Court Opinion

ID: 9691656
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:56:31.177439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:24.784889
License: Public Domain

Justice SAYLOR
concurring and dissenting.
I respectfully differ with the majority’s view that the doctrine of relaxed waiver, as originally conceived and implemented, was an exclusively judicial creation devoid of reasoned supporting rationale. See Majority Opinion at 400-01, 402-03. Pennsylvania’s current death penalty statute, which was addressed in Commonwealth v. Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. 16, 454 A.2d 937 (1982), obligates the Court on direct appeal to review whether a “sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor,” and whether sufficient evidence supports the finding of at least one aggravating circumstance. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(h)(3)®, (ii). This review procedure was modeled after the Georgia death penalty statute that was upheld in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). See Legis. J.—Senate at 723 (June 26, 1978). The parallel provision in the Georgia death penalty statute, Ga.Code Ann. § 17-10-35, is employed as a basis for relaxed waiver, particularly in relation to issues connected with the sentencing phase of trial. See Conner v. State, 251 Ga. 113, 303 S.E.2d 266, 275 (1983) (collecting cases).1 Indeed, it was pursuant, inter alia, to this statutory obligation that Zettlemoyer addressed those issues that had not been properly preserved. See Zettlemoyer, 500 Pa. at 50 *586& n. 19, 454 A.2d at 955 & n. 19 (“[B]ecause this Court has an independent, statutory obligation to determine whether a sentence of death was the product of passion, prejudice or some other arbitrary factor, whether the sentence is excessive or disproportionate to that imposed in similar cases, and to review the record for sufficiency of the evidence to support aggravating circumstances, we will not adhere strictly to our normal rules of waiver.”); see also id. at 26 n. 3, 454 A.2d at 942 n. 3 (reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(h)).2 Therefore, unlike the majority, I view aspects of the relaxed waiver rule as grounded in the Court’s statutory mandate, although concededly review has come to be afforded on broader terms.
I do agree "with the majority that the Court’s efforts to accommodate the staple invocation of relaxed waiver in capital direct appeals has too greatly burdened the appellate process. I also believe that it would not impede the performance of the Court’s statutory obligations to: 1) limit relaxed waiver to claims directly implicating the integrity of the penalty-phase proceedings; 2) exercise sound discretion in selecting which unpreserved, senteneing-phase claims implicating potential passion/prejudiee/arbitrariness may merit express treatment in a written opinion of this Court; and 3) apply a prejudice component (i.e., a determination whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for the error or omission, the result of the proceedings would have been different) to the review under this relaxed waiver construct. Cf. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-34, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1776-78, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993) (articulating, inter alia, the discretionary aspect and *587prejudice requirement of the standard for federal, plain error).3 Otherwise, I am in agreement with the majority that the statutory, post-conviction process (along with the routine affordance of a stay of execution to permit litigation of a timely-filed, first post-conviction petition) adequately serves the function of an essential safeguard.
Second, I do not support the majority’s multiple characterizations of statements of the district attorney during his penalty presentation in this ease, and of analogous remarks reviewed in other decisions, as innocuous. See, e.g., Majority Opinion at 409, 415. To the contrary, I believe that all of the referenced statements were weighty points directed to securing, and militating in favor of, the imposition of the penalty of death. I agree with the majority, however, that the statements were not so prejudicial that the jury could not weigh the evidence objectively and render a true verdict.
Finally, I would disapprove the prosecutorial practice of asking capital sentencing juries to render verdicts in the same cold deliberate manner as the victim was killed, since under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the obligation of jurors is to follow the law, not the lawless mindset of the killer. Cf. Penny v. Johnson, 532 U.S. 782, 797-98, 121 S.Ct. 1910, 1920-21, 150 L.Ed.2d 9 (2001); Commonwealth v. King, 554 Pa. 331, 359-60, 721 A.2d 763, 777 (1998).

. Cf. Gissendaner v. State, 272 Ga. 704, 532 S.E.2d 677, 688 (2000) (reviewing an otherwise waived issue regarding a prosecutor’s guilt phase closing argument pursuant to the statutory obligation in capital cases to "consider whether the sentence was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor”).

. The decision in Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 502 Pa. 474, 467 A.2d 288 (1983), is not to the contrary, as the Court in that case recognized that review under Section 9711(h) may permit certain issues to be addressed sua sponte in a capital appeal. See id. at 505 n. 5, 467 A.2d at 304 n. 5; accord Commonwealth v. Stoyko, 504 Pa. 455, 472 n. 7, 475 A.2d 714, 724 n. 7 (1984).
It should be noted that the General Assembly has repealed Section 9711 (h)(3)(iii) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(h)(3)(iii), which required proportionality review; however, the Legislature has left intact the obligation on direct appeal to review for passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor affecting the sentence. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(h)(3)0).

. Significantly, most jurisdictions permit an appellate court to reverse on the basis of plain error. See 5 Wayne R. LaFave et al., Criminal Procedure § 27.5(d) (2d ed.1999).