Opinion ID: 2069959
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: Nature and Use of Aggravating and Mitigating Circumstances Instruction

Text: Johnson next asserts that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the trial court's jury instruction on the nature and use of mitigating circumstances. [10] The instruction about which Johnson complains was as follows: The sentence you impose will depend on whether you find any of the things that the Pennsylvania Sentencing Code calls aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Loosely speaking, aggravating circumstances are things about the killing and the killer which make a first degree murder case more terrible and deserving of the death penalty, while mitigating circumstances are those things which make the case less terrible and less deserving of death. Sentencing N.T. 11/26/97, page 909. Johnson maintains that this instruction impermissibly diverted the focus of the jury's life or death deliberation from a reasoned determination as to [Johnson's] personal culpability, to an amorphous and unguided consideration of how terrible `the case' was. Brief of Johnson, page 86. We addressed this exact claim in Commonwealth v. Stevens, 559 Pa. 171, 739 A.2d 507 (1999). We discussed and rejected the contention in Stevens as follows: Appellant claims that previous counsel was ineffective for not challenging the instruction of the trial court concerning the purpose of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital cases. Specifically, Appellant complains that the following portion of the instruction of the trial court interfered with the determination of the jury of Appellant's personal moral culpability for these murders: [t]he Sentencing Code defines aggravating and mitigating circumstances. There [sic] are things that make a first degree murder case either more terrible or less terrible. According to Appellant, the use of the word terrible, in conjunction with the use of the word case, improperly distracted the jury from consideration of Appellant's mitigation evidence by drawing their attention to a generalized conception of the `case.' When reviewing a challenge to a part of a jury instruction, an appellate court must review the jury charge as a whole to determine if it is fair and complete. A trial court has broad discretion in phrasing its charge and can choose its own wording so long as the law is clearly, adequately, and accurately presented to the jury for its consideration. Appellant ignores an earlier instruction by the trial court regarding the function of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, where the court stated: Now, the sentence that you impose will depend on whether you find any of the things that the Pennsylvania Sentencing Code calls aggravating or mitigating circumstances. Loosely speaking, aggravating circumstances are things about the killing and the killer which make a first degree murder case more terrible and deserving of the death penalty, while mitigating circumstances are those things which make the case less terrible and less deserving of the death penalty. We do not find that the instructions of the trial court, as a whole, interfered with the jury's evaluation of the specific mitigation evidence presented by Appellant or their assessment of his personal moral culpability. These instructions merely expressed to the jury, in laymen's terms, the purpose for the distinction between aggravating and mitigating circumstances in a capital penalty phase. Id. at 526-527 (internal citations omitted). Therefore, trial counsel in the case sub judice was not ineffective for failing to object to the jury instruction.