Opinion ID: 553434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hitchcock Claim.

Text: 15 Petitioner claims that as a result of the prosecutor's closing argument and the trial judge's instructions at the sentencing phase of his trial, the advisory jury failed properly to consider nonstatutory mitigating evidence in violation of Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 107 S.Ct. 1821, 95 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987) (applying Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), to the Florida capital sentencing scheme). 1 On direct petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the Florida Supreme Court denied Booker relief; the court agreed that Hitchcock error had occurred but held that the error was harmless. Booker v. Dugger, 520 So.2d 246, 247, 249 (Fla.), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1061, 108 S.Ct. 2834, 100 L.Ed.2d 935 (1988). On federal habeas review, the district court granted Booker relief--a new sentencing hearing. Applying a harmless error standard, the district court held that the State had not shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the Hitchcock error did not affect the outcome of Booker's sentencing proceeding. The State appeals from the district court's grant of relief, arguing that the error was in fact harmless. 2 16 As noted by the majority, a Hitchcock error is harmless only if we conclude that the excluded evidence would have had no effect on the jury or the sentencing judge. See Hitchcock, 481 U.S. at 399, 107 S.Ct. at 1824. Under the strict criterion of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), which governs harmless error analysis, [t]he error must be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Demps v. Dugger, 874 F.2d 1385, 1389-90 (11th Cir.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1834, 108 L.Ed.2d 963 (1990). For a Hitchcock error to be harmless under this standard, the court must determine beyond a reasonable doubt that the proposed mitigating evidence ... would not have influenced the jury to recommend [or the trial judge to impose] a life sentence. Id. at 1390; see Jones v. Dugger, 867 F.2d 1277, 1279 (11th Cir.1989) (state must prove beyond reasonable doubt that error did not contribute to the jury's sentencing recommendation); Clark v. Dugger, 834 F.2d 1561, 1569 (11th Cir.1987) (error could not have affected sentence), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 982, 108 S.Ct. 1282, 99 L.Ed.2d 493 (1988); Magill v. Dugger, 824 F.2d 879, 894 (11th Cir.1987) (errors must have had no effect on decision). Thus, unless we can say for sure that the error at issue would have made no difference to the outcome of the sentencing hearing, we cannot hold that the error was harmless. If, without such certainty, we were to hold an error harmless, our decision would be arbitrary and would present a serious constitutional problem. 17 The majority today limits its harmless error inquiry to what the jury 3 might have done had it been properly instructed to consider the nonstatutory evidence that Booker presented. In my view, the Supreme Court's recent decision in Clemons v. Mississippi, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990), and several cases cited therein, requires us at least to investigate the Florida Supreme Court's role in this case and determine whether it acted as an appellate sentencer. Because the Florida Supreme Court was presented with all of the mitigating evidence that counsel failed to present to the jury, if the court did act as an appellate sentencer, there is no reasonable probability that, absent the Hitchcock error, the result of the sentencing proceeding would have been different. 4 18 I begin my analysis by discussing the state appellate court's independent sentencing role, as recognized by Supreme Court caselaw, in capital sentencing schemes. I then show that although the Florida Supreme Court sometimes acts as a resentencer, here it merely reviewed the district court's sentence for constitutional infirmity. 19