Opinion ID: 1363816
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Francis v. Franklin

Text: Franklin was convicted of murder. He admitted the act of killing the victim, but he claimed accident, i.e., he denied that he intended to murder the victim. It is sufficient to state that there was significant evidence to support this contention. [2] The trial judge charged the jury on the issue of intent as follows: (1) `(t)he acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of a person's will, but the presumption may be rebutted' and (2) `(a) person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts, but the presumption may be rebutted.' 471 U. S., supra at p. ___, 105 SC, supra at p. 1968. A five-to-four majority of the Court in Franklin characterized this as a mandatory rebuttable presumption, as opposed to an irrebuttable or conclusive presumption such as that given in Sandstrom. Although the majority found the charge less onerous than the charge in Sandstrom, it found it no less unconstitutional because it relieves the State of the affirmative burden of persuasion on the presumed element by instructing the jury that it must find the presumed element unless the defendant persuades the jury not to make such a finding. Id. at pp. 1972-1973. The majority reached this conclusion notwithstanding the fact that the trial court, in another portion of the charge, instructed the jury that, there is no burden on the defendant to prove anything. Id. at pp. 1981-1982 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). Citing Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141 (94 SC 396, 38 LE2d 368) (1973), the majority did recognize that, [t]he jury charge taken as a whole might have explained the proper allocation of burdens with sufficient clarity that any ambiguity in the particular language challenged could not have been understood by a reasonable juror as shifting the burden of persuasion. 105 SC, supra at p. 1973. However, the majority held that other portions of the charge, even the instruction that a person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention, did not dissipate the error. As to the issue of criminal intention, the trial court instructed the jury, `[a] person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the trier of facts, that is, the Jury, may find criminal intention upon a consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted . . . Id. at p. 1974. On three occasions, the trial court also instructed the jury that, it could not base a finding of any element of the offense on circumstantial evidence unless the evidence `exclude(d) every other reasonable hypothesis, save that of the (accused's) guilt . . .' Id. at p. 1979 (Powell, J., dissenting). In holding that these portions of the charge did not clarify the ambiguity in the challenged language, the Court reasoned: It may well be that this ` criminal intention' instruction was not directed to the element of intent at all, but to another element of the Georgia crime of malice murder. The statutory definition of capital murder in Georgia requires malice aforethought. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-5-1 (1984) (formerly Ga. Code Ann. § 26-1101a (1978)). Under state law malice aforethought comprises two elements: intent to kill and the absence of provocation or justification. See Patterson v. State, 239 Ga. 409, 416-417 238 SE2d 2, 8 (1977); Lamb v. Jernigan, 683 F2d 1332, 1337 (CA11 1982) (interpreting Ga. Code Ann. § 16-5-1), cert. denied, 460 U. S. 1024 (1983). [3] At another point in the charge in this case, the trial court, consistently with this understanding of Georgia law, instructed the jury that malice is `the unlawful, deliberate intention to kill a human being without justification or mitigation or excuse.' . . . The statement `criminal intention may not be presumed' may well have been intended to instruct the jurors that they were not permitted to presume the absence of provocation or justification but that they could infer this conclusion from circumstantial evidence. 105 SC, supra at p. 1974. And, the majority held that, [e]ven if a reasonable juror could have understood the prohibition of presuming `criminal intention' as applying to the element of intent, that instruction did no more than contradict the instruction in the immediately preceding sentence. A reasonable juror could easily have resolved the contradiction in the instruction by choosing to abide by the mandatory presumption and ignore the prohibition of presumption .. . Language that merely contradicts and does not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice to absolve the infirmity. Id. at p. 1975. Finally, the majority noted its approval of the Court of Appeals' holding that the Sandstrom error in the case could not be deemed harmless. The thrust of the dissenting opinions, one of which was written by Justice Powell and another of which was written by Justice Rehnquist and concurred in by Chief Justice Burger and Justice O'Connor, was that the majority was incorrect in holding that the charge, when viewed as a whole, could have been understood by a reasonable juror as burden-shifting. Justice Powell described the majority holding, that a reasonable juror might have interpreted the trial court's instruction on criminal intent as not directed to the element of intent at all, as a strained interpretation that is neither logical nor justified. Id. at p. 1979 (Powell, J., dissenting). In Justice Rehnquist's words, this conclusion defies belief in view of the fact that this portion of the charge refers to intent and not to justification or provocation and in further view of the fact that at this point in the charge the jury had not been instructed on the two elements of malice. Id. at p. 1984 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). And, as further pointed out by Justice Rehnquist, the trial court also charged the jury that there was no burden on the defendant to disprove malice.