Court Opinion

ID: 9614860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:29:10.450888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:39.884174
License: Public Domain

Benham, Justice,
dissenting.
Because I am convinced that the argument of the prosecuting attorney was so flagrantly improper as to demand a new trial for appellant, I must dissent.
1. During the sentencing phase argument, in an apparent effort to extinguish any doubts the jury might have about appellant’s mental capacity, the district attorney told the jury that
we know he’s been examined by a psychologist [and that] [w]e have no evidence of that [mental instability]. So you would have to assume that there is no mental pathology that led to this . . . attack.
Even though he knew that appellant had not been psychologically examined, the prosecuting attorney, through this argument, deliberately misled the jury into believing that such an examination had taken place and had resulted in a conclusion that appellant was mentally stable. The remark was impermissible not only because it stated facts not in evidence, but because it was a deliberate misstatement of fact. Considering the magnitude of the consequences, it is more important in the sentencing phase of a death penalty case than in any other criminal proceeding that prosecuting attorneys be held to their duty to seek justice, to temper their advocacy on behalf of the State with a determination that the truth be served. Misstating the facts and misleading the jury is a violation of that duty and must not be condoned.
2. In the course of his argument in support of the death penalty, the prosecuting attorney made several references to religion, Christianity, and the teachings of the Christian Bible. Permitting those arguments amounted to constitutional error.
On the way to reaching the conclusion that it was constitutional error to permit the jury to take a Christian Bible with it into the jury room, the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia *775made the following observations:
It is well settled that religion may not play a role in the sentencing process. [Cits.] . . . The jury which sentenced [appellant] had a duty to apply the law of the State of Georgia as given by the trial judge, not its own interpretation of the law or its own interpretation of precepts of the Bible, in determining whether [appellant] should live or die. ... To the average juror, Webster’s Dictionary may be no more than a reference book, . . . but the Bible is an authoritative religious document and is different not just in degree, although this difference is pronounced, but in kind. ... As the United States Supreme Court stated in Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S. 420, 428, [(100 SC 1759, 64 LE2d 398) (1980)]: “If a State wishes to authorize capital punishment, it has a constitutional responsibility to tailor and apply its law in a manner that avoids the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty. It must channel the sentencer’s discretion by ‘clear and objective standards’ that provide ‘specific and detailed’ guidance, ‘and that make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death.’ ” As the Supreme Court further stated: “A capital sentencing scheme must, in short, provide a ‘meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which the penalty is imposed from the many in which it is not.’ ” [Cit.] Georgia’s death penalty statute lays out specific guidelines for separating “the many” from “the few.” [Cit.] The Bible, however, in some places explicitly rejects the drawing of distinctions in murder cases: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” [Cits.] Whereas the Bible commands that “thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,” [cit.] it is the law in this Circuit that arguments which disparage mercy as a valid sentencing consideration “strike at the most important component of a capital jury’s discretion favoring capital defendants.” [Cits.] Especially where, as here, such arguments come from a source which “would likely carry weight with laymen and influence their decision,” [cit.] the effect may be highly prejudicial to the defendant, and the confidence in the reliability of the jury’s decision which must guide imposition of the death penalty may be undermined. [Jones v. Kemp, 706 FSupp. 1534, 1559 (N.D. Ga. 1989).]
A review of the prosecuting attorney’s argument, in light of the *776preceding principles, reveals several instances of prejudicially improper argument. The prosecutor urged that the State is entitled to “Old Testament Retribution.” Quoting from the New Testament, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy,” the prosecutor disparaged mercy as a sentencing consideration in this case. One of the Biblical passages about which the court in Jones v. Kemp, supra, expressed concern was used here in just the manner that court feared it would be: the prosecuting attorney quoted the Bible as saying, “He who sheddeth the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,” in support of the death penalty. In a blatant attempt to appeal to Christian sensibilities, the prosecutor told the jury that he had heard many arguments to the effect that “Christians are a bunch of wimps that will not enforce the laws of the Bible because Jesus came to forgive us of our sins.” That one argument not only appealed to religious affiliations which have no proper place in jury deliberations, but also urged the jury to apply a law other than that of Georgia as given to the jury by the trial court. Early in the argument, the prosecuting attorney even sought to drive a wedge of religion between appellant and his counsel, identifying first himself and then one of the defense attorneys as a Baptist, thereby aligning that member of the defense team with the prosecution.
The State’s injection of religion into the considerations for the jury in determining sentence was wholly improper and amounts to seeking to have the death penalty imposed not in accordance with the guidelines established by statute, but with passion and prejudice. The appeal to religious principles is directly opposed to the requirement the United States Supreme Court articulated in Godfrey, supra, and violates the “constitutional responsibility to . . . apply [the] law in a manner that avoids the arbitrary and capricious infliction of the death penalty.” Id. In vacating the sentence of a televangelist convicted of fraud offenses, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that it is a deprivation of due process for the trial judge impermissibly to take his own religious characteristics into account in sentencing. United States v. Bakker, 925 F2d 728 (4th Cir. 1991). In the same way, it was a denial of appellant’s right to due process for the jury deciding whether he should be executed to be told to make that decision on the basis of religious, not legal, principles.
3. In Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U. S. 320 (105 SC 2633, 86 LE2d 231) (1985), the United States Supreme Court held that a prosecutor’s argument that the jury should not view itself as deciding whether the defendant would die, since there was automatic review by the State Supreme Court,
rendered the capital sentencing proceeding inconsistent with the Eighth Amendment’s heightened “need for reliability in *777the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case.” [Cit.] Id. at 323.
In the present case, the prosecuting attorney, in the process of telling the jury that it was “free to do under the law, and even outside the law in some instances, whatever it want[ed] to,” made a reference to the possibility of a future pardon for appellant. Although the argument here was not the direct argument made in Caldwell that the jury was not the last word on the subject of the death penalty, it was nonetheless a reference to the fact that appellant would have an opportunity to seek clemency from others, notwithstanding this jury’s decision that he should die. The prosecutor here attempted to do indirectly what this court declared in Fleming v. State, 240 Ga. 142 (240 SE2d 37) (1977), could not be done directly. Noting that “this type of remark has an unusual potential for corrupting the death sentencing process,” this court held
that it was reversible error for the prosecutor to mention to the jury in his arguments during the death penalty phase, that any sentence of death would be reviewed. .. . The prosecutor should refrain from argument which would divert the jury from its duty to decide the case on the evidence by making predictions of the consequences of the jury’s verdict. . . . The jury is given the heavy burden of making the decision of whether the defendant will live or die. Comments about appellate safeguards on the death penalty suggest to the jury that they can pass the responsibility for the death sentence on to this court. [Id. at 146.]
In a proceeding as weighty as a death penalty sentencing hearing, we must be alert to prevent subversion of the clear guidelines by indirect tactics. The prosecuting attorney’s remarks introduced to the jury’s consciousness the notion that they could sentence him to death without being personally responsible — someone else would look at the sentence and consider whether appellant should die for his crime. That responsibility, heavy as it is, must remain where the law has placed it, on the shoulders and consciences of the jurors.
4. During argument to the jury, defense counsel did not object to the three instances of improper argument I have discussed above. In Division 2 of the majority opinion, the majority finds no harm sufficient to overcome the defendant’s procedural default. I cannot agree. As noted above, the jury in this case was subjected to emotional, religiously-charged arguments and was urged to return a death sentence on the basis of misstatements of fact. Given the magnitude of those improprieties, I am convinced that there exists a reasonable *778probability that the result in the sentencing phase may well have been different.3 See Ford v. State, 255 Ga. 81 (335 SE2d 567) (1985).
Decided November 27, 1991 —
Reconsideration denied December 18, 1991.
David L. Roberts, for appellant.
Douglas C. Pullen, District Attorney, Edward F. Berry, Peter B. Hoffman, Assistant District Attorneys, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Susan V. Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Robert D. McCullers, Staff Attorney, for appellee.
Consequently, I would consider the argument, find the allowance of the argument to be constitutional error, and vacate the death sentence and remand with direction to conduct a new sentencing hearing. Given those considerations, I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s affirmance of the sentence in this case.

 In addition, I am struck by the powerful irony that would be inherent in holding in this case that trial counsel was not ineffective, but that trial counsel’s failure to object to improper argument makes appellate review of that argument unnecessary.