Opinion ID: 2625939
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 16

Heading: Does the Sixth Amendment Require the Jury to Make Enmund Tison Findings in Capital Felony Murder Cases?

Text: ¶ 97 In cases of first degree felony murder convictions, an Enmund-Tison finding must be made to satisfy the Eighth Amendment's proportionality standard. Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137, 107 S.Ct. 1676, 95 L.Ed.2d 127 (1987); Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982). In Arizona, the trial judge makes this finding. See State v. Greenway, 170 Ariz. 155, 171, 823 P.2d 22, 38 (1991). The defendants argue that Ring II requires that Enmund-Tison findings be made by a jury. We hold that the Sixth Amendment principles of Apprendi/Ring do not require a jury to make Enmund-Tison findings. ¶ 98 The Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause prohibits all punishments which by their excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offenses charged. [30] Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 371, 30 S.Ct. 544, 551, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910) (quoting O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 339-40, 12 S.Ct. 693, 699-700, 36 L.Ed. 450 (1892) (Field, J., dissenting)). In capital punishment terms, the Eighth Amendment requires courts to consider carefully death sentences imposed on defendants convicted of felony murder. In Enmund v. Florida and Tison v. Arizona , the Supreme Court imposed Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment restraints in capital felony murder cases. The Court held that Eighth Amendment principles forbid a state from sentencing to death a defendant who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place or that lethal force will be employed. Enmund, 458 U.S. at 797, 102 S.Ct. at 3376. Five years later, in Tison, the Court refined its prior decision by holding that major participation in the felony committed, combined with reckless indifference to human life, is sufficient to satisfy the Enmund culpability requirement. 481 U.S. at 158, 107 S.Ct. at 1688. ¶ 99 The Supreme Court already has addressed the question whether a jury must make Enmund-Tison findings. In Cabana v. Bullock, the Court held that the federal constitution does not require a jury to determine a defendant's level of culpability in capital felony murder cases. 474 U.S. 376, 385, 106 S.Ct. 689, 696, 88 L.Ed.2d 704 (1986). Foreshadowing its recent Sixth Amendment decisions, the Court distinguished Enmund from the statutorily defined elements of a substantive offense at issue in Apprendi: [O]ur ruling in Enmund does not concern the guilt or innocence of the defendantit establishes no new elements of the crime of murder that must be found by the jury. Rather, as the Fifth Circuit itself has recognized, Enmund does not affect the state's definition of any substantive offense, even a capital offense. Enmund holds only that the principles of proportionality embodied in the Eighth Amendment bar imposition of the death penalty upon a class of persons who may nonetheless be guilty of the crime of capital murder as defined by state law: that is, the class of murderers who did not themselves kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill. Id. (citation and footnote omitted)(emphasis added). ¶ 100 We conclude that this distinction withstands Apprendi and Ring II. Enmund-Tison findings affect sentencing very differently than do findings of aggravating circumstances. Even if a jury is satisfied that the state has established all statutory elements for capital felony murder, including aggravating circumstances, the judge must remove the defendant from the class of defendants otherwise death-eligible if she cannot make Enmund-Tison findings. The question is not whether the state has met its burden but whether, given a defendant's culpable mental state, the government can impose capital punishment consistent with the Eighth Amendment's proportionality threshold. That determination involves not a Sixth Amendment jury trial right but rather an Eighth Amendment proportionality analysis, traditionally the prerogative of the judge. As the Cabana Court stated: [T]he decision whether a sentence is so disproportionate as to violate the Eighth Amendment in any particular case, like other questions bearing on whether a criminal defendant's constitutional rights have been violated, has long been viewed as one that a trial judge or an appellate court is fully competent to make. Id. at 386, 106 S.Ct. at 697. ¶ 101 The difference between aggravating circumstances as substantive elements of a greater offense and the Enmund-Tison findings as a restraint on capital sentencing dictates our decision that Apprendi/Ring does not require these findings to be made by the jury. Id. The Sixth Amendment assigns to the jury responsibility for determining whether all statutory criminal elements exist. Therefore, a defendant cannot receive a particular sentence unless a jury finds all the elements of the offense charged. Id. at 384, 106 S.Ct. at 696 (citing Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 88 S.Ct. 1444, 20 L.Ed.2d 491 (1968)). The Enmund-Tison findings, on the other hand, operate as a judicially crafted instrument used to measure proportionality between a defendant's criminal culpability and the sentence imposed. These two rules of law are conceptually and constitutionally distinct. We hold that the Sixth Amendment does not require that a jury, rather than a judge, make Enmund-Tison findings.