Opinion ID: 1841753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: trial and sentencing procedures required

Text: We now hold that all trials conducted under Alabama's Death Penalty Act shall be as follows: a guilt-finding phase and, if the defendant is found guilty, a sentence-determining phase. The central issue in the guilt phase of the trial will be whether the State has satisfied its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of a capital crime. [9] In the event the defendant is found guilty of the capital offense, the sentencing procedures hereinafter outlined shall apply. If the defendant is found guilty of some lesser included offense, the sentencing procedures for non-capital cases, applicable at the time the offense was committed, shall apply. Code 1975, § 13A-1-7, § 13A-5-1; Alabama Rules of Criminal ProcedureTemporary Rules 1-11. The central issue at the sentencing phase of the trial, in the event the defendant is found guilty of the capital offense as charged, will be the circumstances of aggravation and of mitigation that should be weighed and weighed against each other.... Gregg, 428 U.S. 153 at 193, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2935, 49 L.Ed.2d 859. In short, a capital jury must be allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed. In Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. at 304, 96 S.Ct. at 2991 (1976), the Court said: A process that accords no significance to relevant facets of the character and record of the individual offender or the circumstances of the particular offense excludes from consideration in fixing the ultimate punishment of death the possibility of compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse frailties of humankind. It treats all persons convicted of a designated offense not as uniquely individual human beings, but as members of a faceless, undifferentiated mass to be subjected to the blind infliction of the penalty of death. In Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. at 271, 96 S.Ct. at 2956 (1976), the Court stated: ... [A] sentencing system that allowed the jury to consider only aggravating circumstances would almost certainly fall short of providing the individualized sentencing determination that we today have held in Woodson v. North Carolina, [428 U.S. 208], at 303-305, 96 S.Ct. 2978 [at 2990-2992], 49 L.Ed.2d 944 to be required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. For such a system would approach the mandatory laws that we today hold unconstitutional in Woodson and Roberts v. Louisiana, [428 U.S.] p. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974. A jury must be allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed. Thus, in order to meet the requirement of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, a capital-sentencing system must allow the sentencing authority to consider mitigating circumstances.... The Court, in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. at 193, 96 S.Ct. at 2934 (1976), noted: While some have suggested that standards to guide a capital jury's sentencing deliberations are impossible to formulate, the fact is that such standards have been developed. When the drafters of the Model Penal Code faced this problem, they concluded that it is within the realm of possibility to point to the main circumstances of aggravation and of mitigation that should be weighed and weighed against each other when they are presented in a concrete case. Model Penal Code § 201.6, Comment 3, p. 71 (Tent. Draft No. 9, 1959) (emphasis in original). While such standards are by necessity somewhat general, they do provide guidance to the sentencing authority and thereby reduce the likelihood that it will impose a sentence that fairly can be called capricious or arbitrary....