Opinion ID: 71998
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Franklin and Penry

Text: The standard embraced by the Court in Abdul-Kabir and Brewer was first articulated by Justice O'Connor in her concurrence to Franklin, 487 U.S. 164, 108 S.Ct. 2320, 101 L.Ed.2d 155. In Franklin, the petitioner presented evidence at sentencing that he had behaved well in prison. Id. at 177, 108 S.Ct. 2320. The plurality opinion concluded that the future dangerousness special issue provided a sufficient vehicle for the jury to consider the mitigating evidence. Id. at 179-80, 108 S.Ct. 2320. The plurality rejected the petitioner's contention that an additional instruction was required because the mitigating evidence of good behavior in prison had relevance beyond the scope of the special issues. Id. at 181, 108 S.Ct. 2320. The plurality reasoned that we have never concluded that States cannot channel jury discretion in capital sentencing and rejected the argument that the jury must be able to consider mitigating evidence for every issue to which it may be relevant. Id. Justice O'Connor concurred with the plurality that the special issues were constitutionally sufficient as applied because the petitioner did not suggest that his lack of disciplinary violations [in prison] revealed anything more positive about his character than lack of future dangerousness. Id. at 186, 108 S.Ct. 2320 (O'Connor, J., concurring). But Justice O'Connor disagreed that the special issues would be constitutionally sufficient if the mitigating evidence presented in fact had relevance beyond their scopefor example, to personal culpability or character. Id. at 184-86, 108 S.Ct. 2320. She commented: If . . . petitioner had introduced mitigating evidence about his background or character or the circumstances of the crime that was not relevant to the special verdict questions, or that had relevance to the defendant's moral culpability beyond the scope of the special verdict questions, the jury instructions would have provided the jury with no vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to that evidence. . . . In my view, however, this is not such a case. The only mitigating evidence introduced by petitioner was the stipulation that he had no record of disciplinary violations while in prison. . . . While it is true that the jury was prevented from giving mitigating effect to the stipulation to the extent that it demonstrated positive character traits other than the ability to exist in prison without endangering jailers or fellow inmates, that limitation has no practical or constitutional significance in my view because the stipulation has no relevance to any other aspect of petitioner's character.. . . The limited probative value of the stipulation regarding petitioner's lack of prison disciplinary violations is best illustrated by the contrasting examples of probative character evidence suggested by the dissent. . . . Evidence of voluntary service, kindness to others, or of religious devotion might demonstrate positive character traits that might mitigate against the death penalty. Although petitioner argued to the sentencing jury that his prison record demonstrated his lack of future dangerousness, petitioner did not suggest that his lack of disciplinary violations revealed anything more positive about his character than that. Id. at 185-86, 108 S.Ct. 2320. The Court adopted Justice O'Connor's Franklin concurrence in Penry, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256, in an opinion which Justice O'Connor also wrote. There, the majority concluded that although the deliberateness and future dangerousness special issues allowed the jury to give partial consideration to the petitioner's mitigating evidence of mental retardation and childhood abuse, the Eighth Amendment was not satisfied because the mitigating evidence had relevance to his moral culpability beyond the scope of the special issues, and . . . the jury was unable to express its `reasoned moral response' to that evidence in determining whether death was the appropriate punishment. Id. at 322, 109 S.Ct. 2934.