Court Opinion

ID: 9682221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 08:07:55.961531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:38.118773
License: Public Domain

Justice Souter, in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Kennedy, underscored the fact that information revealing the individuality of the victim and the impact of the crime on the victim’s survivors was appropriate. He did allude, however, to the fact that evidence about the victim and survivors can be so inflammatory as to risk a verdict impermissibly based on passion rather than deliberation. Both Justice Souter and Justice O’Connor, in their concurrences, made reference to the fact that this form of evidence falls within the trial judge’s purview to control the proceedings consistently with due process and that where inflammatory evidence is improperly admitted, appellate courts must carefully review the record to determine whether the error was prejudicial. From the foregoing, the following principles can be gleaned from Payne: • States may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and the impact of the victim’s murder on the victim’s family is relevant to sentencing. • Victim-impact evidence is designed to show both the victim’s uniqueness as an individual human being and the loss to the community. • Due Process will prevent the evidence if it is so unduly prejudicial that it renders the trial fundamentally unfair. • There exists a burden on both trial courts and appellate courts to determine whether certain victim-impact evidence runs afoul of the Due Process Clause. Bearing these principles in mind, two state appellate courts in particular have provided explicit directions for the introduction of victim-impact evidence. In State v. Muhammad, 678 A.2d 164 (N.J. 1996), the Supreme Court of New Jersey discussed victim-impact evidence at length and reached a conservative position: The testimony can provide a general factual profile of the victim, including information about the victim’s family, employment, education, and interests. The testimony can describe generally the impact of the victim’s death on his or her immediate family. The testimony should be factual, not emotional, and should be free of inflammatory comments or references. State v. Muhammad, 678 A.2d at 180. The New Jersey Supreme Court also established a procedure for such testimony, requiring that the testimony be reduced to writing and that a hearing be held to determine whether the probative value of each specific point is substantially outweighed by the risk of undue prejudice. Trial courts were further instructed to admonish the witness that he would not be allowed to testify if he cannot control his emotions. Furthermore, comments pertaining to characterizations of the defendant, the crime, and the appropriate sentence were specifically proscribed. Id. In Cargle v. State, 909 P.2d 806 (Okl. Cr. 1995), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 100 (1996), the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma cited Oklahoma’s statutory definition of victim-impact evidence: “Victim impact statements” means information about the financial, emotional, psychological, and physical effects of a violent crime on each victim and members of their immediate family, or person designated by the victim or by family members of the victim and includes information about the victim, circumstances surrounding the crime, the manner in which the crime was perpetrated, and the victim’s opinion of a recommended sentence [.] Cargle v. State, 909 P.2d at 827, citing Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 22, § 984 (Supp. 1993). In commenting on victim-impact evidence, the court stated: “So long as these personal characteristics show how the loss of the victim will financially, emotionally, psychologically, or physically impact on those affected, it is relevant, as it gives the jury ‘a glimpse of the life’ which a defendant ‘chose to extinguish.’” Cargle v. State, 909 P.2d at 828, quoting Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. at 822. In conjunction with the pronouncement of specific procedures to minimize prejudice, the Louisiana Supreme Court has espoused the following general rule: [introduction of detailed descriptions of the good qualities of the victim or particularized narrations of the emotional, psychological and economic sufferings of the victim’s survivors, which go beyond the purpose of showing the victim’s individual identity and verifying the existence of survivors reasonably expected to grieve and suffer because of the murder, treads dangerously on the possibility of reversal because of the influence of arbitrary factors on the jury’s sentencing decision. State v. Taylor, 669 So.2d 364, 370 (La. 1996), cert. denied, 136 L. Ed. 2d 106 (1996), quoting State v. Bernard, 608 So.2d 966, 972 (La. 1992). See also McClain v. State, 477 S.E.2d 814, 825 (Ga. 1996) (allowing victim-impact evidence when it did not encourage comparative judgments and was not a “detailed narrative of the emotional and economic suffering of the community”). Consistent with these limitations, a number of state appellate courts have upheld the admission of brief videotapes and a small number of photographs as victim-impact evidence because they tended to illustrate the victim’s uniqueness as an individual and did not render the proceedings fundamentally unfair. See, e.g., People v. Mitchell, 604 N.E.2d 877 (Ill. 1992)(noting that the introduction of photographs of victims while alive would not render a proceeding fundamentally unfair), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 2936 (1993); Whittlesey v. State, 665 A.2d 223 (Md. 1995) (allowing 90-second videotape of the victim playing the piano, a skill for which he was nationally recognized), cert denied, 134 L. Ed. 2d 100 (1996); State v. Parker, 886 S.W.2d 908 (Mo. banc 1994)(allowing photograph of the victim and her daughter), cert. denied, 115 S. Ct. 1827 (1995); State v. Tucker, 478 S.E.2d 260 (S.C. 1996)(allowing photographs of the victim at various places on vacation, the Christmas decorations in her yard, the victim holding her godchild, and the victim fishing); Penry v. State, 903 S.W.2d 715 (Tex. Cr. App. 1995) (photographs of the victim and her dog were not excludable as victim-impact evidence when the witnesses refrained from opining as to the crime, the defendant, and the apprppriate punishment), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 480 (1995). But see, e.g., Al-Mosawi v. State, 929 P.2d 270 (Okl. Cr. 1996) (excluding photographs of victims that did not demonstrate information about the victims and did not show how their deaths had an emotional, financial, psychological or physical impact on their survivors). I could find no case that has gone as far as the instant case in allowing the sheer number of photographs coupled with the narration by a family member. Almost half of the pictures were of the victim’s two sons. Certainly, the point that the sons are now fatherless is a legitimate one, but at some point the line is crossed from pure information, and raw emotion takes hold. I concur in the result because the trial judge had no guidance on this point and did exercise his discretion in curbing part of the presentation. Moreover, I cannot conclude that the presentation of the videotape rendered Hicks’s trial fundamentally unfair. And that is the standard. I write only to emphasize that this court or the General Assembly should fashion criteria on the introduction of victim-impact evidence to assist the trial courts in exercising their discretion. As matters stand today, the guidance in this area is sparse indeed. Imber, J., joins.