Brown v. Payton

544 U.S. 133 (2005)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P raped Pamela Montgomery, and then used a butcher knife to stab her to death. P proceeded to enter the bedroom of the house's patron, Patricia Pensinger, and stab her as she slept aside her 10-year-old son, Blaine. When Blaine resisted, P started to stab him as well. The knife blade bent, and P went to the kitchen to retrieve another. Upon the intervention of other boarders, P dropped the second knife and fled. P was tried for the first-degree murder and rape of Pamela Montgomery and for the attempted murders of Patricia and Blaine Pensinger. P presented no evidence in the guilt phase of the trial and was convicted on all counts. During the penalty phase, the prosecutor introduced evidence of a prior incident when P stabbed a girlfriend; a prior conviction for rape; a prior drug-related felony conviction; and evidence of jailhouse conversations in which P admitted he had an 'urge to kill' and a 'severe problem with sex and women' that caused him to view all women as potential victims to 'stab . . . and rape.' P presented post-crime behavior and evidence from eight witnesses. They testified that in the year and nine months since his arrest, P had made a sincere commitment to God, participated in prison Bible study classes and a prison ministry, and had a calming effect on other prisoners. The judge gave a verbatim model instruction that set forth 11 different factors, labeled (a) through (k), for the jury to 'consider, take into account and be guided by' in determining whether to impose a sentence of life imprisonment or death. The last instruction, Factor (k) was a catchall instruction, in contrast to the greater specificity of the instructions that preceded it. Factor (k) directed jurors to consider 'any other circumstance which extenuates the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime.' P objected to the instruction and asked that it be modified to direct the jury, in more specific terms, to consider evidence of P's character and background. The prosecution, on the other hand, indicated that in its view Factor (k) was not intended to encompass evidence concerning a defendant's background or character. The court agreed with P that Factor (k) was a general instruction covering all mitigating evidence. It declined, to modify the wording. In his closing, the prosecutor offered jurors his opinion that Factor (k) did not allow them to consider anything that happened 'after the [crime] or later.' P objected to the comment and moved for a mistrial, which the trial court denied. The court admonished the jury that the prosecutor's comments were merely argument, but it did not explicitly instruct the jury that the prosecutor's interpretation was incorrect. The prosecutor then argued that the circumstances and facts of the case, coupled with P's prior violent acts, outweighed the mitigating effect of P's newfound Christianity. He discussed the mitigation evidence in considerable detail and concluded by urging that the circumstances of the case and P's prior violent acts outweighed his religious conversion. P argued that Factor (k) was a catchall instruction designed to cover precisely the kind of evidence P had presented. The jury returned a death sentence. The judge sentenced P to death for murder and to 21 years and 8 months for rape and attempted murder. On direct appeal to the California Supreme Court, P argued the text of Factor (k) was misleading and rendered more so in light of the prosecutor's argument. The California Supreme Court rejected P's claims and affirmed his convictions and sentence. Applying Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370 the state court held that in the context of the proceedings, there was no reasonable likelihood that P's jury believed it was required to disregard his mitigating evidence. P filed a writ of habeas corpus claiming that the jury was prevented from considering his mitigation evidence. The court held that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), did not apply because P had filed a motion for appointment of counsel before AEDPA's effective date, even though he did not file the petition until after that date. The court granted the petition. The Court of Appeals reversed and on a petition for rehearing en banc and, by a 6-to-5 vote, affirmed the District Court's order granting habeas relief. It held that AEDPA did not govern P's petition. It, too, conducted a de novo review of his claims and concluded that post-crime mitigation evidence was not encompassed by the Factor (k) instruction, a view it found to have been reinforced by the prosecutor's arguments. D petitioned for certiorari and it was granted on the grounds that a request for appointment of counsel did not suffice to make 'pending' a habeas petition filed after AEDPA's effective date. On remand, the en banc panel affirmed the District Court's previous grant of habeas relief by the same 6-to-5 vote. The court granted certiorari.