Opinion ID: 1219827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Penalty Phase of Wilson's Trial

Text: Proper assessment of the purported errors on which the majority relies requires a fuller presentation of the background facts regarding Wilson's sentencing hearing. The penalty phase of Ronell Wilson's trial, conducted before the same jury that convicted him of five capital crimes, lasted for nine days, involved some forty witnesses, and encompassed nearly 1800 pages of trial transcript. The Federal Death Penalty Act required the government to prove at least one threshold culpability factor and one statutory aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt before Wilson was eligible for the death penalty. 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c), (e). The government relied on trial evidence alone to prove four threshold culpability factors, [1] two statutory aggravating factors, and two additional non-statutory aggravating factors. [2] The government's penalty phase evidence thus focused on its remaining non-statutory aggravating factors: that Wilson had caused loss, injury, and harm to the victims and their families; and that he represented a continuing danger to the lives and safety of other persons. The government called ten victim impact witnesses, among them Maryanne Andrews, Detective Andrews's ex-wife; sixteen year old Christian Andrews, one of Detective Andrews's two sons; Rose Nemorin, Detective Nemorin's widow and the mother of his three children; and Detective Nemorin's sister, Marie-Jean Nemorin. The government introduced an additional seventeen witnesses and many exhibits attesting to Wilson's violent past, which began early in childhood, as well as his ongoing membership and leadership role in the Bloods and his continuing violent behavior in custody after being arrested for the murders of Detectives Andrews and Nemorin. The Federal Death Penalty Act provides that the defense may, if it wishes, ask the jury during the penalty phase to find specific mitigating factors, which must be shown by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. § 3593(c). Wilson identified eighteen such factors for the jury to consider. Wilson presented thirteen witnesses during his defense case, including his mother, Cheryl Wilson; his father, Robert Earl Barnes; and his sister, Depetra Wilson. The defense also introduced numerous exhibits, including dozens of photographs of Wilson as a child and many documents depicting aspects of his troubled upbringing, which was the principal focus of the defense's mitigation case. Other defense evidence purported to show that Wilson had adjusted to federal prison and would not be a danger in the future if spared the death penalty. Without taking the stand, Wilson himself read a prepared, unsworn statement to the jury that expressed remorse for his crimes. [3] At the close of the evidence, the jurors were instructed that they were called upon to make a unique, individualized judgment about the appropriateness of imposing the death penalty. Tr. 1743. Each juror was instructed to weigh the aggravating factors that all jurors had agreed on unanimously against any mitigating factors that the individual juror believed to be present. The jurors were then instructed to determine whether they unanimously concluded that the aggravating factors sufficiently outweighed any mitigating factors or, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, whether the aggravating factors by themselves justified a sentence of death. Id. at 1741. Wilson's jury was specifically instructed that no jury is ever required to impose the death penalty and that the jury may decline to do so without giving a reason for that decision. Id. Urged by the court to give careful and thorough consideration to all the evidence, id. at 1724, the jurors deliberated for over a day and half. The jury agreed unanimously that the government had established each of its four threshold culpability factors and the six aggravating factors upon which it relied beyond a reasonable doubt. The jurors also agreed unanimously that Wilson had established thirteen mitigating factors by a preponderance of the evidence, and that one additional factor was present which the jury itself identified. [4] No juror concluded that Wilson had established, as he attempted, that he felt remorse for his crimes, that he had accepted responsibility for them, or that he had adjusted well to federal prison. The jury unanimously voted to sentence Wilson to death on each of the five capital counts.