Opinion ID: 2555770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Jury Instruction on Aggravating and Mitigating Factors as Affecting Terribleness

Text: Appellant's next four issues, i.e., Issues 7-10, are related to various aspects of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances presented, or not presented, during the penalty phase of Appellant's trial. In Issue 7, Appellant challenges one sentence of the trial court's jury instruction generally explaining the concept of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. [A]ggravating circumstances are things about the killing or the killer which make first degree murderwhich make a first degree murder case more terrible and deserving of the penalty; while mitigating circumstances are those things which make the case less terrible and less deserving of death. N.T. Penalty Phase, 5/15/96, at 1619 (cited in Appellant's Brief at 73) (emphasis added). Appellant contends that this instruction's focus on `terribleness' produced an arbitrary and capricious sentence based upon passion and prejudice [and that] the `less terrible' instruction substantively impaired the jury's consideration of mitigating evidence. Appellant's Brief at 73. Appellant further asserts that counsel was ineffective for agreeing to the above portion of the instruction and for failing to raise the matter on direct appeal. Id. at 74. The PCRA court points out that the challenged instruction was, at the time of trial in 1996, part of a Pennsylvania suggested standard criminal jury instruction. [22] PCRA Court Opinion at 57. Appellant acknowledges that this Court has repeatedly rejected challenges to this instruction, and that he is presenting it to preserve it for future review. Appellant's Brief at 74. As Appellant correctly notes, this Court has, indeed, consistently rejected challenges to inclusion of the concept of terribleness in the instruction regarding aggravating and mitigating circumstances. See Commonwealth v. Washington, 592 Pa. 698, 927 A.2d 586, 613-14 (2007) (rejecting the appellant's assertion that the instruction improperly restricted the weight afforded mitigating factors that did not affect the terribleness of the offense); Commonwealth v. Marinelli, 589 Pa. 682, 910 A.2d 672, 687 (2006) (Opinion Announcing the Judgment of the Court) (rejecting the appellant's assertion that the description of circumstances as `more terrible or less terrible' diverted the focus of the jury's life or death deliberation from a reasoned determination as to the defendant's personal culpability to an amorphous and unguided consideration of how `terrible' `the case' was); Commonwealth v. Johnson, 572 Pa. 283, 815 A.2d 563, 588 (2002) (concluding that the 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); Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 567 Pa. 310, 787 A.2d 292, 308 (2001) (concluding that a jury instruction defining aggravating and mitigating circumstances, respectively, as things that make first degree murder cases either more or less terrible was not amorphous or unguided because instructions must be read in their entirety and because the court also gave detailed instructions as to each aggravating and mitigating circumstance); Commonwealth v. Saranchak, 544 Pa. 158, 675 A.2d 268, 276-77 (1996) (holding a jury instruction proper that defined aggravating and mitigating circumstances, respectively, as things that make a first degree murder case more or less terrible, and noting that the instruction was in conformity with the Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Criminal Jury Instructions). Based on this Court's ample precedent, Appellant's claims in this issue are meritless.