Court Opinion

ID: 9493136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:59:06.82329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:54.690984
License: Public Domain

DENNIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
In Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989) (“Penry I ”), the Supreme Court held that it is not enough simply to allow the defendant to present mitigating evidence to the sentencer. “The sentencer must also be able to consider and give effect to that evidence in imposing sentence.” Id. at 319, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Accordingly, the jury must be “instructed that it could consider the evidence offered by Penry as mitigating evidence and that it could give mitigating effect to that evidence in imposing sentence.” Id. at 320, 109 S.Ct. 2934. The Court agreed with Penry “that his mitigating evidence of mental retardation and childhood abuse has relevance to his moral culpability beyond the scope of the special issues, and that the jury was unable to express its ‘reasoned moral response’ to that evidence in determining whether death was the appropriate punishment.” Id. at 322, 109 S.Ct. 2934.
Moreover, in Penry /, the Court stated that in the absence of a special jury instruction “defining ‘deliberately’ in a way that would clearly direct the jury to consider fully Penry’s mitigating evidence as it bears on his personal culpability ... a juror who believed that Penry’s retardation and background diminished his moral culpability and made imposition of the death penalty unwarranted would be unable to give effect to that conclusion if the juror also believed that Penry committed the crime ‘deliberately.’ ” Id. at 323, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Likewise, the Court observed, the mitigating evidence concerning Penry’s mental retardation, which indicated his inability to learn from his mistakes, was relevant to the second issue only as an aggravating factor because it suggests a “yes” answer to the question of future dangerousness. Id. at 323, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Consequently, the Court concluded, the second special issue “did not provide a vehicle for the jury to give mitigating effect to Penry’s evidence of mental retardation and childhood abuse.” Id. at 324, 109 S.Ct. 2934. With respect to the third special issue, the Court stated, a juror who found that Penry’s mental retardation and arrested emotional development rendered him less culpable for his crime than a normal adult would not necessarily conclude that Penry’s conduct was reasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased. “Thus”, the Court reasoned, “a juror who believed Penry lacked the moral culpability to be sentenced to death could not express that view in answering the third special issue if she also concluded that Penry’s action was not a reasonable response to provocation.” Id. at 324-25, 109 S.Ct. 2934.
In light of the prosecutor’s argument to the jurors that, under their oath to follow the law, they must follow the instructions they were given in answering the special issues, the Court concluded that, “in the absence of appropriate jury instructions, a reasonable juror could well have believed that there was no vehicle for expressing the view that Penry did not deserve to be sentenced to death based upon his mitigating evidence.” Id. at 326, 109 S.Ct. 2934.
In Penry I, the State of Texas conceded at oral argument before the Supreme Court that if a juror concluded that Penry acted deliberately and was likely to be dangerous in the future, but also concluded that because of his mental retardation he was not sufficiently culpable to deserve the death penalty, that juror would be unable to give effect to that mitigating evidence under the instructions given in the case. See id. at 326, 109 S.Ct. 2934. Finally, the Court held that “[i]n this case, in the absence of instructions informing the jury that it could consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence of Penry’s mental retardation and abused background by declining to impose the death penalty, we conclude that the jury was not provided with a vehicle for expressing its ‘reasoned moral response’ to that evidence in rendering its sentencing decision.” Id. at 328, 109 S.Ct. 2934.
*514Justice Scalia, in his concurring and dissenting opinion in Penry I, criticized the majority’s holding as follows:
In providing for juries to consider all mitigating circumstances insofar as they bear upon (1) deliberateness, (2) future dangerousness, and (3) provocation, it seems to me Texas had adopted a rational scheme that meets the two concerns of our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. The Court today demands that it be replaced, however, with a scheme that simply dumps before the jury all sympathetic factors bearing upon the defendant’s background and character,' and the circumstances of the offense, so that the jury may decide without further guidance whether he “lacked the moral culpability to be sentenced to death,” ante, at 2950, “did not deserve to be sentenced to death,” ante, at 2951, or “was not sufficiently culpable to deserve the death penalty,” ibid. The Court seeks to dignify this by calling it a process that calls for a “reasoned moral response,” ante, at 2949, 2951 — but reason has nothing to do with it, the Court having eliminated the structure that required reason. It is an unguided, emotional “moral response” that the Court demands be allowed — -an outpouring of personal reaction to all the circumstances of a defendant’s life and personality, an unfocused sympathy.
Id. at 359-60, 109 S.Ct. 2934 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The sentencing scheme and instructions adopted by Texas in Penry’s second trial, the subject of the present case, do not satisfy the constitutional requirements described in Penry I. The jury was not clearly and directly instructed that it could consider and give effect to the mitigating evidence of Penry’s mental retardation, organic brain damage and abused background as a whole and beyond the scope of the special issues by declining to impose the death penalty. Texas did not replace its sentencing scheme with one which puts “before the jury all sympathetic factors bearing upon the defendant’s background and character, and the circumstances of the offense, so that the jury may decide without further guidance whether he ‘lacked the moral culpability to be sentenced to death[.]’ ” Id. at 360, 109 S.Ct. 2934 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Instead, in the present case, the jury was instructed: “If you find that there are any mitigating circumstances in this case, you must decide how much weight they deserve, if any, and therefore, give effect and consideration to them in assessing the defendant’s personal culpability at the time you answer the special issue. If you determine, when giving effect to the mitigating evidence, if any, that a life sentence, as reflected by a negative finding to the issue under consideration, rather than a death sentence, is an appropriate response to the personal culpability of the defendant, a negative finding should be given to one of the special issues.” These instructions require the jury to consider and use only mitigating evidence relevant to the special issues, and permit the jury to decline to impose the death penalty only if that relevant mitigating evidence would cause the jury to change a “yes” answer to a “no.” Therefore, the sentencing scheme used in Pen-ry’s second trial is subject to the same flaws pointed out by Penry I. It does not permit the jury to give effect to the mitigating evidence of retardation and abuse as a whole and beyond the scope of the special issues by declining to impose the death penalty despite its findings of “yes” to the three special issues questions. The jury’s consideration of the mitigating evidence of mental retardation, organic brain damage and extensive child abuse is still shackled and confined within the scope of the three special issues. Therefore, the trial court failed to comply with the dictates of the Supreme Court and again deprived the jury of the ability to give full and complete effect to Penry’s mitigating evidence of mental retardation, brain damage and child abuse.
The Supreme Court in Penry I held that the jury was not adequately instructed to *515take into consideration all of Penry’s mitigating evidence and that the terms in the Texas special issues were not defined in such a way that the jury could consider and give effect to all of his mitigating evidence in answering them. When the Court reversed and remanded for these reasons, the district court and this court became bound by the mandate rule. The mandate rule is not, strictly speaking, merely a matter of law of the case. See United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482, 488 n. 4, 117 S.Ct. 921, 137 L.Ed.2d 107 (1997). On remand, the district court and the court of appeals owe obedience to the mandate of the Supreme Court and must carry it into effect. See Vendo Co. v. Lektro-Vend Corp., 434 U.S. 425, 427-28, 98 S.Ct. 702, 54 L.Ed.2d 659 (1978) (once case is remanded, circuit court is bound by decree); MOORE’S FEDERAL PRACTICE 3D § 134.23[l][a],
Subsequently, the Supreme Court distinguished its holding from Penny I in cases involving other types of mitigating evidence. See Johnson v. Texas, 509 U.S. 350, 369, 113 S.Ct. 2658, 125 L.Ed.2d 290 (1993) (“The evidence of petitioner’s youth, however, falls outside Penry’s ambit. Unlike Penry’s mental retardation, which rendered him unable to learn from his mistakes, the ill effects of youth that a defendant may experience are subject to change and, as a result, aré readily comprehended as a mitigating factor in consideration of the second special issue.”); Graham v. Collins, 506 U.S. 461, 475-76, 113 S.Ct. 892, 122 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993) (“The jury was not forbidden to accept the suggestion of Graham’s lawyers that his brief spasm of criminal activity in May 1981 was properly viewed, in light of his youth, his background, and his character, as an aberration that was not likely to be repeated. Even if Graham’s evidence, like Penry’s, had significance beyond the scope of the first special issue, it is apparent that Graham’s evidence — unlike Penry’s— had mitigating relevance to the second special issue concerning his likely future dangerousness. Whereas Penry’s evidence compelled an affirmative answer to that inquiry, despite its mitigating significance, Graham’s evidence quite readily could have supported a negative answer.”). Accordingly, we are still bound by the mandate and the holding of Penny I and must carry them into effect now in the present case.
Moreover, there is no circuit precedent which prevents this panel from owing obedience to the mandate and holding of Penny I. In our prior decisions, Penny I was not applicable because the proffered evidence either was not constitutionally mitigating evidence1 or was not beyond the scope of the special issues or beyond the effective reach of the jurors,2 or because the claim was procedurally barred.3
In Graham v. Collins, 950 F.2d 1009 (5th Cir.1992) (en banc), this court explained that Penny I presented a “wholly different type of mitigating evidence. Not evidence of good character, but of bad character; not evidence of potential for rehabilitation, but of its absence; not evidence of a transitory condition, but of a permanent one; but nonetheless evidence which was strongly mitigating because these characteristics were due to the uniquely severe permanent handicaps with which the defendant was burdened through no fault of his own, mental retardation, organic brain damage and an abused childhood. There was no way this type of evidence could be given any mitigating force under the second special issue.” Id. at 1029. This court in Graham observed that “Penny can fairly be read as *516precluding use of the Texas statutory scheme in any such situation. But, Penry can also fairly be read as addressing only a situation where some major mitigating thrust of the evidence is substantially beyond the scope of any of the [special] issues.” Id. at 1027. Consequently, the use of the Texas statutory scheme was precluded in Penry’s situation and this panel has a duty to carry into effect the mandate and holding of Penry I. For these reasons, I would grant Penry’s application for a COA.
I would also grant a certificate of ap-pealability to consider the alleged violations of Penry’s 5th and 6th Amendment rights. I share the concerns articulated by Judge Emilio M. Garza’s special concurrence in Flores v. Johnson, 210 F.3d 456, 458-70 (5th Cir.2000) (Judge Emilio M. Garza, specially concurring) and believe that Penry has made a substantial showing that the cumulative effect and reinforcement of the prohibited use of the Texas statutory scheme by the erroneous admission of the psychiatric testimony further violated his constitutional rights.

. See Madden v. Collins, 18 F.3d 304, 308 (5th Cir.1994) (citing Graham v. Collins, 950 F.2d 1009, 1029 (5th Cir.1992) (en banc)).

. See Graham v. Collins, 950 F.2d 1009, 1029 (5th Cir.1992) (en banc); Miller v. Johnson, 200 F.3d 274, 289-90 (5th Cir.2000).

. See Emery v. Johnson, 139 F.3d 191, 199-200 (5th Cir.1997).