Opinion ID: 4556341
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Moral-Culpability Instruction

Text: {¶ 128} Kirkland asked the trial court to provide the following instruction to the jury: “Mitigating factors are factors that lessen the moral culpability or diminish the appropriateness of a death sentence.” (Emphasis added.) The trial court’s instructions did not include the words “moral culpability.” The court instructed the jury as follows: Mitigating factors are factors about an individual or an offense that weigh in favor of a decision that a life sentence rather than a death sentence is appropriate. Mitigating factors are factors that diminish the appropriateness of a death sentence. {¶ 129} Factors that diminish the offender’s moral culpability are mitigating. See State v. Steffen, 31 Ohio St.3d 111, 129, 509 N.E.2d 383 (1987); State v. Sowell, 39 Ohio St.3d 322, 325, 530 N.E.2d 1294 (1988). And a sentencing jury must be free to give a reasoned moral response to a capital defendant’s 34 January Term, 2020 mitigating evidence—“particularly that evidence which tends to diminish his culpability.” (Emphasis added.) Brewer v. Quarterman, 550 U.S. 286, 289, 127 S.Ct. 1706, 167 L.Ed.2d 622 (2007). {¶ 130} But it does not follow that a capital defendant is entitled to specific “moral culpability” language in the jury instructions. Mitigating factors “are not necessarily related to a defendant’s culpability but, rather, are those factors that are relevant to the issue of whether an offender    should be sentenced to death.” (Emphasis added.) State v. Holloway, 38 Ohio St.3d 239, 527 N.E.2d 831 (1988), paragraph one of the syllabus. {¶ 131} The trial court’s instruction contained no language restricting the jury’s ability to give a reasoned moral response to evidence tending to diminish Kirkland’s culpability. Instead of singling out one category of mitigating factors (those related to moral culpability), the instruction was inclusive, allowing the jury to consider as mitigation anything that “diminish[ed] the appropriateness of a death sentence” or “weigh[ed] in favor of a decision that a life sentence    is appropriate.” Moreover, the trial court instructed that mitigating factors included “any other factors that weigh in favor of a sentence other than death.” {¶ 132} The trial court further instructed that mitigating factors included the “history, character, and background of the defendant.” This instruction allowed the jury to take account of Dr. van Eys’s testimony that Kirkland was an abused child. Finally, the trial court instructed that the jury should consider as a mitigating factor whether Kirkland lacked the substantial mental capacity to conform his conduct to the law due to a mental disease or defect. Thus, “considered in context, the trial court’s instructions adequately informed the jury as to the relevant mitigating factors it must consider.” State v. Wilson, 74 Ohio St.3d 381, 397, 659 N.E.2d 292 (1996). 35 SUPREME COURT OF OHIO