Opinion ID: 1036479
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: jury-override claim

Text: Lee’s next argument is that the state trial court’s death sentence, overriding the jury’s recommendation of life without parole, violated Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 132 S. Ct. 2428 (2002). The Supreme Court in Ring concluded that under the Sixth Amendment “[c]apital defendants, no less than noncapital 48 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 49 of 128 defendants, . . . are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in their maximum punishment.” Id. at 589, 122 S. Ct. at 2432. Lee contends that his death sentence is unconstitutional under Ring because the state trial judge in his case, not the jury: (1) found the specific aggravating fact that authorized the death penalty; and (2) concluded that the aggravating fact outweighed the mitigating circumstances.
The state appellate court rejected Lee’s claim that the trial judge improperly overrode the jury’s sentencing recommendation. Lee I, 898 So. 2d at 858. First, the state appellate court noted that “[t]hese arguments have previously been decided adversely to” Lee in Harris v. Alabama, 513 U.S. 504, 115 S. Ct. 1031 (1995), which upheld as constitutional Alabama’s sentencing regime permitting the trial judge alone to impose a capital sentence. Lee I, 898 So. 2d at 857. Second, the state appellate court observed that both it and the Alabama Supreme Court had already held in other cases that the Supreme Court’s later decision in Ring did not invalidate Alabama’s sentencing law. The state appellate court further observed the Alabama courts had recognized “the narrowness” of the Ring holding, stating: “[t]he Ring Court held that any aggravating circumstance that increased a sentence to death must be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt; however, we noted that the Ring Court did not reach the question whether 49 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 50 of 128 judicial sentencing or judicial override was constitutional.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Third, the state appellate court pointed out that the state trial judge had found that one aggravating circumstance existed—Lee committed the capital offenses while he was engaged in the commission of an attempted robbery. The state appellate court reasoned that “[b]ecause the jury convicted [Lee] of the capital offense of robbery-murder, that statutory aggravating circumstance was proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 858. Therefore, the state appellate court found that in Lee’s case “the jury, and not the judge, determined the existence of the ‘aggravating circumstance necessary for imposition of the death penalty.’” Id. Thus, the state appellate court concluded that the judge’s death sentence did not violate Ring v. Arizona. Id.
We can easily dispose of Lee’s claim in light of the narrowness of the Supreme Court’s holding in Ring. As the state appellate court in Lee I concluded, the jury’s guilty verdict on the capital offense of robbery-murder established the existence of an aggravating circumstance sufficient to support a death sentence. In Alabama, a statutory aggravating circumstance is that “[t]he capital offense was committed while the defendant was engaged or was an accomplice in the commission of, or an attempt to commit . . . robbery.” Ala. Code § 13A-5-49(4). 50 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 51 of 128 In the guilt phase, the jury convicted Lee of the capital offense of “[m]urder by the defendant during a robbery in the first degree or an attempt thereof committed by the defendant.” Ala. Code § 13A-5-40(a)(2). A jury’s guilt-phase finding of conviction under § 13A-5-40(a)(2) necessarily includes a finding that the aggravating circumstance in § 13A-5-49(4) is present. Alabama statute requires interpreting the jury verdict in this manner. See Ala. Code § 13A-5-45(e) (“[A]ny aggravating circumstance which the verdict convicting the defendant establishes was proven beyond a reasonable doubt at trial shall be considered as proven beyond a reasonable doubt for purposes of the sentencing hearing.”). Nothing in Ring—or any other Supreme Court decision—forbids the use of an aggravating circumstance implicit in a jury’s verdict. Indeed, Ring itself specifically left open and did not decide the question of whether the aggravator used to impose a death sentence could be implicit in the jury’s verdict. See Ring, 536 U.S. at 609 n.7, 122 S. Ct. at 2443 n.7 (“We do not reach the State’s assertion that any error was harmless because a pecuniary gain finding was implicit in the jury’s guilty verdict.”). Furthermore, Ring does not foreclose the ability of the trial judge to find the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances. As the Ring Court also made clear, it was not deciding whether the Sixth Amendment: (1) required the jury to make findings as to mitigating circumstances; (2) required the 51 Case: 12-14421 Date Filed: 08/01/2013 Page: 52 of 128 jury to make the ultimate determination as to whether to impose the death penalty; or (3) forbade the state court from reweighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Id. at 597 n.4, 122 S. Ct. at 2437 n.4. The holding of Ring is narrow: the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of jury trials requires that the finding of an aggravating circumstance that is necessary to imposition of the death penalty must be found by a jury. That occurred in Lee’s case by virtue of the jury’s capital robbery-murder verdict. Ring goes no further, and Lee points to no Supreme Court precedent that has extended Ring’s holding to forbid the aggravating circumstance being implicit in the jury’s verdict or to require that the jury weigh the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Accordingly, we must conclude that the state appellate court’s decision is not contrary to or an unreasonable application of Ring, and Lee is not entitled to habeas relief on this claim.