Opinion ID: 778692
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The absence of instruction from the trial court

Text: 37 We recognize that arguments of counsel generally carry less weight with a jury than instructions from the trial court. Boyde, 494 U.S. at 384, 110 S.Ct. 1190. The trial court, however, did nothing to level this uneven playing field. Over the objection of Payton's counsel, the trial court decided to allow each attorney to argue his own legal interpretation to the jury, rather than instructing the jury as to which interpretation was correct. In contrast, the Supreme Court's holding in Boyde that the jury understood the scope of factor (k) relied heavily on the trial court's clarifying instruction allowing the jury to consider  any other circumstance that might excuse the crime, which included the defendant's background and character. Id. at 381-82 & n. 5, 110 S.Ct. 1190 (emphasis in original). 38 Here, the only curative instruction given was that the comments by the prosecutor and the defense counsel were not evidence. The ineffectiveness of the trial court's instruction is clear from the prosecutor's return, after the trial court's admonition, to his argument to the jury that factor (k) did not encompass Payton's mitigating evidence. 39 Nor did the trial court's final instructions to the jury cure the error here. Before the jury retired to deliberate, as noted, the trial court instructed: 40 In determining the penalty to be imposed on the defendant, you shall consider all of the evidence which has been received during any part of the trial in this case, except as you may be hereafter instructed. You shall consider, take into account and be guided by the following factors, if applicable .... 41 (emphasis added). The trial court's directive to consider all of the evidence failed to correct the prosecutor's error. In the same breath, the trial court stated that the jury should consider all the evidence except as you may be hereafter instructed and then instructed them to be guided by the eleven-factor test. Thus, the trial court confined the jury's consideration of the evidence to the multi-factor test that the prosecutor had just declared did not allow consideration of Payton's extensive mitigating evidence. The judge then instructed the jury that it was to apply the factors only if applicable. 42 In effect, the court's instruction delegated to the jury the legal question whether factor (k) allowed consideration of Payton's mitigating evidence. Nothing prevented the jury from refusing to consider Payton's mitigating evidence and thereby reaching an unconstitutional result. See Eddings, 455 U.S. at 114-15, 102 S.Ct. 869 (The sentencer ... may determine the weight to be given relevant mitigating evidence. But [it] may not give it no weight by excluding such evidence from [its] consideration.). When jurors have been left the option of relying upon a legally inadequate theory, there is no reason to think that their own intelligence and expertise will save them from that error. Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 59, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991). We cannot expect a jury to reach the constitutionally correct conclusion that the multi-factor instruction compelled consideration of Payton's mitigating evidence when the jury must overcome both the text of factor (k) and the facially reasonable argument of the prosecutor. These circumstances likely stripped Payton of his only defense to the imposition of the death penalty. 43 Thus, Payton has satisfied Boyde 's standard requiring that he establish that there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction in a way that prevented consideration of his mitigating evidence. Boyde does not require that Payton show that the jury was more likely than not to have been impermissibly inhibited by the instruction. Boyde, 494 U.S. at 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190. However, Payton's death sentence would be constitutional if there is only a possibility of such an inhibition. Id. In determining whether more than a possibility of inhibition existed, we do not limit our inquiry to how a single hypothetical `reasonable' juror could or might have interpreted the instruction. Id. The claimed error must amount to more than speculation about the jury's understanding of the instruction. Id. 44 Payton's claim is more than speculative. Compounding the nebulous terms of the unadorned factor (k) instruction were the prosecutor's erroneous argument and the trial court's silence as to the jury's constitutional obligation to consider all of the mitigating evidence. In Easley, the California Supreme Court stated that trial courts should, in instructing jurors on factor (k), tell juries that they can consider any aspect of the defendant's character or record. 196 Cal.Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d at 826 n. 10. Here, defense counsel asked for an instruction similarly clarifying the breadth of the scope of factor (k). Despite agreeing that it was a catch-all provision, the trial judge refused. Instead, the jury was given the unadorned factor (k) instruction without any explanation by the court as to what was appropriate to consider under factor (k). In sum, the jury received the multi-factor instruction, including factor (k), on the same plate with the contentions of the prosecutor and defense counsel as to its applicability, and without further guidance from the trial court. 45 Penry v. Johnson, 532 U.S. 782, 121 S.Ct. 1910, 150 L.Ed.2d 9 (2001), confirms our conclusion that there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury did not consider Payton's mitigating evidence. There, the Supreme Court condemned a similar tripartite error consisting of a jury instruction that excluded consideration of Penry's mitigating evidence, the prosecutor's exhortation to the effect that the jury should follow that instruction, and the trial court's failure to provide a vehicle for the jury to express [] the view that Penry did not deserve to be sentenced to death based upon his mitigating evidence. Id. at 804, 121 S.Ct. 1910. In emphasizing that the jury must be able to consider and give effect to a defendant's mitigating evidence in imposing sentence, the Court stated: 46 [I]t is only when the jury is given a vehicle for expressing its reasoned moral response to that evidence in rendering its sentencing decision that we can be sure that the jury has treated the defendant as a uniquely individual human being and has made a reliable determination that death is the appropriate sentence. 47 Id. at 797, 121 S.Ct. 1910 (internal quotations, brackets, italics, and citations omitted). 48 Penry reminds us that we presume that jurors follow their instructions. 9 Id. at 799, 121 S.Ct. 1910. When the effect of a mitigation instruction, viewed in the full context of the trial, is to confuse or mislead the jury in its duty to consider all relevant mitigation evidence, there has been constitutional error. By labeling the prosecutor's incorrect contentions mere argument, the trial court not only failed to correct a critical misstatement of law but also effectively instructed the jury to consider the prosecutor's erroneous legal position. See Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 339, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985). This directive is sufficient to establish constitutional error.