Court Opinion

ID: 9630567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:14:20.733139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:16.702676
License: Public Domain

STUMBO, Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I must dissent from the majority opinion. My primary disagreement with the majority stems from the ruling that there was no error in the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury that no adverse inference should be drawn from Appellant’s decision not to testify during the penalty phase of the trial. The majority opinion states that this is not an error because Appellant entered a guilty plea to the charges and the evidence of guilt was overwhelming. Because he pled guilty, according to the majority, a no adverse inference instruction could have no effect on a determination of guilt and, thus, no negative inferences could be drawn by the jury from Appellant’s silence.
The plain language of Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 143 L.Ed.2d 424 (1999), disputes the conclusion reached,by the majority. Therein, the United States Supreme Court stated as follows:
The rule against adverse inferences from a defendant’s silence in criminal proceedings, including sentencing, is of proven utility. Some years ago the Court expressed concern that “[t]oo many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege.” ... [T]here can be little doubt that the rule prohibiting an inference of guilt from a defendant’s rightful silence has become an essential feature of our legal tradition.... The rule against adverse inferences is a vital instrument for teaching that the question in a criminal case is not whether the defendant committed the acts of which he is accused. The question is whether the Government has carried its burden to prove its allegations while respecting the defendant’s individual rights. The Government retains the burden of proving facts relevant to the crime at the sentencing phase and cannot enlist the defendant in this process at the expense of the self-incrimination privilege.
Mitchell, 526 U.S. at 329, 119 S.Ct. 1307, quoting Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 76 S.Ct. 497, 100 L.Ed. 511 (1956).
*135The majority would have us eradicate the important Constitutional right involved here by failing to require the trial court to give the requested instruction. The majority states that the instruction is not necessary because Woodall did not contest any of the facts or aggravating circumstances surrounding the crimes. That may be so, but Appellant did contest the sought penalty of death during his penalty phase trial. He cross-examined the eleven witnesses presented by the Commonwealth and presented fourteen witnesses of his own who testified about Appellant’s life and the effects his upbringing had on him. As noted in Mitchell, 526 U.S. at 327, 119 S.Ct. 1307, “it appears that in this case, as is often true in the criminal justice system, the defendant was less concerned with the proof of [his] guilt or innocence than with the severity of [his] punishment.” For Appellant herein the stakes could not have been higher and his Fifth Amendment rights could not have been more important.
I also disagree with the trial judges’ ruling that Appellant was not permitted to voir dire the jury about specific mitigating factors such as Appellant’s mental retardation. While Appellant’s IQ test results were not sufficiently low enough to render him ineligible for the death penalty, KRS 532.140, a defendant facing the death penalty must not only be allowed to present evidence of his low IQ but the jury must be able to consider and give effect to it as mitigating evidence. Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 106, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982); Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 722, 112 S.Ct. 2222, 119 L.Ed.2d 492 (1992).
Finally, as to the Batson challenge, I would have remanded this case to the trial court for a hearing at which time the Court should conduct an inquiry into the ultimate question of whether there was discriminatory intent in the exercise of the peremptory challenge. None was held and there was no ruling by the trial court on the legitimacy of the prosecution’s explanation because the trial court apparently, and erroneously, believed that because Appellant was white, he had no ground to object to the exclusion of the sole black juror remaining in the venire. “[A] criminal defendant may object to race-based exclusions of jurors effected through peremptory challenges whether or not the defendant and the excluded juror share the same race.” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 402, 111 S.Ct. 1364, 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991).