Opinion ID: 77264
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Improper Statements During Death-Qualification

Text: 96 Brown also says the district judge improperly told jurors during voir dire that the death sentence would be appropriate unless there were mitigating factors weighing in favor of a life sentence. Furthermore, Brown urges that the district court inappropriately indicated to jurors during voir dire that they may consider mitigating factors (as opposed to telling them they had to consider mitigating factors). Brown did not object to these questions during voir dire, and we therefore review this issue only for plain error. See United States v. Massey, 89 F.3d 1433, 1442 (11th Cir.1996) (failure to object to jury instructions reviewed for plain error). Under plain error review, we may not correct an error the defendant failed to raise in the district court unless there is: (1) error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affects substantial rights. United States v. Rodriguez, 398 F.3d 1291, 1298 (11th Cir.2005) (quotation marks omitted). If all three conditions are met, we may then exercise our discretion to notice a forfeited error, but only if (4) the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. (quotation marks omitted). 97 The district court conducted individual voir dire with potential jurors in an effort to death qualify the panel. In Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992), the Supreme Court reiterated that the proper standard for determining when a prospective juror may be excluded for cause because of his or her views on capital punishment is whether the juror's views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath. Id. at 728, 112 S.Ct. 2222 (quotation marks and alterations omitted). A juror who could never vote for capital punishment, regardless of the court's instructions, or a juror who would automatically vote for the death penalty in every case, should be stricken for cause. Id. at 728-29, 112 S.Ct. 2222. 98 The district court conducted the necessary voir dire in this case, excusing for cause those jurors whose views would prevent or substantially impair their performance, particularly those who had predetermined their death penalty vote. Brown complains that in the process of doing so, the district judge misstated the law, implying to jurors that the death penalty was the appropriate punishment unless the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating factors. Brown provides several examples of this claimed error that occurred during the questioning of panel members who were eventually placed on the jury, the most egregious of which were: 99 Question posed to venireman Little: If you decide that there is sufficient mitigating evidence, mitigating meaning less, or something that lessens the impact, could you vote for life imprisonment without benefit of parole? 100 Question posed to venirewoman Brewer: And if you were convinced that there were mitigating circumstances that made life imprisonment without benefit of parole the more appropriate sentence, could you vote for that? 101 Brown maintains that the same error occurred with respect to seven other members of the jury, although the two examples noted above are the most explicit. 102 The Federal Death Penalty Act makes clear that a jury must consider both aggravating and mitigating factors at the penalty stage of the trial. But, as the statute makes abundantly clear, a jury need not find a mitigating factor in order to impose a non-death sentence: 103 [T]he jury ... shall consider whether all the aggravating factor or factors found to exist sufficiently outweigh all the mitigating factor or factors found to exist to justify a sentence of death, or, in the absence of a mitigating factor, whether the aggravating factor or factors alone are sufficient to justify a sentence of death. 104 18 U.S.C. § 3593(e) (emphasis added). The district judge's questions during voir dire were not to the contrary. The court never told a venireperson that he could impose a life sentence if and only if he found a mitigating circumstance justifying a non-death sentence. Rather, the trial judge simply asked, as he was required to do, whether the prospective juror could impose a life sentence if he felt that was the punishment warranted. 105 The district judge's questions may have been inartfully worded. However, there are several large, inferential leaps between the district judge's question asking whether a juror could impose a life sentence and the juror's conclusion that he would be permitted to impose a life sentence if and only if he found the existence of a mitigating factor. Moreover, any juror who actually drew that attenuated conclusion — and there is no evidence that any did — was later given explicit jury instructions that correctly stated the law. There was no error, plain or otherwise. 106 But, even if there were plain error, it did not affect Brown's substantial rights because the district judge explicitly corrected the purported error when he gave the jury the following instruction before they began their deliberations: 107 you are to determine whether the aggravating factors found to exist sufficiently outweigh the mitigating factors; or, in the absence of mitigating factors whether the aggravating factors alone are sufficient to support a finding that a sentence of death be imposed[. R]egardless of your findings with respect to aggravating and mitigating factors, however, you individually or collectively are never required to recommend a sentence of death. 108 This instruction plainly told the jury that it could impose a life sentence even if it found no mitigating factors and explicitly made clear that a jury is never required to impose a death sentence. A curative instruction purges the taint of a prejudicial remark because a jury is presumed to follow jury instructions. United States v. Simon, 964 F.2d 1082, 1087 (11th Cir. 1992) (quotation marks omitted). See also United States v. Noone, 913 F.2d 20, 35 (1st Cir.1990) (finding that a misleading question in voir dire was cured by proper jury instructions and therefore did not result in manifest injustice under a plain error analysis). 11