Opinion ID: 1106169
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: the district attorney allowed impermissible and irrelevant factors to enter into his decision to avoid plea bargaining with this appellant and seek the maximum penalty for capital murder.

Text: Ladner contends that the district attorney's discretion in determining to seek the death penalty amounts to selective prosecution, which results in wanton or capricious imposition of the death penalty. Ladner's pre-trial motion sought to exclude the death penalty on account of the arbitrary use of prosecutorial discretion in the plea bargaining process in Hancock County. At the pre-trial hearing, Ladner had the opportunity to introduce evidence that the death penalty was sought in an arbitrary and capricious manner in Hancock County and the other counties in the district. He examined the district attorney and elicited testimony that the wishes of the victim's family could influence the decision to enter into a plea bargain. However, the district attorney's testimony was that a great number of other factors were also considered by him in deciding whether or not to seek the death penalty. He testified that, in addition to considering the nature of the crime, the age and criminal history of the defendant, the nature and quality of the evidence in the case, he also considered advice from law enforcement officers, his staff, and other members of the community as well as the wishes of the victim's family. After full hearings, the lower court overruled the motion. In Culberson v. State, 379 So.2d 499 (Miss. 1979), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 986, 101 S.Ct. 406, 66 L.Ed.2d 250 (1980), an accomplice was permitted to plead to manslaughter while the trigger man (Culberson) was given the death penalty. The question for the Court in Culberson was presented in conducting a proportionality review in accordance with Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-105(3)(c) (Supp. 1990) to determine whether the sentence of death [was] excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant. Although not confronted with the same question as presented here, the Culberson Court found that the different sentences imposed on the two participants did not render the imposition of the death penalty excessive, disproportionate, or capricious. Id. at 510. If prosecutors must have discretion in cases involving multiple defendants, it is difficult to see how prosecutional discretion in single defendant cases could be circumscribed. In McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court addressed a similar issue and stated the following: McCleskey's argument that the Constitution condemns the discretion allowed decisionmakers in the Georgia capital sentencing system is antithetical to the fundamental role of discretion in our criminal justice system. Discretion in the criminal justice system offers substantial benefits to the criminal defendant. Not only can a jury decline to impose the death sentence, it can decline to convict or choose to convict of a lesser offense. Whereas decisions against a defendant's interest may be reversed by the trial judge or on appeal, these discretionary exercises of leniency are final and unreviewable. (footnote omitted) Similarly, the capacity of prosecutorial discretion to provide individualized justice is firmly entrenched in American law. (citation omitted) As we have noted, a prosecutor can decline to charge, offer a plea bargain, (footnote omitted) or decline to seek a death sentence in any particular case. (citation omitted) Of course, the power to be lenient [also] is the power to discriminate, (citation omitted) but a capital punishment system that did not allow for discretionary acts of leniency would be totally alien to our notions of criminal justice. (citation omitted) McCleskey at 311-12, 107 S.Ct. at 1777-78, 95 L.Ed.2d at 291. In the case at bar, the defense introduced no evidence that the prosecutor's discretion in deciding to seek the death penalty was systematically biased along any criterion or set of criteria. The evidence showed that the determination to seek the death penalty was made on a case-by-case assessment of the facts and circumstances involved. The contention is rejected.