Opinion ID: 2429824
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: whether the trial court erred to appellant's substantial prejudice by failing to instruct the jury on mitigating circumstances.

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court's failure to provide the jury with any instruction relating to the concept of mitigating evidence violated appellant's right to individualized sentencing and to due process, and resulted in cruel and unusual punishment in violation of Amendments 8 and 14 of the United States Constitution and Sections 2, 11 and 17 of the Kentucky Constitution. We agree that the lack of an instruction regarding mitigation was violative of appellant's due process rights. Due to such error, this Court again would reverse the penalty phase of appellant's trial. Case law from the United States Supreme Court supports our decision. United States Supreme Court cases Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978) and Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982) make it clear that a state cannot, consistent with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, prevent the sentencer from considering and giving effect to evidence relevant to the defendant's background or character or to circumstances of the offense that mitigates against imposing the death penalty. The principle underlying these two cases is that punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal defendant. [E]vidence about the defendant's background and character is relevant because of the belief, long held by this society, that defendants who commit criminal acts that are attributable to a disadvantaged background, or to emotional and mental problems, may be less culpable than defendants who have no such excuse. California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, 545, 107 S.Ct. 837, 841, 93 L.Ed.2d 934 (1987) (concurring opinion). In Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 327-28, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 2951, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989), the United States Supreme Court stated: In contrast to the carefully defined standards that must narrow a sentencer's discretion to impose the death sentence, the Constitution limits a State's ability to narrow a sentencer's discretion to consider relevant evidence that might cause it to decline to impose the death sentence. (emphasis in original). Indeed, it is precisely because the punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the defendant that the jury must be allowed to consider and give effect to mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant's character or record or the circumstances of the offense. Rather than creating the risk of an unguided emotional response, full consideration of evidence that mitigates against the death penalty is essential if the jury is to give a `reasoned moral response to the defendant's background, character, and crime.' In order to ensure reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case, the jury must be able to consider and give effect to any mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant's background, character, or the circumstances of the crime. (Citations omitted.) The Penry Court found that the absence of instructions regarding mitigating evidence of Penry's mental retardation and abused background prevented the jury from being provided with a vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to the mitigating evidence in rendering its sentencing decision. Id. at 328-29, 109 S.Ct. at 2952. The Penry Court then concluded that the reasoning in Lockett and Eddings thus compels a remand for resentencing so that we do not `risk that the death penalty will be imposed in spite of factors which may call for a less severe penalty.' Id. (Citations omitted.) In promulgating KRS 532.025(2) the legislators of Kentucky recognized the dire necessity of having jurors consider mitigating circumstances when the death penalty might be imposed. KRS 532.025(2) states in a pertinent part: In all cases of offenses for which the death penalty may be authorized, the judge shall consider, or he shall include in his instructions to the jury for it to consider, any mitigating circumstances or aggravating circumstances otherwise authorized by law and any of the following statutory aggravating or mitigating circumstances which may be supported by the evidence. The language of the statute clearly states that the judge shall include instructions to the jury regarding mitigating circumstances. The trial court's failure to do so constituted an error to the substantial prejudice of appellant. However, the Court is not required to give a mitigation instruction unless the mitigating circumstances are supported by evidence. The United States Supreme Court in Lockett v. Ohio, supra , stated: we conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer, in all but the rarest kind of capital case, not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death . . . . Nothing in this opinion limits the traditional authority of a court to exclude, as irrelevant, evidence not bearing on the defendant's character, prior record, or the circumstances of his offense. Lockett, 438 U.S. at 604, n. 12, 98 S.Ct. at 2964, 2965, n. 12. (Emphasis added.) In Smith v. Commonwealth, Ky., 599 S.W.2d 900 (1980), there was no evidence that appellant acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable justification or excuse when he shot a man to death. Because of the lack of evidence, this Court found that there was absolutely no need for an instruction on extreme emotional disturbance to be given. Smith at 905. Instructions in a criminal prosecution must have a source within the framework of the evidence introduced at the trial. Id. During the penalty phase neither appellant nor the Commonwealth presented any proof. However, throughout the trial, appellant introduced evidence which supported his requests for instructions on mitigating circumstances. The relevant statutory mitigating factors in KRS 532.025(2)(b) are: (1) the capital offense was committed while appellant was under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance; and (2) at the time of the capital offense appellant's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct was impaired as a result of mental illness or retardation or intoxication. Through various witnesses, evidence of extreme emotional disturbance was introduced into appellant's trial. At the time of Wren's death, appellant was a twenty-nine year old man who had been married and divorced three times. A few months prior to Wren's death, appellant's son died and appellant divorced for the third time. Appellant became despondent and turned to liquor and Wren for consolation when he realized his attempts at reconciliation with his third wife were futile. During the period before Wren's death, Wren rejected and spurned appellant numerous times. This evidence supports a mitigating instruction as to extreme emotional disturbance. Appellant's irrational behavior at trial, his inability to maintain relationships, his frequent threats to kill people, his speech defect and the difficulty he had formulating thoughts and words and expressing them, and the fact that he was only able to finish the eighth grade was the evidence introduced which supports a mitigation instruction on appellant's mental illness or retardation. Evidence supporting an instruction on the mitigating circumstance of intoxication included testimony that Wren and appellant drank together, as well as testimony that numerous beer cans were found in Wren's apartment on the night of her death. After such evidence was presented to the jury, the jurors were entitled to an instruction which would permit them to determine whether appellant's capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct and to conform his conduct to the requirement of the law was impaired as a result of mental illness, retardation or intoxication, even though such impairment was insufficient to constitute a defense to murder. KRS 532.025(2) also requires that the trial judge include an instruction on any mitigating circumstances authorized by law. Appellant was entitled to an instruction informing the jurors that they could consider evidence presented to them as a mitigating factor when determining the appropriate sentence for appellant. For the foregoing reasons we affirm the guilt phase of appellant's trial, but reverse and remand for a resentencing hearing to be conducted consistent with this opinion. COMBS, LAMBERT, LEIBSON and REYNOLDS, JJ., concur. WINTERSHEIMER, J., dissents in a separate dissenting opinion in which SPAIN, J., joins.