Opinion ID: 698663
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Barnes' Bagley Claim:1 The Majority Opinion.

Text: 40 The majority states that Virginia law renders a victim's mere possession of a firearm irrelevant to whether an aggravated battery was committed. Op. at 977. While strictly speaking, that is true where mere possession alone of a firearm is concerned, see R. Smith v. Commonwealth, 239 Va. 243, 389 S.E.2d 871 , cert. denied, 498 U.S. 881, 111 S.Ct. 221, 112 L.Ed.2d 177 (1990), the inference drawn by the majority--that a victim's brandishing of a weapon to resist a defendant is also irrelevant--is not a correct statement of Virginia law. 2 Rather, Virginia courts have held only that the victim's mere possession of a firearm is irrelevant where a defendant is not threatened by the victim's firearm. See R. Smith, 389 S.E.2d at 874, 883 (upholding aggravated battery instruction where defendant shot an armed police officer after stating that he would shoot the first police officer he saw and that he hoped he would be shot in return). 41 The definition of aggravated battery in Virginia is a battery which, qualitatively and quantitatively, is more culpable than the minimum necessary to accomplish an act of murder. M. Smith v. Commonwealth, 219 Va. 455, 248 S.E.2d 135, 149 (1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 967, 99 S.Ct. 2419, 60 L.Ed.2d 1074 (1979). The Virginia Supreme Court, on direct appeal in the instant case, did not overrule M. Smith, but rather held that a killing inflicted by multiple gunshot wounds may constitute an 'aggravated battery' ... where there is an appreciable lapse of time between the first shot and the last, and where death does not result instantaneously from the first. Barnes v. Commonwealth, 234 Va. 130, 360 S.E.2d 196, 203 (1987) (emphasis added), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1036, 108 S.Ct. 763, 98 L.Ed.2d 779 (1988). The Virginia Court in Barnes' direct appeal believed that the victim was unarmed, i.e. had no firearm, Barnes, 360 S.E.2d at 201, and has since cited Barnes in other cases involving unarmed victims, see, e.g., Thomas v. Commonwealth, 244 Va. 1, 419 S.E.2d 606, 619, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 421, 121 L.Ed.2d 343 (1992). A review of the cases does not disclose a single instance where Virginia courts have upheld an aggravated battery finding when, on the facts as known to the court, the defendant inflicted the wound in response to the armed resistance of the victim. 3 To the contrary, the Supreme Court of Virginia has stated that [s]entencing bodies in this Commonwealth have often imposed the death penalty where the victim was a store clerk, was unarmed, provided little or no resistance, and was killed at literally point blank range. Chandler v. Commonwealth, 249 Va. 270, 455 S.E.2d 219, 227 (1995). Although the Virginia courts have yet to rule on a case in which, on the facts known, the defendant reacted to an armed and resisting victim, the implication of the reported cases coupled with the language in Chandler is clear: Aggravated battery in Virginia for the purposes of a finding of vileness is premised on the existence of a victim who is not armed and not resisting. 42 As a federal court, we are not free to make state law which diverges from the path that the highest court of the state has indicated it would take if faced with the question. See Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch, 387 U.S. 456, 465, 87 S.Ct. 1776, 1783, 18 L.Ed.2d 886 (1967) ([When] the underlying substantive rule involved is based on state law ... the State's highest court is the best authority on its own law. If there be no decision by that court then federal authorities must apply what they find to be the state law after giving 'proper regard' to relevant rulings of other courts of the State. In this respect, [the federal court] may be said to be, in effect, sitting as a state court.). Certainly within the greater power to reject the death penalty in its entirety is the lesser power of the states to limit the scope of aggravating factors which may result in the penalty. The role of the federal judiciary is merely to insure that the state system for imposing the death penalty comports with constitutional limitations. See, e.g., Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 174-75, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2925-26, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). In the context of reviewing a statutory aggravating factor such as the aggravated battery component of the vileness predicate at issue here, the task is to check that the factor furnish[es] principled guidance for the choice between death and a lesser penalty. Richmond v. Lewis, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 528, 534, 121 L.Ed.2d 411 (1992). It is not within our authority to broaden the scope of a state's chosen definition of an aggravating factor in its sentencing scheme. Cf. Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 364-65, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 1859-60, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988) (refraining from directing state as to which factors may be aggravating factors for imposition of death penalty purposes, but merely imposing the constitutional requirement that the factors chosen by the state may not be vague). Therefore, I cannot join the majority's opinion in its assertion of what Virginia law is. 43