Court Opinion

ID: 9857508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 14:51:00.740597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:24.654611
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority opinion demonstrates two fundamental misunderstandings of the very case that prompted the Supreme Court of the United States summarily to remand this cause for our reconsideration, viz: Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989). Because of its crabbed interpretation of Penry, the majority has yet to satisfy this mandate.
First, I fear the majority has not assimilated the basic holding in Penry that a capital jury must be empowered to effectuate any evidence that has mitigating potential that cannot be fully accommodated within the jury’s response to special issues under Article 37.071(b), V.AC.C.P. Early on the majority describes the Supreme Court’s holding to be that proof of mental retardation and child abuse “constituted mitigating evidence that either was not relevant to the Texas special verdict issues or that had relevance to *778the defendant’s moral culpability beyond the scope of the special verdict questions.” At 774. So far, so good. However, in coming to address the question whether the evidence proffered in mitigation in this cause necessitated the giving of one or more of his requested instructions, the majority tacitly assumes throughout that as long as it can identify some sense in which that evidence might be said to militate in favor of a “no” answer to one of the special issues, then it is not confronted with what it calls “Penry evidence.” This assumption misses the very essence of the Supreme Court’s holding. It may well be that the jury “had the opportunity to give effect” to a particular item of mitigating evidence within the parameters of special issues. E.g., at 775, 776 & 778.1 But should that evidence also have some potentially mitigating aspect not accountable under the special issues, we cannot say that special issues enable the jury to give it full consideration and effect. The jury must be empowered to give mitigating evidence all the effect to which it is susceptible before we can say the Eighth Amendment has been satisfied, consonant with the holding in Pen-ry,2 To the extent it suggests otherwise, the majority opinion errs.
Secondly, as I understand it, the majority categorically rejects the view that evidence of appellant’s voluntary service and kindness to others, his artistic and poetic talent, and his religious devotion can have any mitigating potential beyond the scope of special issues.3 By and large, the majority believes such evidence evokes only a “sympathetic” or “emotional” response, not a “reasoned moral response.” It is evident to me that a majority of the United States Supreme Court would disagree.
The Supreme Court has told us that “the Constitution limits a State’s ability to narrow a sentencer’s discretion to consider relevant evidence that might cause it to decline to impose the death sentence.” McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, at 304, 107 S.Ct. 1756, at 1773, 95 L.Ed.2d 262, at 286 (1987).4 “[A]ny aspect of a defendant’s character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense” that in reason could persuade a jury to impose a penalty less than death may be said in this context to be “relevant” mitigating evidence.5 Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, at 604, *77998 S.Ct. 2954, at 2965, 57 L.Ed.2d 973, at 990 (1978) (Plurality opinion); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, at 110, 102 S.Ct. 869, at 874, 71 L.Ed.2d 1, at 8 (1982).
“Lockett and Eddings reflect the belief that punishment should be directly related to the personal culpability of the criminal defendant. Thus, the sentence imposed should reflect a reasoned moral response to the defendant’s background, character, and crime rather than mere sympathy or emotion.”
California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, at 545, 107 S.Ct. 837, at 841, 93 L.Ed.2d 934, at 942 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring). Evidence invoking a purely sympathetic or emotional response is probably not “relevant.” See Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990).
The majoriiy describes evidence of appellant’s relationship with Karen Cracken as nothing more than a “transparent” ploy for sympathy. It rejects outright any possibility that evidence of his artistic sensibilities could be a legitimate component of a jury’s reasoned moral judgment whether to impose the death penalty. Nor does the majority itself “believe” his evidence of racial strife during his school years can inform that decision.6 Finally, the majority opines that religious devotion is a consideration that is covered under the second special issue; apparently the majority believes it either has no other mitigating value, or need have no other mitigating value so long as the jury can give it some, albeit not full, mitigating effect.
Evidence precisely of this kind is not squarely covered in Penry v. Lynaugh, supra. Nevertheless, it is not plain to me that jurors would find these facets of appellant’s character insignificant in making the normative evaluation whether he deserves to live in spite of his crime. The Supreme Court has not expressly limited its view of “relevant” mitigating evidence to those circumstances necessarily bearing on personal culpability for the particular offense committed or those aspects of the defendant’s background or makeup to which his crime may be, at least in part, attributable.7 See Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, at 4-5, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 1671, 90 L.Ed.2d 1, 7 (1986). To the contrary, there is every indication a majority of the Supreme Court believes “[e]vidence of voluntary service, kindness to others, or of religious devotion” to be relevant inasmuch as it “might demonstrate positive character traits that might mitigate against the death penalty.” Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U.S. 164, at 186, 108 S.Ct. 2320, at 2333, 101 L.Ed.2d 155, at 173 (1988) (O’Connor, J., concurring). When the Supreme Court defines evidence as “relevant” for Eighth Amendment purposes, this Court is not at liberty to regard it otherwise.
Today’s majority continues to resist the holdings in Lockett, Eddings, Skipper, and now Penry v. Lynaugh, supra, foxhole by foxhole, to the last bunker. See Stewart v. State, 686 S.W.2d 118 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) (Clinton, J., dissenting). Declining to join the latest skirmish, I respectfully dissent.
MALONEY, J., joins.

. Telling in this context is the treatment of appellant’s claim that evidence of his “artistic and poetic abilities” entitled him to the requested instruction. “Rather than to attempt to shoehorn” these “into the ambit of the second special issue,” the majority simply announces these qualities of character have no mitigating significance whatsoever, either within the scope of special issues or otherwise. Slip. op. at 6. Again, this approach tacitly assumes that had the majority been able thus to "shoehorn” the proffered evidence, the analysis would end. The majority apparently continues to subscribe to the view that as long as some mitigating effect can be given within the special issues, the Eighth Amendment is satisfied. Distilled to its essence, this is precisely the view the Supreme Court put to rest in Penry.

. Of course I do not mean to intimate that a jury must assess a penalty less than death in any case in which mitigating evidence going beyond the scope of special issues is presented. But where such evidence is presented jurors must not be precluded from assessing a penalty less than death by omission of a requested instruction that would empower them to do so.

. I agree with the majority that appellant’s evidence he claims establishes a history of family abuse cannot reasonably be construed to do so. On the other hand, evidence that he was "put down” as one of a handful of black students in a predominantly white school, the admittedly nebulous testimony of the effect of the general racial turbulence during his school days, and evidence of a reading disability, all tend, at least, to show "a disadvantaged background," and to show appellant might certainly have cause for "emotional problems.” Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. at 318-319, 109 S.Ct. at 2947, 106 L.Ed.2d at 278, quoting California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, at 545, 107 S.Ct. 837, at 841, 93 L.Ed.2d 934, at 942 (1987) (O'Connor, J., concurring). The majority concludes, ipse dixit, that evidence of name-calling and the effect of racial unrest has no bearing on his moral culpability. Similarly, the majority opines that evidence of a reading disability “does not reach the threshold that mandates a Penry instruction.” Until the majority identifies where that "threshold” lies, however, such pronouncements carry more rhetorical than authoritative weight.

. Emphasis here and throughout is in the original.

. In truth, the concept of "relevancy” in this context seems odd to me. The only material issue, or "fact of consequence,” is whether an accused found guilty of a capital crime deserves a sentence less than death. As is the case at the punishment phase of a non-capital prosecution, *779where the issue is simply "what punishment to assess,” this is "a normative process, not intrinsically factbound.” Murphy v. State, 777 S.W.2d 44, at 63 (Tex.Cr.App.1989) (Plurality opinion on State's motion for rehearing). That being the case, it seems to me that "what is 'relevant' to determining proper punishment is more a question of policy than of logic." Id. Because it is a question of Eighth Amendment proportions, however, that policy call is ultimately for the United States Supreme Court to make.

. See n. 3, ante.

. Certainly the probability — or, for that matter, the improbability — that a capital defendant would commit future acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society is not a question bearing on his personal culpability for the particular offense on trial. Yet we know that our second special issue provides at least a partial mechanism for jury consideration of what is, in contemplation of the Supreme Court, relevant "mitigating" evidence under the Eighth Amendment. Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976); Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 U.S. 164, 108 S.Ct. 2320, 101 L.Ed.2d 155 (1988).