Opinion ID: 1699278
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 24

Heading: The trial court erred when it sustained State objections to questions posed to defendant's relatives at the penalty phase.

Text: Defendant claims the trial court erred when it sustained State objections during the penalty phase after defense counsel asked defendant's mother and sister if they wanted the jury to spare his life. The trial court agreed with the State's assessment that the questions were inappropriate and appealed to the passion, sympathy and prejudice of the jury. Defendant contends these rulings prevented jurors from considering his family members' pleas for his life and thus all mitigating evidence relevant to his case. The State's objections appear rooted on the jurisprudential restraints placed on its opportunity to present evidence from members of the victim's family about the appropriate penalty for the defendant's actions. Although the Eighth Amendment does not preclude the State from offering some limited victim impact testimony from members of the victim's family, Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991), it does preclude the State from introducing the opinions of those family members that the defendant should die for his crime. Id., 501 U.S. at 831, 111 S.Ct. 2597, n2 (permissible victim-impact evidence does not include the admission of a victim's family members' characterizations and opinions about the crime, the defendant, and the appropriate sentence....); State v. Bernard, 608 So.2d 966, 970 (La.1992) (Evidence of the victim's survivors' opinions about the crime and the murderer is clearly irrelevant to any issues in a capital sentencing hearing.). At least from the State's perspective, the converse of that rule should also follow: members of the defendant's family should not have an opportunity to express their opinions about the crime and the offender. Concerns for an even playing field must yield to the defendant's constitutional right to present any relevant mitigation evidence. While the Eighth Amendment allows the State to present only a limited amount of victim impact evidence, carefully circumscribed in scope, [u]nder the aegis of the Eighth Amendment [the Supreme Court has] given the broadest latitude to the defendant to introduce relevant mitigating circumstances reflecting on his individual personality, and the defendant's attorney may argue that evidence to the jury. Payne, 501 U.S. at 826-27, 111 S.Ct. 2597. Given the breadth of the defendant's Eighth Amendment right to present any and all relevant mitigating evidence, it would be a difficult rule of law to enforce that the defendant's family members may restate in exacting detail the extenuating circumstances in the defendant's background and yet not express their conclusion based on that evidence that the defendant should live despite the severity of his crime. Nonetheless, while the trial court may have erred when it sustained the State's objections, we find it had no effect on the jury's verdict and was thus harmless. Jurors certainly inferred that if permitted to respond to counsel's questions, defendant's mother and sister would have expressed their desire that he not receive the death penalty. Cf. Taylor, 669 So.2d at 371 (Assuming that testimony indicating victim's family had no sympathy for defendant should not have been admitted, the error was harmless as such evidence certainly would come as no surprise to a member of the jury). As a result, this argument lacks merit.