Opinion ID: 453004
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: constitutional framework

Text: 227 Our decisions concerning prosecutorial argument, like those concerning other features of the capital trial, have been informed by the conviction that death is a different kind of punishment from any other which may be imposed in this country. Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 357, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 1204, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977). This difference has required protection, by means of procedural safeguards and continuing judicial vigilance, to assure that the imposition of the penalty is not the product of arbitrariness or caprice. See, e.g., Zant v. Stevens, 456 U.S. 410, 413, 102 S.Ct. 1856, 1857, 72 L.Ed.2d 222 (1982); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 427, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 1764, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980); Gardner v. Florida, supra, 430 U.S. at 357-58, 97 S.Ct. at 1204-05; Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932-33, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 242, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2728, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Douglas, J., concurring). 228 To reduce the possibility of arbitrariness, courts have applied careful scrutiny to prosecutorial arguments which appeal to the emotions of the jury. An emotionally inflamed jury may not be able to weigh the relevant considerations with the care and deliberation demanded by the gravity of the penalty. Yet both the Supreme Court and members of this Court have recognized that some types of emotional response may be wholly appropriate to a capital sentencing proceeding. Because capital punishment may be understood as an expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive conduct, Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S. at 183, 96 S.Ct. at 2929-30, a response of fury or horror at the enormity of the defendant's crime is an acceptable, perhaps necessary part of the imposition of the death penalty. But this principle, too, must be qualified, because the retributive justification requires that the penalty be imposed only on those deserving of society's ultimate sanction, see Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S. at 183-84 and n. 30, 96 S.Ct. at 2929-30 and n. 30. Outrage which is directed at the heinousness of the crime of murder in general, or at the danger that murderers as a group pose to society, is an impermissible basis for the imposition of the death penalty, as it treats all persons convicted of a designated offense not as uniquely individual human beings, but as members of a faceless, undifferentiated mass to be subjected to the blind infliction of the penalty of death. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976) (striking down North Carolina mandatory death penalty statute for unconstitutional lack of individuation in application of penalty). See also Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 798-801, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 3377-79, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 605, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 2965, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). 229 Thus the permissibility of a prosecutorial appeal to the emotions of a jury depends on the nature of the response which is evoked. Appeals which are supported by the evidence and relate to the circumstances of the case are permissible, for they incite only that acceptable form of outrage which responds to the defendant's crime. See Cronnon v. Alabama, 587 F.2d 246, 251 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 974, 99 S.Ct. 1542, 59 L.Ed.2d 792 (1979) (prosecutor's graphic description of murder and characterization of criminal permissible if evidence supports them). Arguments which lack support in the evidence, or seek to play upon the jury's undifferentiated fear or hatred of violence, are impermissible, as they encourage arbitrariness in the imposition of sanctions and preclude the individualized judgment required by the Constitution. Cf. Houston v. Estelle, 569 F.2d 372 (5th Cir.1978) (prosecutor's repeated unsupported references to defendant as liar and dealer of drugs impermissible). 230 The avoidance of arbitrariness in the jury's exercise of its discretion also requires that jurors be confronted with the truly awesome responsibility of decreeing death for a fellow human.... Lockett v. Ohio, supra, 438 U.S. at 598, 98 S.Ct. at 2961. The Court addressed this requirement in its recent opinion in California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983). While declining to hold unconstitutional an instruction informing the jury of the Governor's power to commute a death sentence, the Court emphasized the detrimental effect of the diminution of a jury's sense of responsibility for its decision: advising jurors that a death verdict is theoretically modifiable ... may incline them to approach their sentencing decision with less appreciation for the gravity of their choice and for the moral responsibility reposed in them as sentencers ... [and] may operate to the defendant's distinct disadvantage. 463 U.S. at 1011, 103 S.Ct. at 3458. This detrimental impact is substantially increased when the invitation to jurors to ignore their responsibility is more open and explicit. The Georgia Supreme Court recognized this principle in Prevatte v. State, 233 Ga. 929, 214 S.E.2d 365, when it held that statements from the court or prosecutor referring to the possibility of appeal were impermissible. The court concluded that the inevitable effect of such statements is to encourage the jury to take less than full responsibility for their awesome task of determining life or death. 214 S.E.2d at 367. In accordance with this principle, courts of this Circuit have concluded that prosecutorial statements that encourage the jury to disregard its life or death responsibility or invite it to believe that the sentencing decision has already been made by more expert authorities are improper. See Hall v. United States, 419 F.2d 582, 587 (5th Cir.1969) (prosecutorial statements suggesting sentencing decision has already been made by authorities impermissible). 231 A third approach employed to channel the jury's discretion has been to limit its consideration to those matters brought out in evidence. This principle was unreservedly adopted by the former Fifth Circuit, which noted that summation should not be used to put before the jury facts not actually presented in evidence. United States v. Warren, 550 F.2d 219, 229 (5th Cir.1977), rev'd on other grounds, 578 F.2d 1058 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 956, 100 S.Ct. 2928, 64 L.Ed.2d 815 (1980). The Supreme Court has, moreover, declared that standards applied to the use of nonrecord information in capital sentencing should be stricter than those applied in other types of criminal sentencing. Gardner v. Florida, supra. In Gardner the Court held that a death sentence could not rest on non-record information which was not presented to the defendant and which he had no opportunity to rebut. The concern expressed by the Court about the reliability of such information is equally applicable to statements made by the prosecutor which lack any support in the record. On the basis of this concern, past decisions of this Circuit have held such statements to be improper. 232 Against the framework of constitutional principle on which decisions such as Hance have been built, we can more easily perceive the departure effected by the majority opinion.