Opinion ID: 752168
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Jury Instructions on Mitigating Evidence

Text: 47 The court gave the following two instructions to the jury: 48 Mitigating circumstances are those which, in fairness and mercy, may be considered as extenuating or reducing the degree of moral culpability or blame. The determination of what are mitigating circumstances is for you as jurors to resolve under the facts and circumstances of this case. 49 Instruction No. 7, R. Vol. III at 153. 50 If you unanimously find that one or more of the aggravating circumstances existed beyond a reasonable doubt and you find mitigating circumstances exist, you must unanimously find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances before imposing the penalty of death. 51 Instruction No. 10, Id. at 156. Mr. Castro argues those instructions permitted one or more jurors to believe that they must find the existence of mitigating circumstances unanimously, in contravention of Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 384, 108 S.Ct. 1860, 1870, 100 L.Ed.2d 384 (1988). Mr. Castro also argues that, because Oklahoma does not require capital sentencing juries to reduce to writing the mitigating circumstances it finds, meaningful state, and presumably federal, appellate review is impossible. 9 Mr. Castro raised this issue on direct appeal, and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected it on its merits, stating: 52 [T]his Court has recently held that Mills is not applicable under Oklahoma law. In the case at bar, the jury was not instructed that it must unanimously agree on the mitigating circumstances. We also find that to require the jury to memorialize that which it considers to be mitigation would run afoul of Mills; a reasonable juror could interpret that requirement to be that each mitigating circumstance had to be unanimous as is required for the aggravators. 53 Castro, 844 P.2d at 176 (citing Stiles v. State, 829 P.2d 984, 997 (Okla.Crim.App.1992)). 54 In Mills and McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 440, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 1232, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990), the Supreme Court held that a unanimity requirement concerning mitigating circumstances resulted in an unconstitutional death sentence. Duvall, 131 F.3d at 930. As we stated in Duvall, Mills and McKoy do not mandate that a trial court expressly instruct a capital sentencing jury that unanimity is not required before each juror can consider a particular mitigating circumstance. Id. Rather, the proper inquiry ... is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction in a way that prevents the consideration of constitutionally relevant evidence. Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 1198, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990). 55 We upheld against an identical challenge the following similar instructions in Duvall: Instruction No. 7 56 Mitigating circumstances are those which, in fairness and mercy, may be considered as extenuating or reducing the degree of moral culpability or blame. The determination of what are mitigating circumstances is for you as Jurors to resolve under the facts and circumstances of this case. 57 .... Instruction No. 9 58 If you unanimously find that one or more of the aggravating circumstances existed beyond a reasonable doubt, unless you also unanimously find that any such aggravating circumstance or circumstances outweigh the finding of one or more mitigating circumstances, the Death Penalty shall not be imposed. 59 Duvall, 131 F.3d at 930. We reach the same result here. Read fairly, there was no reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the challenged instructions in a way that prevented it from considering constitutionally relevant evidence, or as requiring that the jury find mitigating circumstances unanimously. The instructions did not preclude any of the jurors from giving effect to all of the mitigating circumstances in Mr. Castro's favor. Id. at 931. 10 60 With respect to the instruction which did not require the jury to reduce to writing any mitigating circumstances, the Oklahoma courts have explicitly upheld the validity of that instruction on several occasions. See, e.g., Harjo v. State, 882 P.2d 1067, 1081 (Okla.Crim.App.1994); Paxton v. State, 867 P.2d 1309, 1326 (Okla.Crim.App.1993) (The absence of a list of mitigating evidence found by the jury has in no way hampered [effective appellate] review.). We implicitly upheld it in Duvall. 131 F.3d at 930-31. We accordingly affirm the district court's determination that the jury instructions concerning mitigating circumstances were proper.