Court Opinion

ID: 9850670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:01:15.229997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:41.357685
License: Public Domain

Sears, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
1. This case is not merely about the procedures involved in proving a statutory defense. To the contrary, we are deciding today whether the state’s procedures for guaranteeing a fundamental constitutional right are sufficiently protective of that right. United States Supreme Court precedent instructs that the Federal Constitution’s guarantee of procedural due process, as made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids the state from requiring a defendant convicted of a capital crime to prove his claim of mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. Rather, a condemned prisoner who claims mental retardation may only be held to a preponderance of the evidence standard. Because the majority opinion errs by upholding the beyond a reasonable doubt standard, I respectfully dissent.
2. As the majority concedes,1 in Atkins v. Virginia,2 the United States Supreme Court established a fundamental right under the Federal Constitution prohibiting the states from executing mentally retarded persons convicted of capital crimes. The majority posits that in Atkins, the United States Supreme Court “made clear that it was *270entrusting the [individual] states with the power to develop the procedures necessary to enforce the newly recognized federal constitutional ban on the execution of the mentally retarded.”3 Hence, the majority concludes, Georgia is free in OCGA § 17-7-131 (c) (2) to require condemned prisoners to establish the fact of their mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt. This reasoning, however, cannot withstand scrutiny.
When concluding that the state has unfettered power to develop its own procedures for enforcing the federal ban on executing the mentally retarded, the majority opinion states that the United States Supreme Court delegated this same authority to the states in Ford v. Wainwright4 in which the Court ruled that insane persons are protected from execution under the Fourteenth Amendment and held unconstitutional Florida’s statutory procedure for determining whether a convicted defendant is insane.5 Ford v. Wainwright, however, plainly holds that the state’s power to enforce the federal ban on executing insane persons is circumscribed by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Federal Constitution: “Once a substantive right or restriction is recognized in the Constitution ... its enforcement is in no way confined to the rudimentary process deemed adequate in ages past”6 and federal constitutional standards will determine the adequacy of the state procedures upholding the right or enforcing the restriction.7
This rule of law was clarified in Cooper v. Oklahoma,8 in which the Supreme Court held unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment a state statute requiring death penalty defendants to prove by clear and convincing evidence their incompetence to stand trial, and ruled that such defendants can be held to nothing higher than a preponderance of the evidence standard.9 Regarding the State’s power to “develop the procedures necessary to enforce the . . . federal constitutional ban”10 on prosecuting incompetent criminal defendants, the High Court said:
It is normally within the power of the State to establish the procedures through which its [death penalty] laws are given effect, including those relating to the burden of producing evidence and the burden of persuasion. . . . [However,] the *271State’s power to regulate procedural burdens [is] subject to proscription under the Due Process Clause if it “offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental.” This case involves such a rule.11
As established by the Atkins decision, the issue at stake in the present appeal — what burden of proof the state may impose upon a condemned prisoner who would avoid the death penalty due to mental retardation — implicates a fundamental principle of justice that has become firmly established in the nation’s conscience and tradition — the right of mentally retarded people to be protected from execution by the state.12 As made clear by the precedent discussed above, it follows that the state’s power to establish the procedures necessary to enforce the federal constitutional ban on executing the mentally retarded is not left to the state’s wholesale discretion, but rather must conform to the United States Constitution’s guarantee of procedural due process. The majority errs by holding otherwise.13
3. Having established that the procedures employed by the state to enforce the federally recognized right of the mentally retarded to be protected from state-sanctioned execution are subject to federal standards, the inquiry turns to whether Georgia’s beyond a reasonable doubt standard can withstand scrutiny under the Federal Constitution. As explained below, it cannot.
As mentioned above, in Cooper v. Oklahoma,14 the United States Supreme Court considered what standard a capital defendant would have to satisfy in order to show that he was incompetent to stand trial. The Court unanimously rejected Oklahoma’s contention that it could hold the defendant to a clear and convincing standard, and ruled that only a preponderance of the evidence standard would satisfy federal constitutional muster. After noting that the state did not *272contend it could require a defendant to prove incompetence beyond a reasonable doubt (and indicating that such an argument would be rejected on its face),15 the Court held that procedural due process does not permit the state to prosecute a defendant once he has “demonstrated that he is more likely than not incompetent.”16 The Court based its decision upon the significant
risks inherent in [the state’s] practice of requiring the defendant to prove incompetence by clear and convincing evidence. . . . “The function of a standard of proof, as that concept is embodied in the Due Process Clause and in the realm of factfinding, is to ‘instruct the factfinder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication.’ [Cit.]” The “more stringent the burden of proof a party must bear, the more that party bears the risk of an erroneous decision.”17
Oklahoma’s practice of requiring an accused to prove incompetence by clear and convincing evidence was found to violate the constitutional guarantee of procedural due process because
[fiar from “jealously guarding” an incompetent criminal defendant’s fundamental right not to stand trial, [the state statute] requiring the defendant to prove incompetence by clear and convincing evidence imposes a significant risk of an erroneous determination that the defendant is competent.18
Cooper (and the precedent upon which it is based) instructs that Georgia’s statute requiring condemned defendants to prove their alleged mental retardation beyond a reasonable doubt violates due process. Georgia’s scheme for enforcing the federal ban on executing the mentally retarded is fraught with even greater risks than those at issue in Cooper. The burden of proof imposed on Georgia’s mentally retarded defendants — beyond a reasonable doubt — is the most stringent in our criminal justice system, and defendants who *273seek to satisfy this burden in order to avoid the death penalty bear an enormous risk of erroneous decisions.19 That risk is compounded by the diminished capacity of mentally retarded offenders, who are more prone than others to make false confessions,20 and who also exhibit
[a] lesser ability ... to make a persuasive showing of mitigation in the face of prosecutorial evidence of one or more aggravating factors . . . may be less able to give meaningful assistance to their counsel and are typically poor witnesses, and [whose] demeanor may create an unwarranted impression of lack of remorse for their crimes. . . . Mentally retarded defendants in the aggregate face a special risk of wrongful execution.21
Furthermore, it is obvious that the consequences of an erroneous rejection of a capital defendant’s claim of mental retardation are extreme and irredeemable. In capital proceedings, especially, courts should always demand factfinding procedures that uphold a heightened standard of reliability.22 This is especially crucial when dealing with the mentally retarded, whose diminished capacities leave them vulnerable to a unique and significant risk of being wrongfully executed. Far from “jealously guarding”23 the fundamental right of the mentally retarded to avoid execution, the majority opinion subjects them to this heightened risk, thereby increasing the likelihood of erroneous rejections of retardation claims, which will invariable lead to wrongful executions.
4. The Constitution cannot simultaneously limit the state to the preponderance of the evidence standard when seeking to prosecute a capital defendant who claims incompetence, yet allow the state to impose the beyond a reasonable doubt standard when that same defendant, after being convicted and sentenced to death, claims mental retardation. The majority opinion errs by concluding otherwise.
Even though a condemned prisoner does not enjoy the same presumptions as a criminal defendant who is yet to be tried, he has not altogether lost the protections of the Constitution, either. If the Con*274stitution dictates that such a prisoner’s
Decided October 6,2003 —
Reconsideration denied November 7,2003.
execution [is] contingent upon establishment of a further fact [such as the lack of mental retardation], then that fact must be determined with the high regard for truth that befits a decision affecting the life or death of a human being. Thus, the ascertainment of a prisoner’s sanity as a predicate to lawful execution calls for no less stringent standards than those demanded in any other aspect of a capital proceeding.24
In other words, due process forbids the state from imposing a higher evidentiary burden on a condemned prisoner when determining his competency for execution than the burden borne by the prisoner at trial. Accordingly, I would hold that the state is estopped from executing a condemned defendant once he has “demonstrated that he is more likely than not”25 mentally retarded.
5. Although Georgia was the first state in the nation to prohibit the execution of mentally retarded persons, it is now the only state that requires condemned defendants to prove their retardation beyond a reasonable doubt.26 Despite the federal ban on executing the mentally retarded, Georgia’s statute, and the majority decision upholding it, do not prohibit the state from executing mentally retarded people. To the contrary, the State may still execute people who are in all probability mentally retarded. The State may execute people who are more than likely mentally retarded. The State may even execute people who are almost certainly mentally retarded. Only if a mentally retarded person succeeds in proving their retardation beyond a reasonable doubt will his or her execution be halted. Based upon the precedent discussed above, I am convinced this situation violates the tenets of due process as that concept is embodied in our Federal Constitution. Therefore, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Fletcher and Justice Benham join me in this dissent.
*275Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Brian S. Kammer, Thomas S. Dunn, for appellee.
James C. Bonner, Jr., Sarah L. Gerwig, Michael M. Mears, Holly L. Geerdes, Gerald R. Weber, Jr., John R. Martin, Nicholas A. Lotito, amici curiae.

 Maj. op. at 258.

 536 U. S. 304 (122 SC 2242, 153 LE2d 335) (2002).

 Maj. op. at 258.

 477 U. S. 399, 405 (106 SC 2595, 91 LE2d 335) (1986).

 Maj. op. at 259.

 477 U. S. at 410.

 477 U. S. at 413-418.

 517 U. S. 348 (116 SC 1373, 134 LE2d 498) (1996).

 517 U. S. at 355-356, 363-364.

 Maj. op. at 258.

 Cooper v. Oklahoma, 517 U. S. at 367-368, quoting Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 201-202 (97 SC 2319, 53 LE2d 281) (1977). Accord Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (72 SC 1002, 96 LE2d 1302) (1952).

 Atkins, 536 U. S. at 315-316 (the fact that between 1986 and 2001, seventeen states and the federal government enacted bans on executing the mentally retarded is “powerful evidence that today our society views mentally retarded offenders as categorically less culpable than the average criminal”).

 The majority’s reliance upon Mosher v. State, 268 Ga. 555 (491 SE2d 348) (1997) is misplaced. That opinion upheld OCGA § 17-7-131 (c) (2)’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard only because at the time of that decision, there was no federal ban on executing the mentally retarded and hence, federal precedent had no bearing on what burden of proof could be imposed on condemned defendants who seek to prove their mental retardation. 268 Ga. at 560. Obviously, that rationale became invalid in 2002 when Atkins announced a federal ban on executing mentally retarded persons.

 See note 8, supra.

 517 U. S. at 355.

 517 U. S. at 355. In its decision, the Court noted that historically, incompetence has been treated synonymously with insanity. 517 U. S. at 357, n. 8.

 517 U. S. at 363, quoting Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 423 (99 SC 1804, 60 LE2d 323) (1979) and Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U. S. 261, 283 (110 SC 2841, 111 LE2d 224) (1990).

 517 U. S. at 363, quoting Jacob v. New York City, 315 U. S. 752, 752-753 (62 SC 854, 86 LE 1166) (1942).

 Cooper, 517 U. S. at 363-364.

 Atkins, 536 U. S. at 320. Recently, at least two mentally retarded death row inmates who confessed to capital crimes they did not commit have been exonerated due to DNA evidence. See “Porter Fully Savors First Taste of Freedom,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 6, 1999, p. Nl; “Death Row Inmate Gets Clemency,” Washington Post, Jan. 15, 1994, p. Al.

 Atkins, 536 U. S. at 320-321 (emphasis supplied).

 Ford, 477 U. S. at 411.

 Cooper, 517 U. S. at 363.

 Ford, 477 U. S. at 411-412.

 Cooper, 517 U. S. at 355.

 Of those states that permit the death penalty, eighteen have announced standards to protect the mentally retarded from execution. Ten states employ a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, while five states employ a “clear and convincing” standard. Bills regarding the standard of proof in mental retardation cases appear to be pending in two states.