Opinion ID: 2540167
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendants Who Plead Guilty Have a Sixth Amendment Right to Jury Fact-Finding Necessary to Impose Death

Text: Mr. Taylor contends that he is entitled to habeas relief under the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), Ring and Blakely. These decisions were handed down by the United States Supreme Court only after Mr. Taylor's death sentence was affirmed by this Court in State v. Taylor, 929 S.W.2d 209 (1996). These cases, he argues, rejected this Court's stated premise in Taylor that a defendant has no constitutional right to have a jury assess punishment, 929 S.W.2d at 219. I agree. Apprendi held that under the Sixth Amendment, as applied to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment, any fact, except the fact of prior conviction, that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the maximum allowed by the facts found by the jury also must be submitted to the jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 530 U.S. at 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348. Ring made clear that in a capital case this means, Capital defendants are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in their maximum punishment. 536 U.S. at 589, 122 S.Ct. 2428. If a State makes an increase in a defendant's authorized punishment contingent on the finding of a fact, that factno matter how the State labels itmust be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 602, 122 S.Ct. 2428. The only exception is when the increase is conditioned on the existence of prior convictions; those findings need not be made by the jury. Id. at 597 n. 4, 600, 122 S.Ct. 2428. In reaching its holding in Ring, the Supreme Court expressly overruled Walton v. Arizona, 497 U.S. 639, 649, 110 S.Ct. 3047, 111 L.Ed.2d 511 (1990), which had held that there is no Sixth Amendment violation where a judge finds an aggravating factor because aggravating factors are mere sentencing considerations, not element[s] of the offense of capital murder. The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed Ring in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004). It clarified that the Sixth Amendment right to jury fact-finding as to punishment is separate from the right to a jury trial on guilt, and, although a particular defendant is free to choose not to take advantage of that right, as when that defendant makes a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of that constitutional right, otherwise the right to a jury determination of punishment applies even if a defendant has pleaded guilty, because the right to jury fact-finding is no mere procedural formality, but a fundamental reservation of power in our constitutional structure. Blakely, 542 U.S. at 305-06, 124 S.Ct. 2531. A year after Ring, this Court set aside Joseph Whitfield's death sentence (which it had affirmed on appeal before Ring was decided) because the judge rather than the jury made the factual determinations on which his eligibility for the death sentence was predicated. 107 S.W.3d at 256. The judge had determined the factual issues necessary for imposition of the death penalty in Whitfield because after finding Mr. Whitfield guilty of first-degree murder, the jury was unable to reach a verdict in the punishment phase. In the punishment phase, the jury was required to impose a life sentence unless it made three specific findings beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) at least one statutory aggravating factor was present in the defendant's case; (2) the aggravating evidence warrant[ed] imposing the death sentence; and (3) any mitigating evidence was not sufficient to outweigh the evidence in aggravation of punishment found by the trier. [4] § 565.030.4, RSMo 1994. As the Whitfield jury was unable to agree on punishment, the trial judge conducted the section 565.030.4 step-by-step analysis and imposed the death penalty. In this way, the judge rather than the jury found the essential facts under section 565.030.4 to impose death. This was error for, as this Court specifically held in affirming Mr. Whitfield's initial appeal in 1992, State v. Whitfield, 837 S.W.2d 503, 514-15 (Mo. banc 1992), steps 1, 2 and 3 of the statute set out required factual findings the jury must make to impose death. In the absence of any one of these findings, the jury must impose life. As such, the statute gives no discretion to the juryit must impose a life sentence unless it makes each of these factual findings in favor of the state. Id. For this reason, in its 2003 Whitfield decision, this Court held it clearly violated the requirement of Ring that the jury rather than the judge determine the facts on which the death penalty is based. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 262; accord, People v. Montour, 157 P.3d 489, 496 (Colo.2007) (in the death penalty context, the facts essential to punishment that fall under the Apprendi-Ring-Blakely rule consist of those facts needed to make a death penalty determination, including finding aggravating circumstances, finding mitigating circumstances, and weighing all of these circumstances). Whitfield then observed that the burden shifted to the State to show that the Ring error was harmless and that the State could not carry its burden because there was no way to know, based on the jury deadlock, whether the jury's impasse came at step 2 or 3, which Ring requires a jury to find, or if it came at the point where the jury considers whether to give mercy under section 565.030.4(4)a determination that a judge may make. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 262-64.