Opinion ID: 2454804
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defective Submission of MAI-CR3d 313.44A

Text: Deck raises the far more problematic claim that the defective submission of Instructions No. 8 and No. 13, the penalty phase instructions on the submission of mitigating circumstances, constituted plain error and violated his right to due process of law, to reliable sentencing, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment as guaranteed by the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, sections 10 and 21, of the Missouri Constitution. The defect was that the final two paragraphs of MAI-CR3d 313.44A, the pattern mitigating circumstances instruction, were inadvertently omitted from Instructions No. 8 and No. 13. That omission, as Deck maintains, created a reasonable likelihood that the jurors mistakenly believed they had to find the existence of any specific mitigating circumstance by unanimous vote. Instruction No. 8, as submitted to the jury, stated: INSTRUCTION NO. 8 As to Count I, if you unanimously find that the facts and circumstances in aggravation of punishment, taken as a whole, warrant the imposition of a sentence of death upon the defendant, you must then determine whether there are facts or circumstances in mitigation of punishment which are sufficient to outweigh the facts and circumstances in aggravation of punishment. In deciding this question, you may consider all of the evidence presented in both the guilt and the punishment stages of the trial. Instruction No. 13 was identical, except that it referred to Count III. The final two paragraphs of MAI-CR 3d 313.44A, which were omitted from the instructions in this case, read as follows: You shall also consider any (other) facts or circumstances which you find from the evidence in mitigation of punishment. It is not necessary that all jurors agree upon particular facts and circumstances in mitigation of punishment. If each juror determines that there are facts or circumstances in mitigation of punishment sufficient to outweigh the evidence in aggravation of punishment, then you must return a verdict fixing defendant's punishment at imprisonment for life by the Department of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole. Because Deck failed to object to these instructions at trial, this Court is asked to review for plain error. For instructional error to rise to the level of plain error, the trial court must have so misdirected or failed to instruct the jury so that it is apparent that the instructional error affected the verdict. State v. Doolittle, 896 S.W.2d 27, 29 (Mo. banc 1995). In a capital case, the sentencer may not be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor, any relevant circumstance that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death. Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 374, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988). This principle is violated if the jury is given an instruction that could reasonably be interpreted as precluding them from considering any mitigating evidence unless the jurors unanimously agree on the existence of such evidence. Id. at 384, 108 S.Ct. 1860. On the other hand, there is no constitutional requirement that the jury in a capital case be given any particular guidance as to how to undertake the discretionary sentencing decision. Buchanan v. Angelone, 522 U.S. 269, 118 S.Ct. 757, 761-62, 139 L.Ed.2d 702 (1998). The fallacy of Deck's argumentthat the jury was likely misled into believing that they had to find mitigating circumstances by unanimous voteis that it wrongly assumes that the omitted paragraph was necessary to comply with the holding in Mills. See State v. Petary, 790 S.W.2d 243 (Mo. banc 1990). Before MAI-CR 3d 313.44 was revised, effective January 1, 1989, the omitted paragraph was not part of the pattern instruction, and in its place, was a paragraph that read as follows: If you unanimously find that one or more mitigating circumstances exist sufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances found by you to exist, (then) (then, on Count ___) you must return a verdict fixing defendant's punishment at imprisonment for life by the Division of Corrections without eligibility for probation or parole. Like Instructions No. 8 and No. 13 in this case, the old version of the pattern instruction did not specifically advise the jurors that they need not unanimously find the existence of a particular mitigating facts or circumstances. Nonetheless, the old version, despite the alleged defect, survived essentially the same constitutional challenge under Mills that is now brought in this case. State v. Weaver, 912 S.W.2d 499, 518 (Mo. banc 1995); Petary, 790 S.W.2d at 245. Although the alleged defect in this case was the omission of the final paragraph of the instruction, rather than the inclusion of an allegedly defective paragraph in the old version of the instruction, the alleged defect is essentially the samethat both instructions purported to require unanimous votes on mitigating circumstances. The rationale of this Court's holding in Weaver and Petary is that when the instructions in question are considered in conjunction with all the other instructions, the jury is not misled. Id. Here, as in Weaver and Petary , additional explanatory instructions were submitted for both counts. Those instructions, No. 9 and No. 14, were based on MAI-CR 3d 313.46A and were identical except for reference to different counts. Instruction No. 9 stated: As to Count I, you are not compelled to fix death as the punishment even if you do not find the existence of facts and circumstances in mitigation of punishment sufficient to outweigh the facts and circumstances in aggravation of punishment. You must consider all the evidence in deciding whether to assess and declare the punishment at death. Whether that is to be your final decision rests with you. This Court observed in Petary that MAI-CR 3d 313.46A informs the jury, in unmistakable terms that it is never obliged to return death sentence. It has already been told that, in making this decision, it may consider any circumstances it finds in mitigation of punishment. It is clear that in making this final resolution each juror may consider any fact or circumstance which he or she considers sufficient to indicate mitigation, or, for that matter, a juror may vote against a death sentence without having a reason. Petary, 790 S.W.2d at 246. Because Instructions No. 9 and No. 14 were submitted along with Instructions No. 8 and No. 13, it was made clear to each juror that he or she was individually afforded the discretion to find mitigating circumstances, without unanimity with the other jurors, and vote against a death sentence on the basis of those individual findings alone. Furthermore, the possibility that the jurors were misled should be discounted even more by the fact that defense counsel argued forcefully in his closing that each juror had the individual right to vote for a sentence of life. Despite Deck's assertions, Instructions No. 8 and No. 13 explicitly require unanimity only in finding facts and circumstances in aggravation of punishment. There is no basis for reading that requirement into the rest of the instruction. In fact, it is all the more unlikely that the jurors perceived a unanimity requirement in this case, because there were no statutory mitigators submitted for their consideration. The instructions, as given and taken as a whole, effectively guided the jurors through the deliberation process as set out in sections 565.030 and 565.032, RSMo 1994, and there is no reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the challenged instructions in a way that prevented the consideration of mitigating circumstances. In a related argument, Deck contends that the jury was not instructed that they must return a verdict fixing punishment at imprisonment for life if the evidence in mitigation of punishment was sufficient to outweigh the evidence of aggravation of punishment, as required by section 565.030.4(3), RSMo 1994. We disagree. While it is true that Instructions No. 8 and No. 13 did not explicitly mandate the punishment at life imprisonment if the circumstances in mitigation outweighed the circumstances in aggravation, it was nonetheless clear from the other instructions that that result must follow because life imprisonment was the only sentencing alternative available. The point is denied.