Court Opinion

ID: 9727234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:27:14.375198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:10.600911
License: Public Domain

LONG, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
No one can fault this Court for its commitment to systemic proportionality review. We have not stinted in our efforts and *227have incorporated newly developed and more reliable models in our quest when prior models failed to do the job. This, our latest initiative, is certainly a step in the right direction and, with one exception, I concur in it. That exception is the requirement that a defendant present “relentless documentation” that race influenced his death sentence. Because I believe that the “relentless documentation” standard is without basis in law or reason, and that its application subverts the entire process, I dissent from its incorporation into the project.
I.
When we first took up the issue of racial discrimination and the death penalty, we focused on the “risk that defendants will be sentenced to death either because of their race or the race of the victim.” State v. Marshall, 130 N.J. 109, 219, 613 A.2d 1059 (1992) (Marshall II). Because we were committed to determining whether such a risk was present, we became involved in what can only be denominated as a swamp of statistical data. Somehow as we attempted to wend our way through that swamp, our focus shifted from the possibility of racial discrimination to its likelihood. That we were waylaid is not a surprise. “What began as an optimistic experiment in social science, has become yet another example of the confusion and frustration that often surrounds social science in the courts.” David Weisburd, Good for What Purpose?: Social Science, Race and Proportionality Review in New Jersey, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (visited July 21, 2000) (http://mishpatim.mscc.huji.ac.il/newsite/ CrimeGroup/weis-burd/workpap.htm) (printed in Social Science, Social Policy and the Law, Russell Sage, R. Kagan, P. Ewick and A. Sarat eds. (1999)). Confusion was to be expected. What was not expected was our slow but steady movement from the notion of risk to the notion of certainty in terms of the quantum of evidence necessary to prove race effect. That shift was unfortunate, because our duty to act arises from merely knowing that the death penalty may be meted out according to race; it is not contingent on having before *228us overwhelming evidence that such an affront to our Constitution has occurred.
II.
The Court first alluded to “relentless documentation” in the earliest opinion concerning proportionality review. Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 213, 613 A.2d 1059. In that case, we examined the Special Master’s report that presented statistics on the rate at which Caucasian and African-American defendants are sentenced to death and the rate at which cases with Caucasian and African-American victims proceed to a penalty trial. Id. at 210, 613 A.2d 1059 (citing David C. Baldus, Death Penalty Proportionality Review Project: Final Report to the New Jersey Supreme Court (Sept. 24,1991) (Baldus Report)). The Special Master found that in cases with mid-range culpability, African-American defendants may be at greater risk for receiving a death sentence than similarly situated Caucasian and Hispanic defendants. Baldus Report at 101. The Special Master also identified a “statistically significant” discrepancy in which cases proceed to a penalty trial based on the race of the victim. Id. at 103. The primary focus of the Baldus Report, however, was not discrimination. Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 211, 613 A.2d 1059. Moreover, its findings were strictly preliminary. Ibid. The reliability of the findings was also compromised by the instability of certain statistical results and the limited database of cases. Id. at 213, 613 A.2d 1059.
In our analysis of the Baldus Report, we contrasted the Special Master’s findings with the extensive evidence of race-based disparities in capital sentencing that had been presented in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 328, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 1786, 95 L.Ed.2d 262, 301 (1987). Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 210, 213, 613 A.2d 1059. After expressing dismay at the racial bias demonstrated by the statistical data in McCleskey, we turned to the less-developed data in the Baldus Report and concluded that “we do not yet confront a record in which ‘[t]he statistical evidence ... relentless*229ly documents the risk that [Marshall’s] sentence was influenced by racial considerations.’ ” Id. at 213, 613 A.2d 1059 (citing McCles-key, supra, 481 U.S. at 328, 107 S.Ct. at 1786, 95 L.Ed.2d at 301) (Brennan, J., dissenting). In other words, Marshall’s case was distinguishable from one in which the defendant’s proof of racial bias was so definitive that our Constitution would compel us, without hesitation, to invalidate a death sentence. Ibid.
It is important to note what we did and did not say in Marshall II. It is certainly true that Marshall’s evidence was weaker than MeCleskey’s evidence, but that alone is not determinative of whether Marshall raised a meritorious racial discrimination claim. Saying that we would invalidate a death sentence if a defendant presented evidence like McCleskey’s is not the same as saying that only a record as extraordinary as McCleskey’s would warrant a reversal. I read Marshall II as indicating only that, whatever the quantum of evidence necessary to prove a racial discrimination claim, it was surely met by Warren McCleskey. It did not suggest that only a case as frighteningly stark as McCleskey’s would pass muster. McCleskey documented racial discrimination so clearly that even the opinion rejecting his claim acknowledged that the statistical data on racial disparities was so alarming as to threaten “the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system.” McCleskey, supra, 481 U.S. at 314-15, 107 S.Ct. at 1779, 95 L.Ed.2d at 293.
Our reference to “relentless documentation” in Marshall II only implied that Marshall’s record was not as fully developed and did not present statistics as obviously problematic as those in McCleskey’s record. See State v. Bey, 137 N.J. 334, 389, 645 A.2d 685 (1994) (Bey IV) (“Unlike the data in McCleskey, the Marshall data did not demonstrate that race played a constitutionally-significant role in death sentencing.”). It did not suggest that every defendant must present evidence as glaring as McCleskey presented in order to have his sentence declared disproportionate.
Indeed, in the cases following Marshall II, we did not refer to a “relentless documentation” standard. See State v. DiFrisco, 142 *230N.J. 148, 210, 662 A.2d 442 (1995) (DiFrisco III); State v. Martini, 139 N.J. 3, 80, 651 A.2d 949 (1994) (Martini II); Bey IV, supra, 137 N.J. at 393-94, 645 A.2d 685. In Bey IV, for example, we rejected the defendant’s racial discrimination claim because there were too few cases to support a reliable statistical evaluation of racial disparities in capital sentencing. 137 N.J. at 393, 396, 645 A.2d 685. That opinion made no mention of “relentless documentation” and, in fact, referred to the guiding standard from Marshall II as merely being whether a “substantial discriminatory effect” had been shown. Id. at 390, 645 A.2d 685 (citing Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 211, 613 A.2d 1059).
Then last term, out of the blue, we adopted the “relentless documentation” standard. Loftin II, supra, 157 N.J. at 314-15, 724 A.2d 129. See also State v. Martini, 160 N.J. 248, 275, 734 A.2d 257 (1999) (Martini III) (citing as controlling precedent Court’s rejection of racial discrimination claim in Loftin II for lack of relentless documentation); State v. Harvey, 159 N.J. 277, 319, 731 A.2d 1121 (1999) (Harvey III) (same); State v. Chew, 159 N.J. 183, 221-23, 731 A.2d 1070 (Chew II), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 120 S.Ct. 593, 145 L.Ed.2d 493 (1999) (same); State v. Cooper, 159 N.J. 55, 116, 731 A.2d 1000 (1999) (Cooper II) (same). Loftin II was the first time that we stated that a capital defendant asserting a racial discrimination claim bears the burden of “relentlessly documenting] the risk of racial disparity in the imposition of the death penalty.” 157 N.J. at 315, 724 A.2d 129. The enunciation of that rule was without explanation and without support in either federal or other state caselaw. New Jersey is the only state to use that standard.
I believe the “relentless documentation” standard was wrongly adopted and that its use is incongruous with our capital jurisprudence as well as the dissent from which the language was taken. See McCleskey, supra, 481 U.S. at 320-45, 107 S.Ct. at 1782-94, 95 L.Ed.2d at 296-312 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Requiring a defendant not only to provide evidence of a substantial discriminatory effect in the application of the death penal*231ty, but to “relentlessly document” that effect, is inconsistent with our “commitment to equality in the administration of justice.” Bey IV, supra, 137 N.J. at 334, 645 A.2d 685. Just as the State has made the eradication of the “cancer of discrimination” one of its highest priorities, Dixon v. Rutgers, The State Univ., 110 N.J. 432, 451, 541 A.2d 1046 (1988), we have devoted significant efforts to identifying and eliminating racial disparity in capital sentencing. Ante at 209, 757 A.2d at 170; Loftin II, supra, 157 N.J. at 315, 724 A.2d 129; State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 327, 524 A.2d 188 (1987). I find it incomprehensible to declare our commitment “to a course of review that is capable of discerning possible racial discrimination in our capital sentencing system,” and then ask defendants to prove racial discrimination by an insurmountable standard. Loftin II, supra, 157 N.J. at 298, 724 A.2d 129 (emphasis added).
Declaring “relentless documentation” to be the legal standard also confounds the opinion from which it was borrowed. Justice Brennan used the “relentless documentation” language in McCleskey “to emphasize how conclusively McCleskey has ... demonstrated precisely the type of risk of irrationality in sentencing that we have consistently condemned in our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.” 481 U.S. at 320-21, 107 S.Ct. at 1782, 95 L.Ed.2d at 297 (Brennan, J., dissenting). His point was that McCleskey not only met his burden of proof, but greatly surpassed it. Id. at 328, 107 S.Ct. at 1786, 95 L.Ed.2d at 302 (Brennan, J., dissenting). It was not Justice Brennan’s aim to suggest that the quantum of proof provided by McCleskey should become the bar for every other aggrieved party to overcome. If the Court truly wishes to align itself with Justice Brennan’s position, see Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 215, 613 A.2d 1059, it should strive to meet the ideal outlined in his dissent — that of imposing strong safeguards against the risk of racially discriminatory capital sentencing. It does a disservice to Justice Brennan to cite his language, yet thwart its spirit.
*232III.
Our consideration of whether racial bias plays a role in deciding who lives and dies in our execution chamber “is at its core an exercise in human moral judgment, not a mechanical statistical analysis.” McCleskey, supra, 481 U.S. at 335, 107 S.Ct. at 1789, 95 L.Ed.2d at 306 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Our evaluation of a capital defendant’s racial discrimination claim must consider both statistical evidence as well as “our understanding of history and human experience.” Id. at 404, 107 S.Ct. 1756 (Handler, J., dissenting) (citing McCleskey, supra, 481 U.S. at 328, 107 S.Ct. at 1786, 95 L.Ed.2d at 302 (Brennan, J., dissenting)).
In today’s opinion, the Court has linked the relentless documentation standard to statistics although it is plainly not a term that arises out of the statisticians’ idiom. To be sure, in his report to the Special Master, Dr. John W. Tukey stated that a “relentless” showing of racial discrimination could not reasonably be made based on a single isolated regression analysis. John W. Tukey, Report to the Special Master 12 (Jan. 27, 1997) (Tukey Report). However, as Judge Baime properly observed, Dr. Tukey obviously adopted the word “relentless” and its concomitant standard from Justice Brennan’s dissent in McCleskey. Report to the New Jersey Supreme Court: Systemic Proportionality Review Project 14 (Dec. 1, 1999) (Baime Report II). In so doing, Dr. Tukey apparently did not realize the import of Justice Brennan’s dissent. One thing is clear: we did not derive the notion of relentless documentation from the statisticians — they got it from us.
I certainly agree with Dr. Tukey and Judge Baime that a “ ‘bouquet of analyses’ constitutes a ‘reasonable strategy’ in determining whether a race effect exists.” Ibid. (quoting Tukey Report at 12). Clearly, we should strive to document a claim of racial discrimination by as many methods' as practicable. However, that is quite distinct from raising a defendant’s overall burden of proof, encompassing statistical and non-statistical evidence alike, to the relentless documentation level.
*233Although the Court today has reaffirmed that its focus is on the risk of race effect, that affirmation rings hollow in light of the burden it has cast on defendants. It is a burden of certainty and is inconsistent with our recognition of “the complete finality of the death sentence,” Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 35, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 1688, 90 L.Ed.2d 27, 36 (1986), and our unique “commitment to equality in the administration of justice.” Bey TV, supra, 137 N.J. at 389, 645 A.2d 685. Clearly, not “every nuance of [a capital sentencing] decision [can] be statistically captured, nor can any individual judgment be plumbed with absolute certainty.” McCleskey, supra, 481 U.S. at 335, 107 S.Ct. at 1789, 95 L.Ed.2d at 306 (Brennan, J., dissenting). As Justice Brennan wrote: “[T]he fact that we must always act without the illumination of complete knowledge cannot induce paralysis when we confront what is literally an issue of life and death.” Ibid. Because we cannot know everything does not mean that we cannot know something; because we cannot do everything does not mean that we cannot do something.
I, therefore, urge the Court to abandon “relentless documentation” and to adopt a less burdensome quantum of proof as the standard a defendant must meet in proving a “substantial discriminatory effect.” With that change, there is at least a possibility that proportionality review may serve as a safeguard against the random, arbitrary, and discriminatory application of the death penalty.
IV.
Intertwined with the reservations I harbor regarding the standard a defendant must meet in a systemic proportionality case, is the Court’s rejection of the proportionality challenges of Ambrose Harris, Robert Morton, and Richard Feaster — all white victim eases. Ante at 226, 757 A.2d at 179. Judge Baime has determined that, “race of victim may be statistically significant with respect to advancement to penalty trial,” Baime Report II at 64, and that “[although the statistical evidence tends to trend against *234the thesis that white victim cases more often advance to a penalty trial than black victim cases, our finding is neither dispositive nor conclusive in that respect.” Id. at 4. Judge Baime concluded that “application of our monitoring system discloses no consistent statistical evidence indicating that the race of the victim affects which cases progress to a penalty trial. However, some of the evidence in that respect is conflicting and the issue should be revisited when the database increases.” Id. at 66. In other words, there is some question about race effect in white victim cases, although not enough to meet the relentless documentation standard.
The Court is comfortable to continue to “tinker with the machinery of death,” Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141, 1145, 114 S.Ct. 1127, 1130, 127 L.Ed.2d 435, 438 (Blackmun, J., dissenting), when we do not yet fully understand the role of racial bias in the operation of our death penalty. I am not. Executions should not be approved while we wait for statistics to be compiled to the point of relentlessness.
For adoption of recommendations, as modified — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices O’HERN, STEIN, COLEMAN, VERNIERO (Except for Section V, in which Justice Verniero does not participate) and LaVECCHIA — 6.
Concurring in part, dissenting in part — Justice LONG — 1.