your deliberations in arriving at the penalty or punishment in this case. 79 Waters now claims that the general language quoted immediately above had the effect of incorporating the guilt stage definition of insanity (the right-wrong standard) into the sentence stage instructions, with the result of leaving the jury with the impression that evidence of Waters' mental health could not be considered in mitigation unless his mental disease was so serious that he could not distinguish right from wrong. Because the jury had already found Waters sane, the defense argues, the effect was to preclude the jury from considering constitutionally relevant mental health evidence in mitigation. 80 However, as noted above, our evaluation must focus not upon the challenged instruction in isolation, but upon the entire sentencing instruction and the entire sentencing proceeding. Other relevant parts of the sentencing charge instructed the jury to consider all evidence submitted in the trial of the case, including any evidence of mitigating circumstances, and instructed the jury that it could provide for a life sentence for any reason satisfactory to the jury or for no reason at all. As discussed below, the charge to the jury to consider mitigating circumstances and that they could return a life sentence for any reason or for no reason at all is inconsistent with Waters' purported interpretation. Moreover, we believe that the broader context of the entire sentencing proceeding further undermines Waters' interpretation. By the time the sentence stage began, the jury had already received substantial evidence that Waters suffered from serious mental illness. The prosecution and defense, rather than introducing new evidence at the sentence stage, instead relied on the previously adduced evidence. In closing arguments at the sentence stage, the prosecution maintained that Waters deserved the death penalty, while the defense argued that Waters should be spared due to his illness. After the arguments, the jury received the instructions, including the challenged portion quoted above. 81 Waters claims that the prosecutor's closing argument during the sentence stage reinforced the possibility that the jury interpreted the sentencing instructions to incorporate the right-wrong standard. We disagree. Nothing in the prosecutor's argument suggested to the jury that the insanity standard was relevant in fixing punishment. The prosecutor first noted that the jury, in returning a guilty verdict, had found that Waters knew right from wrong and that he was responsible for his actions. This plainly was a summary of the guilt phase. The prosecutor then told the jury that in this particular phase, this Court ... [is] going to give you a written copy of his Charge ... for you to consider in your determining and fixing the punishment.... This juxtaposition carries the clear implication that the new charge referred to by the prosecutor is the charge that is to govern the penalty phase. An unmistakable distinction between the stages was made by the prosecutor, without any implication that the insanity standard remained applicable during the sentence stage. Rather, the implication is that it did not. 82 The defense argument during the sentence phase also discussed the court's sentencing instructions. In his argument, Waters' counsel quoted a portion of those instructions: 83 He [the prosecutor] stated to you that you would receive a copy of the Charge of the Court which will be given to you. And indeed you will. I also have a copy, as does [the prosecutor], of that Charge. And before I say any further in connection with the facts in this case, I want to read to you a portion of that Charge, and I ask that you keep it firmly in mind as you go about your deliberations in this case. Members of the Jury, you should consider all evidence submitted in the trial of this case in arriving at your verdict, as to the sentences to be imposed. This will include any evidence of mitigating circumstances received by you in this case. Members of the Jury, even if you find beyond a reasonable doubt that the State has proved the existence of aggravating ... circumstances in this case which would justify the imposition of a death sentence, you are not required to recommend that the accused be put to death. Remember that. You would be authorized under these circumstances to recommend the death penalty, but you are not required to do so. The sentence to be imposed in this case is a matter entirely within your discretion. And you may provide for a life sentence for the Defendant for any reason that is satisfactory to you or without any reason, if you care to do so. 84 Defense counsel proceeded immediately to argue to the jury that the unusual circumstance (i.e., the mitigating circumstance) which warranted the life sentence in this case was Waters' mental illness. He posed for the jury the key question: The principle problem you have to contend with in this case is ... what went on in the mind of Kelly Waters. The focus of defense counsel's entire argument was Waters' mental illness. If it was not clear before this argument, it was unmistakable afterward that a new charge would be given to the jury to govern the sentence stage, that mitigating circumstances were important, and that the details of Waters' mental illness were to be considered as mitigating evidence. 7 85 The court's charge did begin with the challenged language quoted above, which constitutes a general reference to the continued applicability of the instructions previously given. However, several reasons persuade us that there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury interpreted the sentence stage instructions as incorporating the right-wrong standard from the guilt stage. First, Waters' interpretation is inconsistent with at least two key provisions in the sentence stage instructions themselves. Waters' interpretation is inconsistent with the instruction that the jury should consider all evidence submitted in the trial of this case including any evidence of mitigating circumstances received by you in this case. The court did not tell the jury, as Waters would want us to believe, that it could not consider any of the very considerable evidence of mental illness because it had already been determined that none of it rose to the level of legal insanity. To the contrary, the court told the jury to consider all of the evidence they had heard. Moreover, the court expressly included mitigating circumstances. And of course, the jury had just heard defense counsel expressly identify Waters' mental illness as the principle mitigating evidence in the case. Neither the prosecutor nor the court said anything to the jury to suggest that defense counsel was wrong in this regard. 86 Waters' interpretation is inconsistent with another provision of the sentencing instruction; i.e., the one informing the jury that they could return a life sentence for any reason or for no reason at all. A jury looking at this charge, using its own common experience and common sense, could not believe both that it could base a life sentence on any reason or no reason at all and yet think simultaneously that it could not consider Waters' serious mental illness (albeit it fell short of legal insanity). 87 A second reason Waters' interpretation is unpersuasive is that immediately before the sentencing instruction, both the prosecutor's closing argument and even more clearly defense counsel's closing argument spoke of the sentencing instructions in terms that would be inconsistent with Waters' interpretation. As noted above, we find unpersuasive Waters' argument that the prosecutor's closing argument reinforced the possibility that the jury could have interpreted the sentencing instructions to incorporate the right-wrong standard. Rather, as discussed above, the prosecutor's closing argument implied just the opposite, i.e., that the legal insanity issue of knowing right from wrong had already been decided in the guilt phase, and that the trial court was going to give the jury a new written charge to govern the jury's determination in fixing the punishment. As also noted above, defense counsel's closing argument was even clearer, quoting from the sentencing charge to be given shortly including that the jury should consider mitigating circumstances and that the jury could return a life sentence for any reason or for no reason at all. Most significantly, defense counsel made it absolutely clear to the jury that Waters' mental illness was to be considered as mitigating evidence. Thus, by the time the trial court read the sentencing instructions to the jury, the jury already had heard the language actually quoted, and had heard a clear explanation that Waters' mental illness was to be considered as mitigating evidence. 88 A third reason persuading us that there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury interpreted the sentence stage instructions as incorporating the right-wrong standard from the guilt stage is that many of the guilt stage instructions are obviously inapplicable in the sentence stage. Because Waters had already been convicted at the guilt stage of the two crimes of murdering the two women, guilt stage instructions that clearly related only to conviction were obviously inapplicable, e.g., the description of the form of the verdict for finding guilt of murder and the elements of the crime of murder. Similarly, we believe that the test for legal insanity was clearly related only to the determination of guilt. 8 Rather, the challenged portion of the sentencing instructions clearly meant that the court was incorporating those instructions from the earlier stage that were applicable to sentencing, such as the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence, the rules for testing the believability of witnesses, the function of expert witnesses, the admonition that arguments of counsel do not constitute evidence, the statement that the foreman would preside over deliberations, and the definition of reasonable doubt (a standard that applied at the sentence stage only to the finding of aggravating circumstances). 89 In light of all the circumstances--including the fact that Waters' interpretation is inconsistent with the sentencing instruction itself, the implication in the prosecution's closing argument that the right-wrong standard that was applied in the guilt stage was to be replaced by a new instruction, the similar but even clearer statement in the defense argument, and the fact that the defense argument made it clear that Waters' mental illness was to be considered as mitigating evidence 9 --we conclude that there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the sentence stage instructions in a way that prevented the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence in mitigation. The instructions clearly left the jury free to consider mental health evidence in mitigation of punishment without applying the right-wrong standard from the guilt stage. 90