Court Opinion

ID: 9479036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:06:18.881568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:47.108139
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority’s disposition of the petitioner’s second, third, and fourth claims for relief and with the majority’s determination that Hitchcock error was committed at petitioner's sentencing hearing. However, because of the insufficiency of the record before us, I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s finding that the error was harmless.
The majority is correct in asserting that Hitchcock error may be harmless in some cases. See Clark v. Dugger, 834 F.2d 1561, 1569-70 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1282, 99 L.Ed.2d 493 (1988) (error harmless where “there simply were no nonstatutory mitigating circumstances to consider”); see also Knight v. Dugger, 863 F.2d 705, 708-10 (11th Cir.1988) (dicta that Hitchcock error may be harmless). However, this Court has only once found Hitchcock error to be harmless, see Clark, swpra, and the Supreme Court has never found the error to be harmless in its four reversals of death sentences for failure of the sentencer to consider non-statutory mitigating circumstances. See Hitchcock v. Dugger, 481 U.S. 393, 107 S.Ct. 1821, 95 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987); Skipper v. South Carolina, 476 U.S. 1, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104, 102 S.Ct. 869, 71 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982); Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978).
In addition, a recent decision from this Court emphasized the narrow range of situations in which Hitchcock error may be harmless. In Knight, supra, the State of Florida argued that the failure of a jury to consider all mitigating factors was harmless because “so many aggravating factors were found (four) that no amount of non-statutory mitigating evidence could change the result in the case.” 863 F.2d at 710. In rejecting the state's reasoning, we stated:
No authority has been furnished for this proposition and it seems doubtful that any exists. The State’s theory, in practice, would do away with the requirement of an individualized sentencing determination in cases where there are many aggravating circumstances. It is this requirement, of course, that is at the heart of Lockett and its progeny.
Id. The Knight decision leaves little room for the application of harmless error analysis, except in the situation where no non-statutory mitigating evidence could have been proffered. See Clark, supra.
In fact, this is what the majority holds— that Demps’ evidence was not mitigating at all. If Demps has no true mitigating evidence to offer, then it must be conceded that any error in the jury instructions was *1394harmless. However, the district court below made no ruling as to the quality or quantity of mitigating evidence. In the absence of factual findings on Demps’ claims of mitigating evidence, this Court should not make any determination on the question of harmlessness.1
In the district court below, Demps claimed that the jury was improperly prevented from considering evidence of what he alleged to be an honorable military record, good adjustment to prison, a history of drug addiction, and an unequal sentence received by a co-perpetrator.2 If any of his claims were true, excluding them from the jury’s consideration would have constituted reversible error. However, the district court made no findings as to the truthfulness of Demps’ claims. It instead held on the basis of Elledge v. Dugger, 823 F.2d 1439 (11th Cir.1987) (per curiam), opinion withdrawn in relevant part, 833 F.2d 250 (11th Cir.1988), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1487, 99 L.Ed.2d 715 (1988), that the trial judge’s consideration of all mitigating factors rendered the erroneous jury instructions harmless. Its disposition of the case leaves us no basis upon which to make a ruling regarding the validity of Demps’ factual claims of the existence of mitigating factors.
The determination of whether the error committed in Demps’ case was harmless or not depends entirely on the truth of his claim that unconsidered mitigating factors existed. Without an evidentiary hearing having been conducted below, it is inappropriate for this Court to pass upon such crucial facts de novo. See United States v. C.G., 736 F.2d 1474, 1479 (11th Cir.1984); United States v. Johnson, 700 F.2d 699, 701 (11th Cir.1983); United States v. Robinson, 625 F.2d 1211, 1217 (5th Cir.1980). The parties’ briefs present two entirely different versions of the same relevant facts. Our job is normally to review the factual findings of lower courts and not to make such finding ourselves. Consequently, I would remand the question of the existence of mitigating factors to the district court for an evidentiary hearing. See Ruffin v. Dugger, 848 F.2d 1512, 1519-20 (11th Cir.1988) (per curiam) (Tjoflat, J., dissenting) (remand to district court for hearing on harmlessness of Hitchcock error would be appropriate).

. The "record” to which the majority refers is woefully incomplete. For example, although some documents indicate that Demps had a less than distinguished service record, other partial records before us indicate that Demps may have suffered a racially motivated beating while in the military, and may have been railroaded into accepting his discharge. In addition, the majority, based on records of Demps’ criminal history, confidently finds that it was appropriate for Demps to have received a penalty greater than that of his co-perpetrators. However, the criminal histories of his co-perpetrators are not part of the record. When a life hangs in the balance, the need for a fully developed record is imperative.

. Such evidence is considered to be mitigating at the penalty phase of a capital case. See Masterson v. State, 516 So.2d 256, 258 (Fla.1987) (vacating death sentence imposed by judge who failed to find defendant's military record and history of drug abuse to be mitigating); Skipper, 476 U.S. at 8, 106 S.Ct. at 1673 (vacating death sentence where testimony of defendant’s good adjustment to prison was excluded); Hargrave v. Dugger, 832 F.2d 1528, 1534 (11th Cir.1987) (finding history of drug abuse to be a mitigating factor); Brookings v. State, 495 So.2d 135, 143 (Fla.1986) (vacating death sentence imposed by judge over jury’s recommendation of life imprisonment where co-perpetrators received lesser punishment).