Court Opinion

ID: 9795141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:21:20.087138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:27:26.344995
License: Public Domain

JONES, Vice Chief Justice,
specially concurring:
¶ 67 I concur in today’s opinion and judgment but express a separate view on whether “residual doubt” may be invoked as a mitigating factor in the capital sentencing process. While residual doubt is not present in this case, I nevertheless believe that a cogent argument can be made in an appropriate case that residual doubt should be considered by the trial judge during the sentencing phase. In a capital case in which true residual doubt as to a defendant’s actual guilt remains in the mind of the judge following a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it would seem advisable that the judge be allowed to consider such doubt, not as a factor bearing on guilt or innocence, but as a mitigating factor in deciding between the death penalty and a lesser sentence. Due consideration of the judge’s lingering doubt at the appropriate time may benefit a civilized society in which justice and fairness are fundamental to the system.
¶ 68 Today’s opinion acknowledges, and I agree, that the trial judge is able, if only by implication, to take residual doubt into account in weighing and measuring mitigating factors relevant to the sentence. But under *321that scenario, the reader of the trial judge’s Special Verdict may never know whether residual doubt did or did not play a role in the determination of the final sentence.
¶ 69 Here is the problem as I see it. Our capital sentencing statute addresses the admissibility and consideration of mitigating evidence. Yet the statute, while seemingly broad, does not expressly allow consideration of residual doubt either as a statutory or non-statutory factor. Its language refers to mitigating evidence of “any aspect of the defendant’s character, propensities or record and any of the circumstances of the offense." A.R.S. § 13-703(G) (emphasis added). These statutory references, in my opinion, would not include consideration of residual doubt by the trial judge.
¶ 70 As a concept, residual doubt is the narrow window of uncertainty that will arise not infrequently in the mind of the judge following a guilty verdict in a criminal prosecution where the prosecutor has satisfied the jury of a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt but has not established guilt to an absolute certainty. Mitigation evidence, on the other hand, both statutory and non-statutory, is defined by the statute and is concerned with a defendant’s human character as it may relate to the offense charged. Residual doubt, normally, will not bear on an aspect of a defendant’s character, propensities, or past record, and will not, per se, be a circumstance of the particular offense. Specifically, residual doubt-will arise only with respect to sentencing where the trial judge in fact perceives uncertainty, not as to the verdict of the jury, but as to the absence of absolute evidence of guilt. Such concern will normally stem from the relative strength or weakness in the evidence introduced at trial, the manner in which evidence is presented, the credibility of trial witnesses, the trial strategy utilized by either side, or other circumstances arising at trial. It thus occurs to me that residual doubt, as discussed in the cases, and mitigation evidence, as referenced in § 13-703(G), are two quite different things.
¶ 71 Because I conclude that consideration of residual doubt at sentencing does not fall within the permissible scope of A.R.S. § 13-703(G), the defendant’s residual doubt argument raises a question that is best addressed to the legislature.