Opinion ID: 2305923
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Jury Instruction Regarding Unanimity for Mitigating Circumstances

Text: Appellant next asserts that the trial court's jury instructions during the penalty phase, regarding mitigation, were flawed. Appellant views the instructions as erroneously requiring the jury's unanimity on the existence of any mitigating factor: The sentencing code provides that the verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously find[s] at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance, or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstance. N.T.(Jury), 2/1/88, at 142. Remember again that your verdict must be unanimous; it cannot be reached by a majority vote or by any percentage. It must be the verdict of each and every one of you. (N.T.(Jury), 2/1/88, at 146). As I told you before, this is not done on a percentage, it must be a unanimous verdict just as you had to do in the guilt stage that you have completed. N.T.(Jury), 2/1/88, at 150. Appellant notes that the United States Supreme Court in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988), established that a mitigating circumstance had to be weighed against the aggravators, even if only one juror found that the mitigating circumstance existed. He claims that under Mills, he would have been entitled to penalty phase relief and that there can be no strategic reason to forego such automatic relief, especially when he claims the issues presented by appellate counsel on direct appeal lacked substantial merit. He observes that we found a similar violation in Commonwealth v. Chambers , in which we also concluded that a defendant suffers prejudice as a result of an instruction requiring unanimity in determination of the existence of mitigators. Commonwealth v. Chambers, 570 Pa. 3, 807 A.2d 872, 883 (2002) (Clearly, Chambers suffered prejudice because the instruction could easily have confused the jury into believing that all members of the panel had to find a mitigating circumstance before weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances.). Appellant acknowledges that Mills was not decided until a few months after Appellant's trial, but claims that he was entitled to the relief provided in Mills because his case was on direct appeal at the time the decision was filed. He notes that the PCRA court failed to address this issue and instead merely commented that this Court on direct appeal had addressed defendant's death phase issues and rejected them. PCRA Ct Op at 9. [37] The Commonwealth responds that counsel was not ineffective for failing to anticipate Mills, which was not decided until four months after trial. It notes that in Commonwealth v. Holloway, 559 Pa. 258, 739 A.2d 1039, 1047 (1999), this Court held that counsel will not be deemed ineffective for failing to request a Mills compliant instruction when the trial occurred prior to the decision in Mills. Additionally, the Commonwealth contends that this Court has approved similar jury instructions, Commonwealth v. Laird, 555 Pa. 629, 726 A.2d 346, 359 (1999); Commonwealth v. Hackett, 534 Pa. 210, 627 A.2d 719, 725 (1993), and asserts that the instructions provided in the case at bar were consistent with the dictates of Mills and tracked the language of the Sentencing Code in effect at the time of trial. Accordingly, the Commonwealth asserts that the instructions were proper. We have repeatedly addressed claims under Mills. In Commonwealth v. Duffey, the Court was presented with a procedural history similar to this case, where the trial occurred prior to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Mills, but the direct appeal was decided after Mills. In that case, we definitively held that an alleged Mills violation will not be available on collateral review in cases in which the alleged error occurred before the United States Supreme Court's decision in Mills. Commonwealth v. Duffey, 585 Pa. 493, 889 A.2d 56, 71 (2005). We observed, Appellant, however, never raised or preserved a Mills claim before the trial court or on direct appeal. As such, Appellant's claim regarding Mills is waived. Id. Moreover, we denied the defendant's layered claim of ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to raise the Mills issue: Appellant attempts to overcome waiver by raising a layered claim of counsel's ineffectiveness. Trial counsel, however, will not be deemed ineffective for failing to anticipate a change in the law. Id. Accordingly, we are bound by stare decisis to deny relief in Appellant's case. [38] Likewise, we conclude that the instructions given, see supra at 52, mirror the language in the Sentencing Code in existence at the time of trial: [T]he verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance specified in subsection (d) and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(c)(1)(iv)(1988). Accordingly, as we have in prior cases, we find that trial counsel was not ineffective in failing to challenge the jury instructions as contrary to the statute.