Court Opinion

ID: 9475870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:41:07.713881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:59.887476
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I fully concur in Judge Baldock’s en banc opinion. I write separately to emphasize one point.
The fact that proffered mitigating testimony is relevant does not, standing alone, *603render its exclusion reversible error. Skipper v. South Carolina, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 1669, 90 L.Ed.2d 1 (1986), the reason that the trial court’s exclusion of the proffered testimony of the two jailers was held to be reversible error was pinpointed in the majority opinion: In
Nor can we confidently conclude that credible evidence that petitioner was a good prisoner would have had no effect upon the jury’s deliberations. The prosecutor himself, in closing argument, made much of the dangers petitioner would pose if sentenced to prison, and went so far as to assert that petitioner could be expected to rape other inmates. Under these circumstances, it appears reasonably likely that the exclusion of evidence bearing upon petitioner’s behavior in jail (and hence, upon his likely future behavior in prison) may have affected the jury’s decision to impose the death sentence. Thus, under any standard, the exclusion of the evidence was sufficiently prejudicial to constitute reversible error.
— U.S. at-, 106 S.Ct. at 1673.
In the instant case, the main factor in mitigation was the contention that Dutton was easily influenced by older men. In relation to the murder, Dutton’s contention was that he was so much under the influence and control of one Carl Morgan that he (Dutton) shot and killed Gray because he had been commanded to do so by Morgan. Mrs. Dutton would have testified, among other things, that: her son was a slow learner; as a boy he was well behaved, but always scared, easily intimidated and always in fear of his peers; he was easily influenced by older men; and he had been committed to hospitals on several occasions for treatment of emotional problems, precipitated by drug abuse. This testimony would have been quite important in relation to the contention that Dutton acted out of fear and under the influence of Morgan.
Thus, while some of Mrs. Dutton’s testimony concerning her son’s character and background, though relevant, would not have risen to the level of prejudicial error if excluded, her testimony concerning her son’s emotional problems and his history of having been easily influenced, led and intimidated by his peers was central to his mitigation defense. As such, its exclusion was not harmless error. Skipper, supra; Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).