Opinion ID: 2569354
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Juror Salter

Text: Juror Salter served on the jury in this case. While she indicated her personal belief in a blanket policy favoring the death penalty for all persons convicted of first degree murder, she also expressed a willingness to consider various types of mitigating evidence and to follow the four-step sentencing process: [DEFENSE:] Well, the person commits the first-degree murder after deliberation, intentionally but there might be things in the background like his family who loved him, used drugs, things like that. Are those the types of things that could change your opinion? [JUROR SALTER:] It possibly could, depending on what is brought forward. [DEFENSE:] Okay. What types of things do you think might affect you, having given you some examples? [JUROR SALTER:] That could change my mind? [DEFENSE:] Uh-huh. [JUROR SALTER:] I guess kids hit me home pretty closely. If the individual was brought up in an abusive family where the mother or father were emotionally or physically abusive and just the way  because life can be pretty hard on some people and it can be pretty easy for others. It would just depend on what type of lifestyle that person had lived or had grown up in. That would definitely probably make me change my mind because I've seen it corrupt, you know, with the type of job  I carry mail and I am out and about and around people all the time and I see a lot of abuse and I see the way it changes people. [DEFENSE:] Okay. Can you tell me  and I know you're thinking through this as we go along and we appreciate the difficulty of that. Can you tell me how  what you've just said about, you know, the abuse or other factors may change your mind and make you feel like a life sentence is appropriate, how that weighs out with what you said earlier about it should be applied automatically in every case of that nature? [JUROR SALTER:] Right. Okay. The first one was that if the prosecution goes ahead and they state everything and it's all put out on the line then and, yes, this individual did do this, no doubt in my mind. [DEFENSE:] Right. [JUROR SALTER:] That's really hard. And say that the person was abused. I would have to put the evidence together and do my best judgment at that time. Each case is individually different so I couldn't really answer your question. That makes it rough, you know, because, like I said, the policy is what I do believe in. I can't answer that. [DEFENSE:] Okay. Do you understand my dilemma? [JUROR SALTER:] I do. [DEFENSE:] Because it sounded like what you were saying at first with the blanket policy would mean that those individual factors are for people who committed first-degree deliberate murder, that you wouldn't want to consider those factors. [JUROR SALTER:] It's confusing for you now, too? [DEFENSE:] Yes, it is. You understand the dilemma? [JUROR SALTER:] Uh-huh. [DEFENSE:] Give us your best  you know, the blanket policy that you talked about  [JUROR SALTER:] Right. [DEFENSE:]  indicated that each person who is guilty of that type of first-degree murder should be executed regardless of, you know, those other things because that would make it inconsistent in its application. [JUROR SALTER:] Uh-huh. [DEFENSE:] So if somebody was abused, we don't execute them. Somebody who wasn't, we do execute them but maybe I'm misreading. I guess you just tell me, you know, your bottom line as to  [JUROR SALTER:] Then I would just forget the abuse and the way the person was brought up and go back to the blanket policy, that way, because I feel the same about both. And so it's not confusing for you or anybody else, I'll just go with the blanket policy. [DEFENSE:] That's where your strongest feelings are? [JUROR SALTER:] Uh-huh. [DEFENSE:] All right. And to change, to take you away from those feelings of that policy, would you expect us to prove to you that somehow you should come out of that policy in order to change it? [JUROR SALTER:] Have mercy upon the person, yes. After hearing the defendant's challenge for cause, the trial court made these observations: Ms. Salter, like so many other people, is obviously not a perfect juror but the thing that impresses me about Ms. Salter is that she was one of the few people that we've talked to in here that came up with some of the factors that could be considered in mitigation. And without prompting from Mr. Grant or Ms. Brake she said that mitigation could change her mind, alcohol, how the child was brought up, mom and dad's mentally abusive lifestyle, past history. It seems to me that her articulation of those factors indicates to the Court that she can and will and would consider mitigation in this case. She said certainly that she did agree with the death penalty. But I also get the impression from listening to what she was saying that she would follow the law and would not automatically impose the death penalty. I don't believe she is substantially impaired. I won't excuse Ms. Salter. Given our obligation to ensure that no member of the defendant's jury would automatically vote for a death sentence upon his conviction for a death-eligible offense, see Morgan, 504 U.S. at 735-36, 112 S.Ct. 2222, our decision to uphold the trial court's denial of the defendant's challenge for cause against Salter is a difficult one. The equivocal nature of Salter's statements, however, does not allow us to displace the trial court in its role as evaluator of credibility. Davis, 794 P.2d at 206; see also Carrillo, 974 P.2d at 485. The trial court concluded  and the record viewed as a whole provides affirmative support for its finding  that it did not have genuine doubts that Salter could consider mitigating evidence and follow the sentencing process. See Davis, 794 P.2d at 205-06.