Opinion ID: 3060511
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Make Caldwell Objection

Text: First, Belcher asserts that trial counsel were ineffective for failing to object to the prosecutor’s repeated references to the jury’s sentence recommendation as advisory, which Belcher claims violates Caldwel1 v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320 (1985), and that the failure to object prejudiced him. In Caldwell, the Supreme Court ruled in a partially divided opinion that the Eighth Amendment is violated when a jury is “led to believe that responsibility for determining the appropriateness of a death sentence rests not with the jury but with the appellate court which later reviews the case.” 472 U.S. 320, 323. Caldwell involved a death sentence in Mississippi, where the jury had the sole responsibility for imposing the sentence and appellate courts reviewed the sentence with a “presumption of correctness.” See Id. at 331-32. Because only four Justices joined part of the majority’s analysis in Caldwell, the Court in Romano v. Oklahoma3 adopted Justice O’Connor’s Caldwell concurrence as 3 512 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1994). The Romano court addressed the related question of whether admitting irrelevant evidence of a defendant’s death sentence for another murder “impermissibly undermine[d] the sentencing jury’s sense of responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant’s death.” 6 limiting the case’s reach: Caldwell [is] relevant only to certain types of comment—those that mislead the jury as to its role in the sentencing process in a way that allows the jury to feel less responsible than it should for the sentencing decision. Thus, [t]o establish a Caldwell violation, a defendant necessarily must show that the remarks to the jury improperly described the role assigned to the jury by local law. 512 U.S. 1, 9 (1994) (citations and quotation marks omitted) (second alteration in Romano). The capital sentencing scheme in Florida, unlike that in Mississippi and Oklahoma, treats the jury’s verdict as advisory, albeit one carrying great weight that a judge can override only if “virtually no reasonable person could differ” as to the correct result. Tedder v. State, 322 So. 2d 908, 910 (Fla. 1975). In Davis v. Singletary, 119 F.3d 1471, 1482 (11th Cir. 1997), this Court applied Caldwell and Romano to Florida’s sentencing scheme, noting that Romano required that the comments misstate the law on the jury’s responsibility. In Davis, the jury instructions and prosecutor’s comments contained “references to and descriptions of the jury’s sentencing verdict . . . as an advisory one, as a recommendation to the judge, and of the judge as the final sentencing authority.” Id. We held that such comments “accurately characterize the jury’s and judge’s sentencing roles under Florida law” and so “are not error under Caldwell.” Id. Thus, defense counsel here could have validly objected only if the prosecutor inaccurately stated the jury’s 7 role in such a way that would “allow[] the jury to feel less responsible than it should for the sentencing decision.” Romano, 512 U.S. at 9. Having reviewed the record, we cannot say that the state misrepresented the law regarding the jury’s role. The remarks made by the prosecutor, viewed in context, accurately portrayed the relationship between the judge and jury and did not denigrate the jury’s role in the proceedings. Indeed, the prosecutor repeatedly stressed that the jury’s recommendation held “great weight” in the judge’s decision. Thus, counsel’s performance in declining to object was not deficient, and we cannot say the Florida courts’ denial of his ineffective assistance claim on this ground was contrary to or an unreasonable application of federal law.