Opinion ID: 77758
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The HAC Aggravating Factor

Text: 78 Jennings next argues that the Florida Supreme Court improperly upheld his death sentence despite concluding that the HAC aggravating factor was unconstitutionally vague. The United States Supreme Court has since held that the HAC aggravator, when not narrowed by a proper limiting instruction, is unconstitutional, and that neither the jury nor the trial judge may weigh the invalid aggravator. Espinosa v. Florida, 505 U.S. 1079, 1081-82, 112 S.Ct. 2926, 2928, 120 L.Ed.2d 854 (1992). No limiting instruction was given in this case. 13 The Florida Supreme Court nonetheless concluded that the erroneous application of the aggravator was harmless. Jennings contends that the court's decision runs afoul of Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U.S. 738, 110 S.Ct. 1441, 108 L.Ed.2d 725 (1990). We disagree. 79 In a weighing state like Florida, 14 the presence of an invalid aggravating factor in the weighing calculus renders a death sentence unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, and the sentence may not be automatically affirmed merely because other valid aggravating factors exist. Sochor v. Florida, 504 U.S. 527, 532, 112 S.Ct. 2114, 2119, 119 L.Ed.2d 326 (1992). In Clemons, the Supreme Court held that a state appellate court may uphold the constitutionality of a death sentence, even where it is based on an invalid or improperly defined aggravator, if the court undertakes either a reweighing of the aggravating and mitigating evidence or harmless error review. 494 U.S. at 741, 110 S.Ct. at 1444. To find an error harmless, the state court must employ the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). Clemons, 494 U.S. at 753, 110 S.Ct. at 1451. In the case before it (which also involved the especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel aggravating circumstance), the Supreme Court in Clemons identified two different permissible approaches to conducting harmless error review. First, the state court could have determined that the sentence would have been the same even if there had been no `especially heinous' instruction at all, balancing the remaining aggravators against the mitigating circumstances. Id. Second, the state court could ask whether beyond reasonable doubt the result would have been the same had the especially heinous aggravating circumstance been properly defined in the jury instructions. Id. at 754, 110 S.Ct. at 1451. Reviewing the state court opinion at issue, the Court could not tell whether either form of harmless error review had been followed. The state court's cryptic holding stated only that the result would have been the same with or without the HAC instruction. Id. at 753, 110 S.Ct. at 1451. 80 Here, however, we have no trouble concluding that the Florida Supreme Court performed a proper harmless error review. In its primary holding, the court took the second route endorsed by the Supreme Court in Clemons, finding that beyond a reasonable doubt . . . the HAC aggravator would have been found with a proper instruction. Jennings V, 782 So.2d at 863. The court quoted at length from Muszynski's testimony to show that Jennings choked Rebecca Kunash unconscious when he entered her bedroom, and that she later regained consciousness, began screaming, and tried to fight off her attacker, at which point Jennings twice smashed her head into the curb. Id. Florida law clearly provides that such infliction of suffering on a conscious victim satisfies the HAC aggravator, properly defined. See id. (citing Robertson v. State, 699 So.2d 1343, 1347 (Fla.1997) (This Court consistently has found this aggravator to apply where, as here, a conscious victim is strangled.); Adams v. State, 412 So.2d 850, 857 (Fla.1982) (The fear and emotional strain preceding a victim's almost instantaneous death may be considered as contributing to the heinous nature of the capital felony. . . . From defendant's statement we find the victim was `screaming' prior to death. A frightened eight-year-old girl being strangled by an adult man should certainly be described as heinous, atrocious, and cruel.)). In fact, not only has the United States Supreme Court approved this method of harmless error review, it has also upheld this very rationale. See Sochor, 504 U.S. at 537, 112 S.Ct. at 2121 (Our review of Florida law indicates that the State Supreme Court has consistently held that heinousness is properly found if the defendant strangled a conscious victim.). It is clear that the Florida Supreme Court properly followed Clemons in finding that the application of the vague HAC instruction to Jennings's sentence was harmless. 15 81 Jennings, however, faults the Florida Supreme Court for conducting an improper reweighing by, for instance, failing to give sufficient weight to the proffered mitigating evidence or conducting a cumulative review of that evidence. We do not read the court's opinion as undertaking a reweighing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Under Clemons, either reweighing or harmless error review alone suffices. The method of the Florida Supreme Court's analysis here fits perfectly within the model of harmless error review provided by the Supreme Court in Clemons. Additionally, the Florida Supreme Court has itself said that it does not reweigh evidence when reviewing a death sentence. See, e.g., Hudson v. State, 538 So.2d 829, 831 (Fla.1989) (It is not within this Court's province to reweigh or reevaluate the evidence presented as to aggravating or mitigating circumstances.). Thus, Jennings's arguments regarding the court's alleged errors in assigning insufficient weight to the proffered mitigating evidence or for failing to view the evidence cumulatively are beside the point. The court need only have answered the question of whether the aggravator would have been found with a proper instruction beyond a reasonable doubt. Consequently, we find no grounds for viewing the Florida Supreme Court's harmless error analysis as contrary to or an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. 16