Court Opinion

ID: 9473511
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:31:51.538061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:34.459734
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
Although I acknowledge that I am bound by the en banc decision of this court in Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 1383 (11th Cir.1985), I must express my disagreement with the conclusion of the majority that the prosecutorial argument in this case did not affect the reliability and fundamental fairness of the petitioner’s sentencing proceeding.
I. THE PROSECUTORIAL ARGUMENT
The majority held in Brooks v. Kemp, supra, that a prosecutorial argument, however improper, does not infringe a petitioner’s right to a fair trial unless he can demonstrate a “reasonable probability” that those improprieties contained in the argument affected the outcome of the proceeding. 762 F.2d at 1401; Strickland v. Washington, — U.S.-, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). While I continue to question the applicability of the Strickland v. Washington standard to this context, see Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d at 1426 n. 1 (Johnson, J., dissenting), it seems clear that such a “reasonable probability” exists in the instant case.
A. Prosecutorial Expertise
The majority finds that the prosecutor’s discussion of the infrequency with which attorneys in his office seek the death penalty was improper, because it led the jury to conclude that officials more experienced than they had already made the decision as to the appropriateness of capital punishment. Yet the majority concludes that this comment did not have a substantial prejudicial effect because the prosecutor referred to the factors that were behind the decision, permitting the jury to evaluate those factors for themselves, and because the arguments of both the prosecutor and the defense counsel emphasized that the jury was the body which had responsibility for making the sentencing decision.
This argument is no more acceptable in the instant context than it was when it was raised by the majority in Brooks. As in Brooks, the prosecutor presented his enumeration of the relevant factors in a way which emphasized not the factor to be considered, but the fact that a given element had already been evaluated by a knowledgeable authority and placed on the correct side of the ledger (“when we ask for a death sentence, as we do in this case, we consider a number of things ... ”). This portion of the argument was thus an invitation to endorse the decision of the prosecutor’s office rather than to reach an independent conclusion. Also, as in Brooks, the majority overestimates the ameliorative influence of later references to the jury’s responsibility. The prosecutor’s description of the activities and decisions of his colleagues brought to bear upon the jury the full weight of the prosecutorial office. See Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1935). When this substantial weight is carefully and deliberately placed behind the demand for capital punishment, an abstract reference to the responsibility of the jury to reach its own conclusions is unlikely to have great corrective effect. This argument, which misused the authority of the prosecutor and undermined that sense of responsibility which is required for constitutionally sound sentencing decisions, im*1490paired the fundamental fairness of the proceeding.
B. Prosecutorial Opinions
The majority criticizes as irrelevant but refuses to find prejudicial a series of personal statements by the prosecutor concerning the petitioner, the ease with which he could see him sentenced to death and the deterrent effect of the death penalty. Once again, the majority fails to recognize that these statements place the impressive weight of the prosecutorial office behind positions which have no factual support in the record. As I noted in Drake v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 1449 (11th Cir.1985), the prosecutor’s comments concerning deterrence, for example, may be based on purest speculation, yet the jury may assume that because of his position, they are based on hard experience that the jurors themselves have not acquired. Because of the unwarranted weight they exert on the minds of the jurors, such comments undermine the reliability of the proceedings.
C. Dilution of Jury Responsibility
The majority also refuses to find prejudicial an argument that the jury was merely “the last link” in a chain of public actors, each of whom was merely “doing his duty” in bringing the petitioner one step closer to capital punishment. While the majority concedes that this argument tended to undermine the sense of responsibility constitutionally required in jurors considering capital sanctions, it finds the force of this argument to have been mitigated by other arguments citing the jury’s responsibility. This conclusion crucially underestimates the effect of this argument on the minds of the jurors. Like the analogous argument in Brooks, it is specifically directed to the legitimate concern that jurors might feel uncomfortable imposing the death penalty; and it attempts to dispel that concern not simply by stressing the appropriateness of the penalty in the particular,case, but by suggesting that the responsibility for imposing the death penalty would not rest with the jurors. This argument deftly removes from the capital sentencing calculus an element that the Constitution requires to be present. See Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978). In two respects, moreover, this argument is even more prejudicial than the one considered in Brooks. First, as the majority admits, it is not subject to the alternate interpretation that the prosecutor was simply trying to place responsibility for punishment on the wrongdoer himself. There is no mention in the argument of the petitioner or his responsibility for his punishment. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the prosecutor describes the decision to impose the capital penalty as a “duty” performed by jurors. The willful neglect of the discretionary nature of capital sentencing and the invocation of the obligations of citizenship implicit in this description were roundly criticized in both the majority and dissenting opinions in Brooks. 762 F.2d at 1412 (explaining harmful effect of “war on crime” argument), 1426 (Johnson, J., dissenting). In the face of such a concerted effort to relieve the burdens that attend the sentencing decision, subsequent reminders of the jury’s responsibility could appear as no more than formalities, devoid of any substance relevant to the sentencing decision.
D. Risks to Prisoners and Guards
The majority approves as proper and relevant to rehabilitative potential a lengthy discussion of the risk that the petitioner would pose to guards and prisoners in the institution in which he would be incarcerated. In so doing the majority neglects both the record, as it relates to the history of the petitioner, and the constitutional requirement of individuation in capital sentencing. Lockett v. Ohio, supra; Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976). Petitioner is a first-time offender, with no previous record of either sexual deviance or violent crime. To suggest that a prisoner with this record would be a particular threat to the safety or morals of those around him is to consider him not as an individual, but as a member of “a faceless, undifferentiated mass” of violent criminals, a move which the Constitution proscribes. This clear and forceful invitation to the jury to deny the petitioner the individuated consideration to which he was entitled undoubtedly affected the fundamental fairness of the proceeding.
In four critical ways the prosecutorial argument attacked the sense of responsibility and commitment to individualized decisionmaking that are essential to sound capital sentencing. I cannot endorse the opinion of the majority that this argument did not impair the fundamental fairness of the sentencing proceeding.
*1491KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge.
I join Judge Clark’s dissent.