Opinion ID: 2967883
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Statutory Aggravating Factors

Text: The question of whether the indictment sufficiently alleged the statutory aggravating factor required under 18 U.S.C.A. § 3592(c) to impose a death sentence is more difficult to answer. 18 UNITED STATES v. HIGGS We reject at the outset Higgs’s contention that the indictment failed to sufficiently charge each of the capital murder and kidnapping counts because it failed to allege all of the statutory aggravating factors which were ultimately found by the petit jury. The FDPA sets forth sixteen potentially aggravating factors for a homicide conviction. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3592(c). However, only one such aggravating factor need be found for the jury to recommend a sentence of death. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3593(d) & (e). Because only one statutory aggravating factor is required under the Act to render a defendant deatheligible, we hold that the indictment need only allege one such aggravating factor. See United States v. Jackson, 327 F.3d 273, 287 (4th Cir. 2003) (Niemeyer, J., concurring) ([W]hen the death penalty is dependent on a finding of an aggravated offense, then the core statutory elements of that offense, as well as at least one aggravating factor, must be charged in the indictment and found by the jury.). There is no requirement that the indictment allege all of the factors that might be weighed by the jury when deciding whether to impose a death sentence. So long as one statutory aggravating factor is alleged in the indictment and the petit jury finds that statutory aggravating factor to exist, the indictment is not defective as to the capital offense charged. See id. The elements of the offense of conviction have been charged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Any additional statutory or nonstatutory aggravating factors may be fairly viewed as sentencing considerations.7 With regard to the six counts of murder and the three counts of kidnapping resulting in death with which Higgs was charged, the petit jury found the existence of three statutory aggravating factors: (1) multiple killings in a single criminal episode under 18 U.S.C.A. § 3592(c)(16); (2) previous conviction of a violent felony involving a firearm under § 3592(c)(2), based on Higgs’s guilty plea to assault and reckless endangerment arising from the Cherry Lane shooting; and (3) previous conviction for a serious federal drug offense under § 3592(c)(12), based on Higgs’s federal conviction for possession 7 This is not to say, of course, that such a limited indictment would be the better course. In order to render the offense death-eligible, the petit jury must find the statutory aggravating factor relied upon by the government in the indictment. Thus, the better practice would obviously be to allege all potential statutory aggravating circumstances in the indictment. UNITED STATES v. HIGGS 19 with intent to distribute cocaine base. With regard to the six firstdegree murder counts, the jury also found that the government had proven, as an additional statutory aggravating factor, that the deaths occurred during the commission of another crime, specifically, a kidnapping. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3592(c)(1). The government argues that the indictment is not defective because it alleges facts which, if found by the jury, support two of these § 3592(c) aggravating factors — multiple killings in a single criminal episode and death during the commission of a kidnapping. In the alternative, the government argues that the indictment is not defective because the Fifth Amendment does not require that the prior conviction aggravators be alleged in the indictment. For the reasons that follow, we agree that the indictment was not constitutionally deficient. However, the multiple killings aggravator, while adequately alleged in the indictment, cannot serve as the requisite statutory aggravator for any of the charges because it was not a statutory aggravator at the time the murders were committed. Rather, the indictment is not defective because the other crime aggravator was adequately alleged in the indictment to support a death sentence for the six first-degree murder charges and because the prior conviction aggravators, which support a death sentence for all charges, were not required to be alleged in the indictment at all.
We begin by rejecting the government’s contention that the indictment is not defective as to either the § 1111(a) murder or § 1201(a) kidnapping charges because it alleges facts supporting the statutory aggravator of multiple killings in a single criminal episode. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3592(c)(16). Although the indictment sufficiently alleged the aggravating factor, multiple killings was not added to the FDPA as a statutory aggravating factor until April 1996, three months after the murders were committed. Article 1, § 9 of the United States Constitution provides that [n]o Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. Pursuant to the Clause, ‘any statute which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, which was innocent when done; which makes more bur20 UNITED STATES v. HIGGS densome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any defense available according to law at the time when the act was committed, is prohibited as ex post facto.’ Dobbert v. Florida, 432 U.S. 282, 292 (1977) (quoting Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169-170 (1925)). In short, the Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits laws that retroactively alter the definition of crimes or increase the punishment for criminal acts. California Dep’t of Corr. v. Morales, 514 U.S. 499, 504 (1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). A new law may not alter the elements of the offense or the quantum of punishment, nor may it deprive the defendant of a defense to which he would otherwise be entitled. See id.; Carmell v. Texas, 529 U.S. 513, 521-525 (2000). Although the prohibition against the use of ex post facto laws does not give a criminal a right to be tried, in all respects, by the law in force when the crime charged was committed, Dobbert, 432 U.S. at 293 (internal quotation marks omitted), it does assure that legislative Acts give fair warning of their effect and permit individuals to rely on their meaning until explicitly changed. Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28-29 (1981). The Clause operates to forbid[ ] the imposition of punishment more severe than the punishment assigned by law when the act to be punished occurred. Critical to relief under the Ex Post Facto Clause is not an individual’s right to less punishment, but the lack of fair notice and governmental restraint when the legislature increases punishment beyond what was prescribed when the crime was consummated. Id. at 30 (emphasis added). In view of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in Apprendi and Ring, we agree that the government cannot solely rely upon multiple killings as a statutory aggravating factor for a crime committed before its adoption without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause. With the exception of the prior conviction aggravators, statutory aggravating factors which render an offense of conviction death-eligible clearly increase the punishment for criminal acts. Morales, 514 U.S. at 504. Accordingly, we hold that the multiple killings aggravator cannot act as the sole statutory aggravator which rendered these murders death-eligible.
The indictment is not defective as to the first-degree murder charges because it sufficiently alleged the death during commission UNITED STATES v. HIGGS 21 of another crime aggravator. The indictment specifically alleges that Higgs killed the three women in the perpetration of, and attempted perpetration of a felony, to wit, kidnapping, J.A. 136, 141, 146, and charges further that Higgs did knowingly, willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, inveigle, decoy, kidnap, abduct, carry away and hold [the women] for a reason which was of benefit to [him]. J.A. 138, 143, 148. Because the indictment charges facts supporting at least one aggravating factor, it is not defective as to the six capital murder counts charged under § 1111(a). This aggravator cannot, however, suffice to render the indictment sufficient for purposes of the three capital counts for kidnapping resulting in death charged under § 1201(a). Even if we assume that the statutory aggravator could have been submitted in support of the kidnapping counts, it was only submitted to the jury in connection with the § 1111(a) first-degree murder counts.
This leaves us with the government’s argument that the indictment is not defective as to either the first-degree murder counts or the kidnapping-resulting-in-death counts because both categories of crimes carry the sentence of death as the statutory maximum and because two of the statutory aggravators found by the jury — Higgs’s prior conviction for a violent felony involving a firearm and Higgs’s prior conviction for a serious federal drug offense — fall within the Apprendi and Almendarez-Torres exception for prior convictions. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490; Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 226-27 (1998). In a nutshell, the government contends that the indictment is not defective because these prior conviction aggravators, both of which were found by the jury and either of which rendered the offenses death eligible, are not required to be alleged in the indictment to authorize imposition of the maximum penalty of death. We agree. In Almendarez-Torres, the Supreme Court was squarely presented with the question of whether a federal indictment must allege the fact of a prior conviction to expose a defendant to an enhanced sentence. Under 8 U.S.C.A. § 1326(a), a deported alien who returned to the United States without special permission was subject to imprisonment for up to two years. Under subsection (b) of the same statute, how22 UNITED STATES v. HIGGS ever, such a deported alien could be imprisoned for up to twenty years if the initial deportation was subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony. Almendarez-Torres, 523 U.S. at 226 (internal quotation marks omitted). As framed by the Court, the issue was whether th[e] latter provision defines a separate crime or simply authorizes an enhanced penalty. If the former, i.e., if it constitutes a separate crime, then the Government must write an indictment that mentions the additional element, namely, a prior aggravated felony conviction. If the latter, i.e., if the provision simply authorizes an enhanced sentence when an offender also has an earlier conviction, then the indictment need not mention that fact, for the fact of an earlier conviction is not an element of the present crime. Id. at 226. The court held that subsection (b) was a penalty provision, which simply authorizes a court to increase the sentence for a recidivist. It does not define a separate crime. Consequently, neither the statute nor the Constitution required the Government to charge the factor that it mentions, an earlier conviction, in the indictment. Id. at 226-27. The distinction between prior convictions and other facts that might expand a penalty range, first made in Almendarez-Torres, was addressed by the Court again in Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999). In the wake of its recognition of the constitutional concerns raised by the diminishment of the jury’s significance by removing control over facts determining a statutory sentencing range, the Court reiterated that Almendarez-Torres stands for the proposition that not every fact expanding a penalty range must be stated in a felony indictment. Jones, 526 U.S. at 248 (emphasis added). The Court explained: [T]he precise holding [in Almendarez-Torres] that recidivism increasing the maximum penalty need not be so charged . . . rested in substantial part on the tradition of regarding recidivism as a sentencing factor, not as an element to be set out in the indictment. The Court’s repeated emphasis on the distinctive significance of recidivism leaves UNITED STATES v. HIGGS 23 no question that the Court regarded that fact as potentially distinguishable for constitutional purposes from other facts that might extend the range of possible sentencing. See [523 U.S.] at 230 (At the outset, we note that the relevant statutory subject matter is recidivism); ibid. (With recidivism as the subject matter in mind, we turn to the statute’s language); id. at 243 (First, the sentencing factor at issue here — recidivism — is a traditional, if not the most traditional, basis for a sentencing court’s increasing an offender’s sentence); id. at 245 (distinguishing McMillan [v. Pennsylvania, 477 U.S. 79 (1986)] in light of the particular sentencing factor at issue in this case — recidivism). One basis for that possible constitutional distinctiveness is not hard to see: unlike virtually any other consideration used to enlarge the possible penalty for an offense, . . . a prior conviction must itself have been established through procedures satisfying the fair notice, reasonable doubt, and jury trial guarantees. Id. at 248-249. And, in Apprendi, the Court again distinguished the recidivism at issue in Almendarez-Torres from the hate crime enhancer before it: Whereas recidivism does not relate to the commission of the offense itself, New Jersey’s biased purpose inquiry goes precisely to what happened in the commission of the offense. Moreover, there is a vast difference between accepting the validity of a prior judgment of conviction entered in a proceeding in which the defendant had the right to a jury trial and the right to require the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and allowing the judge to find the required fact under a lesser standard of proof. 530 U.S. at 496 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 488 (noting that Almendarez-Torres turned heavily upon the fact that the additional sentence to which the defendant was subject was the prior commission of a serious crime and explaining that [b]oth the certainty that procedural safeguards attached to any ‘fact’ of prior conviction, and the reality that Almendarez-Torres did not challenge the accuracy of that fact in his case, mitigated the due pro24 UNITED STATES v. HIGGS cess and Sixth Amendment concerns otherwise implicated in allowing a judge to determine a fact increasing punishment beyond the maxi- mum of the statutory range. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Higgs acknowledges the Supreme Court’s recidivism exception to the Apprendi mandate, but asserts that the Court’s holding in Ring has placed on shaky ground the Almendarez-Torres proposition that prior convictions that increase the maximum penalty need not be alleged in the indictment, much like the defendant in Ring alleged that Walton’s holding was irreconcilable with Apprendi’s reasoning. That may or may not be so, but we are not at liberty to conclude that AlmendarezTorres is irreconcilable with Ring and grant him relief. Nor would we do so in view of the fact that the Ring Court specifically reserved the question of whether a judge may find the fact of prior convictions to be an aggravating circumstance in the death penalty context: Ring’s claim is tightly delineated: He contends only that the Sixth Amendment required jury findings on the aggravating circumstances asserted against him. No aggravating circumstance related to past convictions in his case; Ring therefore does not challenge Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998), which held that the fact of prior conviction may be found by the judge even if it increases the statutory maximum sentence. Ring, 536 U.S. at 597 n.4. Until the Supreme Court overrules Almendarez-Torres, we are bound to follow its holding. The indictment against Higgs alleged crimes for first-degree murder and kidnapping resulting in death, all of which authorized a sentence of life imprisonment or death. By virtue of the FDPA, life imprisonment is the maximum sentence that may be imposed unless the facts support a finding of at least one enumerated statutory aggravating factor. However, while statutory aggravators must be alleged in the indictment, submitted to the jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt, current Supreme Court jurisprudence excepts from this mandate the fact of a prior conviction. The Fifth Amendment Indictment Clause does not require an indictment to allege prior convictions that expose a defendant to an enhanced penalty. UNITED STATES v. HIGGS 25