Opinion ID: 2486030
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Endemic Racism

Text: In this assignment of error, defendant contends the presence of a confederate flag memorial outside of the courthouse in Caddo Parish injects an arbitrary factor-race-into the capital sentencing decision. [8] Defendant argues this Court should, as a matter of greater protection afforded by state law, reject the burden of proof in McCleskey v. Kemp , which requires a defendant to establish specific evidence of discriminatory intent beyond discriminatory effect before being entitled to relief. 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987). Defendant admits he cannot prove the confederate flag memorial was placed outside the courthouse with the intent to interpose racial considerations, to both intimidate prospective black jurors and prime white jurors to impose the death penalty, into his specific case. However, he argues it was placed there to remind all persons who approach the courthouse of an era when lynching and enslavement of blacks was permitted by law. Defendant emphasizes one prospective juror, Carl Staples, indicated he could not serve on a jury in a courthouse with a confederate display nearby. [9] Finally, defendant asserts his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of law was violated by state and parish sponsorship of this display. Defendant alleges the land on which the display currently sits and an additional $10,000 was donated to the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1903 by the Caddo Parish Police Jury, and the property and display is currently maintained by the parish. Defendant argues a discriminatory intent may be inferred from: (1) the display of the confederate battle flag; (2) the ideology of the Daughters of the Confederacy, which defendant characterizes as an all-female, white supremacy group with close ties to the Ku Klux Klan; and (3) the timing of the addition of the flag to the memorial in 1951 at the dawn of the civil rights movement. The state argues there was no objection made at trial on this basis and therefore, defendant has made numerous allegations that are outside the record, have not been tested by the adversarial process, and which the state has had no opportunity to rebut in the district court. Although this Court can likely take judicial notice that the display of a confederate flag would be offensive to some, [10] defendant did not raise an objection on this or any other related basis in the court below and is raising these concerns for the first time on appeal. Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure article 841(A) provides: An irregularity or error cannot be availed of after verdict unless it was objected to at the time of occurrence. A bill of exceptions to rulings or orders is unnecessary. It is sufficient that a party, at the time the ruling or order of the court is made or sought, makes known to the court the action which he desires the court to take, or of his objections to the action of the court, and the grounds therefor. In Segura v. Frank, this Court noted, [t]he general rule is that appellate courts will not consider issues raised for the first time on appeal. 93-1271, p. 15 (La.1/14/94); 630 So.2d 714, 725 (citing Fried v. Bradley, 219 La. 59, 87, 52 So.2d 247, 257 (1950) (cases cited therein)). This Court has consistently emphasized the goal of the contemporaneous objection rule of La.C.Cr.P. art. 841(A), to promote judicial efficiency by preventing a defendant from gambling for a favorable verdict and then, upon conviction, resorting to appeal on errors which either could have been avoided or corrected at the time or should have put an immediate halt to the proceedings is just as valid in the penalty phase as in the guilt phase. State v. Cooks, 97-0999, p. 21 (La.9/9/98); 720 So.2d 637, 649 (quoting State v. Taylor, 93-2201, p. 7 (La.2/28/96); 669 So.2d 364, 368). In State v. Wessinger, this Court held a contemporaneous objection is required to preserve review of errors in both phases of a capital trial. 98-1234, pp. 19-20 (La.5/28/99); 736 So.2d 162, 180-81. However, [i]n the event that an error that warranted reversal was not objected to contemporaneously in the trial court, that error will be discovered during our mandatory direct review. 98-1234 at 20, 736 So.2d at 181. Since defendant failed to raise an objection regarding the confederate flag memorial in the district court, we find his claims regarding endemic racism are not properly before the Court. La.C.Cr.P. art. 841; Segura, 93-1271 at 15, 630 So.2d at 725; cf. United States v. Williams, 504 U.S. 36, 41, 112 S.Ct. 1735, 1738, 118 L.Ed.2d 352 (1992) (Our traditional rule, as the dissent correctly notes, precludes a grant of certiorari only when the question presented was not pressed or passed on below.). Moreover, defendant virtually concedes his claim must fail under McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987). In McCleskey, the defendant attacked Georgia's capital sentencing scheme based on the Baldus study, a famous statistical analysis of over 2,000 murder cases in Georgia in the 1970's conducted by Professor David Baldus. The statistics purport to show a disparity in the imposition of the death sentence in Georgia based on the race of the murder victim and, to a lesser extent, the race of the defendant. 481 U.S. at 286, 107 S.Ct. at 1764. The defendant in McCleskey argued the Baldus study shows black defendants, such as McCleskey, who kill white victims have the greatest likelihood of receiving the death penalty. 481 U.S. at 287, 107 S.Ct. at 1764. In considering McCleskey's equal protection claim, the Supreme Court conceded it has accepted statistics as proof of intent to discriminate in certain limited contexts, such as the selection of jury venires, or in Title VII civil rights actions. 481 U.S. at 293-94, 107 S.Ct. at 1767-68. Nevertheless, the Court held: But the nature of the capital sentencing decision, and the relationship of the statistics to that decision, are fundamentally different from the corresponding elements in the venire-selection or Title VII cases. . . . [E]ach particular decision to impose the death penalty is made by a petit jury selected from a properly constituted venire. Each jury is unique in its composition, and the Constitution requires that its decision rest on consideration of innumerable factors that vary according to the characteristics of the individual defendant and the facts of the particular capital offense. 481 U.S. at 294, 107 S.Ct. at 1768 (citations omitted). Consequently, the Court found applying an inference drawn from the general statistics to a specific decision in a trial and sentencing is not comparable to applying an inference drawn from general statistics to a specific venire-selection or a Title VII case. 481 U.S. at 294-95, 107 S.Ct. at 1768. According to the Court, the Baldus study only shows a discrepancy in sentences that appears to correlate with race, which is an inevitable part of our criminal justice system. 481 U.S. at 312, 107 S.Ct. at 1778. In light of the safeguards designed to minimize racial bias in the process, the fundamental value of jury trial in our criminal justice system and the benefits that discretion provides to criminal defendants, the Court found the Baldus study does not demonstrate a constitutionally significant risk of racial bias affecting the Georgia capital sentencing process. 481 U.S. at 313, 107 S.Ct. at 1778. The Court also pointed out the venire-selection and Title VII cases provide the decision maker with an opportunity to explain the statistical disparity, whereas in McCleskey's case the state had no practical opportunity to rebut the Baldus study. 481 U.S. at 296, 107 S.Ct. at 1769. Moreover, the Court held [b]ecause discretion is essential to the criminal justice process, we would demand exceptionally clear proof before we would infer that the discretion has been abused. 481 U.S. at 297, 107 S.Ct. at 1770. Thus, the Court concluded the Baldus study was clearly insufficient to support an inference that any of the decisionmakers in McCleskey's case acted with discriminatory purpose. Id. More pertinent to the present case, McCleskey argued the state of Georgia as a whole had acted with a discriminatory purpose by adopting the capital punishment statute and allowing it to remain in force despite its allegedly discriminatory application. The Supreme Court, however, held discriminatory purpose implies the decision maker selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least partly because of, not merely in spite of its adverse effects on an identifiable group. Thus, for McCleskey's claim to prevail, McCleskey had to prove the Georgia Legislature enacted or maintained the death penalty statute because of an anticipated racially discriminatory effect. 481 U.S. at 298, 107 S.Ct. at 1770. To the contrary, the Court found no evidence the Georgia Legislature enacted the capital punishment statute to further a racially discriminatory purpose. Similarly, in the present case, even conceding Caddo Parish placed the confederate memorial outside the district courthouse at the turn of the century, refurbishing and reaffirming it half a century later with the confederate battle flag, defendant has made no showing the parish currently maintains the memorial because of the adverse affect it would have on the administration of the criminal justice system with respect to black defendants. Defendant also failed to show the memorial creates an environment giving rise to a constitutionally significant and unacceptable risk that one or more of the jurors in his case acted with discriminatory intent in returning his or her verdict, particularly at the sentencing stage of the proceedings, on the basis of his color and not on the moral culpability of his acts and his individual character.