Opinion ID: 170350
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: future dangerousness challenges for vagueness, omission of prison setting, and insufficient proof

Text: The aggravator for future dangerousness was framed as follows: 1. The defendant poses a future danger to the lives and safety of other persons, as evidenced by one or more of the following: (a) the offenses were a part of a continuing pattern of threatened or impending violence; (b) the defendant's lack of remorse. R. Vol. 1 doc. 228 at 36. Fields contends that this non-statutory aggravator was unconstitutionally vague, should have been limited to his future dangerousness in a prison setting, and was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Vagueness review is very deferential. Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U.S. 967, 973, 114 S.Ct. 2630, 129 L.Ed.2d 750 (1994). We will not conclude that a non-statutory aggravating factor is unconstitutionally vague so long as it has some common-sense core of meaning that criminal juries should be capable of understanding. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Fields insists the future-dangerousness aggravator was unconstitutionally vague because it failed to provide sufficient guidance on  specific criteria such as [1] criminal acts of violence, [2] the fact that the threat would be continuing, [3] a standard that such acts would be `probable,' and [4] limiting consideration of this aggravating factor to the prison setting. Aplt. Opening Br. at 77. 1 Lack of reference to criminal violence The lack of an explicit reference to the criminal nature of the danger posed by the defendant is immaterial. As noted, vagueness review is concerned with the jury's commonsense understanding. It is simply implausible that a jury would mistakenly believe it could impose the death penalty based on non-criminal danger the defendant might poseas if, for example, being accident prone were relevant to whether someone should be sentenced to life or death. 2. Lack of continuing threat The lack of an explicit reference to the continuing nature of the threat posed by the defendant is likewise innocuous. The critical idea of a continuing danger is clearly captured in the aggravator's reference to future danger to the lives and safety of other persons. R. Vol. 1 doe. 228 at 36. As with the other specific criteria Fields summarily alludes to in connection with his vagueness challenge here, he does not present a developed argument as to why specific use of the term continuing is necessary. Rather, he simply cites to cases in which courts approved aggravator definitions including the term but nowhere held that it was required. 3. Lack of specific qualification regarding likelihood of future danger We likewise do not find the aggravator unconstitutionally vague for lack of a qualifying reference regarding the likelihood of the future danger posed by the defendant. Again, Fields does not cite any authority holding that the Constitution requires the court to attach a precise level of probability to the danger involved. We think a commonsense understanding of what is at stake in connection with this intuitive aggravating circumstance is readily grasped without the articulation of particular probabilistic formulations. Given the deferential nature of our review under Tuilaepa, we discern no error here. 4. Failure to explicitly limit future danger to prison setting When a defendant's future dangerousness is at issue in the weighing stage, due process requires that the jury be informed that a life sentence carries no possibility for parole. Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36, 51, 121 S.Ct. 1263, 149 L.Ed2d 178 (2001). This requirement is not rigid as to form or mode, however, and may be satisfied either by a jury instruction or in arguments by counsel. Id. at 39, 121 S.Ct. 1263 (internal quotation marks omitted). The aim is just to ensure that the jury is not misled about a defendant's future incarceration status when assessing evidence of his future dangerousness. Id. at 49-50, 121 S.Ct. 1263 (explaining thrust of seminal plurality decision in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994)). Here, the jury clearly knew about Fields' ineligibility for parole, which was explained in the instructions and reflected in the verdict form itself. And the government effectively tied Fields' incarceration status to his future dangerousness in its only specific reference to the aggravator in closing argument: Future dangerous[ness]? Which one of us would want to be in a cell next to someone who is capable of coldly attacking two innocent people who had done nothing to him? R. Vol. 22 at 3465. Fields nevertheless objects that the aggravator did not explicitly limit the jury's consideration to the prison setting. This is not required by the Simmons line of cases, which concern only the right to inform the jury of a defendant's ineligibility for parole. Noting this point, the Eighth Circuit rejected a similar argument in United States v. Allen, 247 F.3d 741, 788 (8th Cir.2001) (en banc), vacated and remanded on other grounds, 536 U.S. 953, 122 S.Ct. 2653, 153 L.Ed.2d 830 (2002), holding that [b]ecause the jury was informed of [defendant's] ineligibility for parole, there were no statutory or constitutional problems with arguing . . . [an] aggravating factor of future dangerousness [not limited to the prison setting] in support of a death sentence, id. at 788-89; see also United States v. Bernard, 299 F.3d 467, 482 (5th Cir.2002) (agreeing with Allen in dicta). We agree with Allen that an explicit prison-setting limitation need not be included in a future-dangerousness aggravator where, as here, the jury is clearly informed that the defendant would not be eligible for parole if a life sentence were imposed. We emphasize that the government did not affirmatively mislead or confuse the jury on this point in its closing argument, but rather addressed future dangerousness specifically in terms of the prison setting.
Other than the circumstances of the murders themselves, the government's case on future dangerousness was not particularly strong, but those circumstances were significant. This was not a crime provoked by victim-specific or unique situational factors, such as a sudden confrontation, a score, to settle, or fallout from a personal relationship, that might indicate such violence would not likely recur. On the contrary, this was a coldly calculated murder of strangers who could have been anyone, carried out for money or no particular reason at all, with evidence that the killer had no remorsenone of which suggests an inherently one-time occurrence. And evidence that the modus operandi had been developed over a period of time also does not suggest an abrupt isolated course of conduct to which the defendant would not return. While the particulars of Fields' stalk-and-snipe plan would obviously not directly translate to a prison setting, neither would such a setting deny future occasions for acting out the dangerous personal characteristics that the plan and its execution reflected. Fields argues for a contrary interpretation of his conduct and character and, hence, the threat he posed to others. But advancing a different assessment of the evidence or urging conflicting inferences therefrom does not demonstrate a legal inadequacy in the government's proof. Rather, when reviewing a jury finding, we are obliged to consider the evidence and available inferences in the light most favorable to the government, Jenkins, 175 F.3d at 1215. Fields' challenge to the future dangerousness finding is meritless.