Opinion ID: 1386258
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Scope of Review in Death Penalty Cases

Text: When the penalty of execution is provided for criminal punishment, this court should consider assignments of error now first presented under the same standard used by the supreme courts of Utah, Louisiana, and Ohio. These courts carve out a death penalty exception to their contemporaneous objection rule. The State responds to a number of defendant's claims of reversible error by urging this Court not to consider or rule on such claims because they were inadequately preserved at trial. We decline to adopt that approach and instruct the State to hereafter brief all issues on their merits in death penalty cases. A general rule of appellate review in criminal cases in Utah is that a contemporaneous objection or some form of specific preservation of claims of error must be made a part of the trial court record before an appellate court will review such claim on appeal. As early as 1931, however, this Court recognized an exception to the general rule governing the scope of appellate review in criminal cases where the death penalty was imposed.    Nevertheless, because of the serious and permanent nature of the penalty imposed in such cases, there needs to continue to be a death penalty exception to the contemporaneous objection rule. Accordingly, this Court has customarily considered assignments of error which were not preserved at trial but were raised and briefed for the first time on appeal.          [W]e have the sua sponte prerogative in such cases to notice, consider, and correct manifest and prejudicial error which is not objected to at trial or assigned on appeal, but is palpably apparent on the face of the record. Not only is such standard in keeping with controlling statutory and case law, but it also furthers the policy of safeguarding a defendant's right to a fair trial in a death penalty case by permitting review of the proceedings below even in the absence of compliance with procedural technicalities. State v. Tillman, 750 P.2d 546, 551-53 (Utah 1987) (footnotes omitted and emphasis added). See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 306, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2760, 33 L.Ed.2d 346, reh'g denied 409 U.S. 902, 93 S.Ct. 89, 34 L.Ed.2d 164, reh'g denied 409 U.S. 902, 93 S.Ct. 89, 34 L.Ed.2d 163, reh'g denied 409 U.S. 902, 93 S.Ct. 90, 34 L.Ed.2d 164 (1972), Stewart, J., concurring; Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 65, 77 S.Ct. 1222, 1262, 1 L.Ed.2d 1148 (1957), Harlan, J., concurring; Hamblen v. State, 527 So.2d 800, 808 (Fla. 1988), Barkett, J., dissenting; State v. Bay, 529 So.2d 845 (La. 1988); and State v. Kirkpatrick, 443 So.2d 546 (La. 1983), cert. denied 466 U.S. 993, 104 S.Ct. 2374, 80 L.Ed.2d 847 (1984). The Louisiana Supreme Court uses the same standard and holds that in cases where the death penalty is imposed, this Court reviews assignments of error not briefed as a matter of policy. Kirkpatrick, 443 So.2d at 553. The Supreme Court of Ohio phrases their approach similarly: Our analysis begins by addressing the propositions of law advanced by appellant. Because of the gravity of the sentence that has been imposed on appellant, we have reviewed the record with care for any errors that may not have been brought to our attention. In addition, we have considered any pertinent legal arguments which were not briefed or argued by the parties. State v. Williams, 38 Ohio St.3d 346, 528 N.E.2d 910, 914, reh'g denied 39 Ohio St.3d 717, 534 N.E.2d 93, cert. denied 489 U.S. 1040, 109 S.Ct. 1176, 103 L.Ed.2d 238, reh'g denied 493 U.S. 948, 110 S.Ct. 355, 107 L.Ed.2d 343 (1989) (emphasis added). In similar summation, see State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 45, 548 A.2d 846 (1988). For a broad perspective, see Ledewitz, Procedural Default in Death Penalty Cases: Fundamental Miscarriage of Justice and Actual Innocence, 24 Crim.L.Bull. 379 (1988). [4] The New Mexico Supreme Court recently stated in State v. Henderson, 109 N.M. 655, 789 P.2d 603, 607 (1990): [T]he qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination. Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 329, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 2639, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985) (quoting California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. [992] at 998-99, 103 S.Ct. [3446] at 3452 [77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983)]). The foundational Wyoming judicial legacy is not inapposite. Indeed, traditional Wyoming jurisprudence found greater value in affirming a death sentence only with caution than in devotion to procedural technicalities. In State v. Morris, 41 Wyo. 128, 146-47, 283 P. 406, 411 (1929) (emphasis added), Justice Riner indicated: But the familiar rule heretofore announced by this court in Parker v. State, 24 Wyo. 491, 161 P. 552 [(1916)]; Cirej v. State, 24 Wyo. 507, 161 P. 556 [(1916)]; and Ohama v. State, 24 Wyo. 513, 161 P. 558, [(1916)], touching the failure to save exceptions to prejudicial rulings and instructions in capital cases, should, we think, govern here. Under that rule, which we believe to be a wholly salutary one, it is our duty to consider and determine the effect of [the contended error] attacked by appellant in his brief, as before indicated. The editor in 5 ABA Remand Nos. 3-4, Review of Capital Cases: Should Death Make a Difference?, at 1 (1990) stated: What is this mystery that men call death? The question broached by poet Jerome Bell is much on the minds of appellate judges these days. In state and federal circuits where the death penalty exists, judges are finding that capital cases impose extraordinary demands upon their time, their emotions and their intellectual resources. In the abstract, capital cases are like other forms of litigation. They require appellate courts to apply legal principles to facts found at the trial level. Yet these cases, where life hangs in the balance, are akin to the great cases described by Justice Holmes, where immediate interests exercise a kind of hydraulic pressure which makes what previously was clear seem doubtful, and before which even well settled principles of law will bend. Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 400-01 [24 S.Ct. 436, 468, 48 L.Ed. 679] (1904).[ [5] ] The significance occurs here not in contended omissions by very competent trial counsel, but in failure of appellate counsel on first appeal to present issues clearly developed in the trial. Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 109 S.Ct. 1038, 103 L.Ed.2d 308 (1989); Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 105 S.Ct. 830, 83 L.Ed.2d 821, reh'g denied 470 U.S. 1065, 105 S.Ct. 1783, 84 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985); Comment, Harris v. Reed: A New Look at Federal Habeas Jurisdiction Over State Petitioners, 58 Fordham L.Rev. 493 (1989). The finality of capital punishment mandates that states insure reasonable, rational and fair procedures when imposing it, State v. Bolder, 635 S.W.2d 673 (Mo. 1982), cert. denied 459 U.S. 1137, 103 S.Ct. 770, 74 L.Ed.2d 983 (1983) (citing Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929, reh'g denied 429 U.S. 875, 97 S.Ct. 198, 50 L.Ed.2d 158 (1976)), and adequate assistance of counsel constitutes the first constitutional requirement. Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 6, due process of law; Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10, right of accused to defend. See Goodpaster, The Trial for Life: Effective Assistance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, 58 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 299 (1983) and Comment, The Ohio Supreme Court's Move Toward Quality Control of Court-Appointed Counsel for Indigent Defendants Charged With Capital Offense Crimes, 21 Akron L.Rev. 503 (1988).