Opinion ID: 5576
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Possible Mitigating Evidence.

Text: Harris asserts that according to the law of parties instruction given to the jury during the guilt phase of the trial the jury was never required to decide whether the petitioner physically caused the death of Merka in order to find him guilty of capital murder. Harris also asserts that the penalty phase inquiries posed by Texas law to the jury failed to allow them to give mitigating effect to his allegedly less culpable role in the offense.4 Taken together, these conditions are said to render 3 Harris tries to circumvent our federal contemporaneousobjection rule by asserting that race was so plainly a ground for the prosecutor's exclusion of Ms. Harris that no objection was needed to preserve the error. We disagree. The purpose of the prosecutor's question, as he explained to the state habeas court, was to ascertain whether Ms. Harris might feel an affinity, or kinship, for Curtis Harris, because they were from the same town, of the same race and had the same last name. He pointed out that he would not have needed to make this inquiry if Ms. Harris had been white. The state habeas court accepted this reason, as well as several others articulated by the prosecutor, and found that the peremptory strike was not exercised discriminatorily. Harris has mischaracterized the state court's finding as permitting a race-plus peremptory strike after Batson. Even if there were no federal contemporaneous objection component to a Batson claim, we would be bound by the state court's finding. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). 4 Under the law in effect when Harris committed his crime, the jury must answer yes to two questions before the defendant may be sentenced to death: 6 Texas law unconstitutional under Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S. Ct. 2934 (1989). The most serious weakness of this argument is its lack of evidentiary support. It was uncontroverted that Harris struck the deceased with an automobile jack. There was no direct evidence that any other person struck Merka with a jack or any instrument. The evidence was likewise uncontroverted that every blow delivered to the defendant's head could have been fatal, and Merka's hair and blood were found on the jack. Although a hammer found under Merka's body could have been used as the murder weapon, blood was found only on its handle, a spot inconsistent with aggressive use. Substantively, Harris's argument has been undercut by the recent Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Collins, ____ U.S. ____, 113 S.Ct. 892, ____ L.Ed.2d ____ (1993). Graham reviewed this court's en banc decision holding that the Texas death sentencing statutory provisions sufficiently allow a jury to consider the mitigating effect of a defendant's youth at the time he committed a capital offense. Graham v. Collins, 950 F.2d 1009, 1027 (5th Cir. 1992). Graham was decided under the principle of Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 109 S. Ct. 1060 (1989) and couched as a (1) Whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result; (2) Whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. Art. 37.071(b) (Vernon 1981). 7 decision whether an extension of Penry to youth is a new rule not cognizable on habeas, yet it makes clear that Penry is limited in scope. The Supreme Court noted that Penry addressed an atypical factual scenario, evidence that was a double-edged sword. The primary relevance of Penry's substantial evidence of retardation lay in its aggravating effect and its tendency to prove Penry's future dangerousness, while its mitigating effect on the future dangerousness issue was too tenuous to overcome the aggravating impact. ____ U.S. at _____, 113 S. Ct. at 900-901. Thus, while Penry's jury had no reliable means of giving mitigating effect to his retardation as presented, Graham's evidence of youth, transient childhood, and good character was not beyond the jury's effective reach. ____ U.S. at _____, 113 S. Ct. at 902. In this case, the only other person who could have struck a fatal blow to Merka was Danny Harris as he bestrode Merka's chest. But the possibility that Harris did not fatally wound Merka, as in Graham, was not beyond the effective reach of the jury in regard to either of the special issues. This court has succinctly answered Harris's Penry/Graham argument in a pre-Graham case, in which the defendant alleged that the jury could not give mitigating effect to the possibility that an accomplice might have killed the victim. In Bridge v. Collins, 963 F.2d 767, 770 (5th Cir. 1992), it was pointed out: If the jury members believed that Bridge's accomplice killed the victim, then they could have answered no to the first question. . . . 8 If the jury members believed that Bridge did not shoot the victim, then they could have concluded that Bridge would not be a future threat. Id. See also, Drew v. Collins, 964 F.2d 411, 421 (5th Cir. 1992). Harris attempts to distinguish Bridge on the basis that Harris could have been convicted under the law of parties even though the jury believed he had not killed Merka. Then, according to the argument, the jury could have answered both special punishment issues without considering that Harris did not actually kill Merka. This argument derives from a recent district court opinion. Nichols v. Collins, 802 F.Supp. 66 (S.D. Tex. 1992). For several reasons, it is unpersuasive. First, Harris's argument ignores the law of this circuit that a jury need only be provided one fair vehicle for considering mitigating evidence. White v. Collins, 959 F.2d 1319, 1322-23 (5th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, ____ U.S. ____, 112 S. Ct. 1714, 118 L.Ed.2d 419 (1992)); Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 382 n.5, 110 S. Ct. 190, 199 n.5, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990). Second, the state points out that in Drew and in Bridge the jury was instructed to convict under the law of parties. Drew, 964 F.2d at 421; Drew v. State, 743 S.W.2d 207, 214 n.3 (Tex. Crim. App. 1987) (describing the facts of Drew). These cases are not factually distinguishable. Third, Harris's reliance on Nichols5 is unavailing. Besides having had its opinion in regard to sentencing vacated pending appeal, the court in Nichols simply did not discuss the controlling law of the circuit in 5 Nichols has been stayed in part pending appeal to the Fifth Circuit, Nichols v. Collins, No. 92-2720 (Dec. 30, 1992). 9 Bridge. Nichols, 802 F.Supp. at 71-72. Fourth, the Supreme Court's decision in Graham appears to vitiate any legitimate disagreement among jurors otherwise attributable to Nichols.