Opinion ID: 1256193
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Capital Felony Sentencing Act

Text: {127} More important, it is my opinion that victim impact testimony in a death penalty case is not allowed under New Mexico law as it now exists or as it existed in 1994. {128} NMSA 1978, § 31-20A-2(A) (1979) of the Capital Felony Sentencing Act provides that: A. Capital sentencing deliberations shall be guided by the following considerations: (1) whether aggravating circumstances exist as enumerated in Section 6 [31-20A-5 NMSA 1978] of this act; and (2) whether mitigating circumstances exist as enumerated in Section 7 [31-201A-6 NMSA 1978] of this act; and (3) whether other mitigating circumstances exist. {129} The Act enumerates specific factors that are mitigating, and then expressly states that the enumerated list is not exclusive. It also enumerates specific factors that are aggravating and, unlike the list of mitigating circumstances, that list is exclusive. {130} The Act is careful to cabin the jury's analysis of these factors: After weighing the aggravating circumstances and the mitigating circumstances, weighing them against each other, and considering both the defendant and the crime, the jury or judge shall determine whether the defendant should be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Section 31-20A-2(B). {131} The Act does not require that the jury weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the abstract; it directs the jury to perform the weighing in the context of both the defendant and the crime. It does not, however, allow the jury to pick additional features of the crime, or facts about the defendant, and weigh them in the balance as additional aggravating factors. Of course, to the extent that the crime or the defendant may present mitigating features, they would be free to weigh those in the balance. The State argues to the contrary when it says that the defendant's character and past criminal history are highly relevant and important evidence in a capital sentencing hearing. However true this might be, if this Court were writing on a blank slate, it is clearly not what the Legislature envisioned when it crafted the Capital Felony Sentencing Act. {132} The Act enumerates that the defendant has no significant history of prior criminal activity as a mitigating circumstance. NMSA 1978, § 31-20A-6(A) (1979). Conspicuously, however, a significant history of prior criminal history is not an aggravating circumstance. See NMSA 1978, § 31-10A-5 (1981) (setting out aggravating circumstances). This creates an asymmetry which the State seeks to redress by claiming that prior crimes of the defendant are relevant to the jury's sentencing decision, and that they are admissible in light of the requirement in Section 31-20A-2(B) to consider both the defendant and the crime. {133} The problem with the State's argument is that while a legislature might determine that a defendant's prior criminal history is a proper reason, in some circumstances at least, to impose the death penalty, in New Mexico our Legislature has not done so. In contrast, the California Penal Code states, In the proceedings on the question of [capital] penalty, evidence may be presented ... as to ... any prior felony conviction or convictions whether or not such conviction or convictions involved a crime of violence, the presence or absence of other criminal activity by the defendant which involved the use or attempted use of force or violence.... Cal.Penal Code § 190.3 (West 1999). {134} It should be noted that even though the Legislature has had several opportunities to amend the Capital Felony Sentencing Act after our Victim's Rights Amendment was passed and put into effect in January of 1995, it has not done so. The conclusion I reach, therefore, is that the Victim's Rights Amendment and Act apply to traditional sentencing proceedings, but not death penalty proceedings. The sentence of death is substantially different in that it is final, requiring a specifically tailored scheme. I note that the United States Supreme Court in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991), by a 5-4 vote, held that victim impact evidence is not per se barred by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I note also that our statute was written before Payne. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that our Legislature intended the rule that victim impact evidence is not admissible in death penalty cases in New Mexico. See Booth, v. Maryland, 482 U.S. 496, 107 S.Ct. 2529, 96 L.Ed.2d 440 (1987), and South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U.S. 805, 109 S.Ct. 2207, 104 L.Ed.2d 876 (1989), both overruled by Payne, 501 U.S. at 808-09, 111 S.Ct. 2597. The Legislature made no change in our statute after Payne although it has had many opportunities to do so. Other courts have held that their state death penalty statute, passed during Booth and before Payne, could not have intended to include victim impact evidence as part of a death penalty proceeding. See, e.g., State v. Metz, 131 Or.App. 706, 887 P.2d 795, 801 (1994) (when Oregon's death penalty statute was enacted, Booth was the law, consequently the legislature could not have envisioned or intended Oregon's death penalty scheme to permit victim impact evidence); accord Smith v. State, 919 S.W.2d 96, 102 (Tex.Crim.App.1996), overruled by Mosley v. State, 983 S.W.2d 249, 261-62 (Tex.Crim.App. 1998) (relying upon Payne ). {135} The Legislature's complete failure to mention victim impact evidence in the Capital Felony Sentencing Act is understandable. That kind of evidence is, as this case demonstrates, highly passionate and emotional. The Legislature has specifically instructed this Court to hold a death sentence invalid if the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor. NMSA 1978, § 31-20A-4(C)(3) (1979). Indeed, the whole point of death penalty sentencing is to objectively channel the jury's determination of who shall live and who shall die. Zant v. Stephens, 462 U.S. 862, 876-77, 103 S.Ct. 2733, 77 L.Ed.2d 235 (1983); State v. Clark, 108 N.M. 288, 308, 772 P.2d 322, 342 (1989), sentence vacated on other grounds by Clark v. Tansy, 118 N.M. 486, 495, 882 P.2d 527, 536 (1994). Every care must be taken so that objective, meaningful distinctions are drawn between who lives and who dies. Passion does not meaningfully distinguish between cases. {136} The State recognizes the power of victim impact evidence. That is precisely why it fights so hard to introduce it. It is unquestionably powerful emotional evidence that appeals to the sympathies or emotions of the jurors. But the [e]vidence that serves no purpose other than to appeal to the sympathies or emotions of the jurors has never been considered admissible. Payne, 501 U.S. at 856-57, 111 S.Ct. 2597 (Stevens, J., dissenting). If our Legislature even considered the admission of victim impact evidencea highly unlikely possibility because Booth prohibited such evidence at that timethen it is difficult to imagine what the Legislature intended to exclude by invalidating a death sentence imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or other arbitrary factor.