COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellant, v. Frank ELDRED, Appellee.
No. 96-SC-788-TG.
Supreme Court of Kentucky.
March 19, 1998.
As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Sept. 3, 1998.
STEPHENS, C.J., and LAMBERT, J., join.
A.B. Chandler, III, Attorney General, David A. Sexton, David A. Smith, Paul D. Gilbert, Assistant Attorneys General, Criminal Appellate Division, Frankfort, for Appellant.
JOHNSTONE, Justice.
We address a single issue in this appeal: whether the holding of Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981), precludes the Commonwealth from seeking the death penalty at a defendant‘s retrial, where during the penalty phase of the defendant‘s first trial the jury found, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of a statutory aggravating factor but did not recommend a sentence of death.
In Eldred v. Commonwealth, Ky., 906 S.W.2d 694 (1995), we overturned Frank Eldred‘s conviction of first-degree arson and murder for reasons unrelated to this appeal. The Commonwealth sought the death penalty at Eldred‘s first trial. During the penalty phase of his trial, the jury found the statutory aggravating circumstance of murder for profit and designated this finding in writing. The jury recommended a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for twenty-five years (hereinafter Life-25), rather than death. Subsequently, the trial court imposed a sentence of Life-25 for the murder conviction.
Upon retrial, the Commonwealth notified Eldred that it would again seek the death penalty. Eldred moved the trial court to prohibit the Commonwealth from seeking the death penalty under the authority of Bullington, supra, and Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U.S. 203, 104 S.Ct. 2305, 81 L.Ed.2d 164 (1984). The trial court granted Eldred‘s motion. The Commonwealth appealed the trial court‘s ruling to this court. We find that Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure does not bar the Commonwealth from seeking the death penalty at Eldred‘s new trial. We, therefore, reverse.
THE GENERAL RULE
Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103 (1919), has long stood for the proposition that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent a defendant whose conviction is reversed from receiving a more severe sentence upon retrial than he received at his first trial. The Stroud Court found that the imposition of the death penalty at retrial, after the defendant had received a lesser sentence for the same offense at a previous trial, did not place the defendant in second jeopardy within the meaning of the United States Constitution. Id. at 18,
THE BULLINGTON EXCEPTION
Six months after DiFrancesco was decided, the Supreme Court decided Bullington, and, for the first time, held that the protection of the Double Jeopardy Clause applied equally to sentencing and to determinations of guilt or innocence. Bullington at 449,
The Bullington Court held that the imposition of the death penalty at the defendant‘s new trial was barred by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution “[b]ecause the sentencing proceeding at [the defendant‘s] first trial was like the trial on the question of guilt or innocence, the protection afforded by the Double Jeopardy Clause to one acquitted by a jury also is available to him, with respect to the death penalty, at his
Bullington was reaffirmed in Arizona v. Rumsey, supra. In Rumsey, the defendant was sentenced to death at retrial after having been sentenced to life without parole for 25 years at his first trial. The Rumsey Court concluded that Bullington controlled and, therefore, the imposition of the death penalty violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. Rumsey at 210,
The discretion of the sentencer—the jury in Missouri—is restricted to precisely two options: death, and life imprisonment without possibility of release for 50 years. In addition, the sentencer is to make its decision guided by substantive standards and based on evidence introduced in a separate proceeding that formally resembles a trial. Finally, the prosecution has to prove certain statutorily defined facts beyond a reasonable doubt in order to support a sentence of death.
Rumsey at 209,
The sentencer—the trial judge in Arizona—is required to choose between two options: death, and life imprisonment without possibility of parole for 25 years. The sentencer must make the decision guided by detailed statutory standards defining aggravating and mitigating circumstances; in particular, death may not be imposed unless at least one aggravating circumstance is found, whereas death must be imposed if there is one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstance sufficiently substantial to call for leniency. The sentencer must make findings with respect to each of the statutory aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and the sentencing hearing involves the submission of evidence and the presentation of argument. The usual rules of evidence govern the admission of evidence of aggravating circumstances, and the State must prove the existence of aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.
Rumsey at 209-210,
Because of the similarities between the two sentencing procedures, the Rumsey Court found that Arizona‘s capital sentencing procedure was indistinguishable from Missouri‘s for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. Id. at 210,
Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure shares a number of characteristics with both Missouri‘s and Arizona‘s capital sentencing procedures that were found to be determinative by the Rumsey Court: Kentucky has a
There are two important exceptions to the general rule set forth in Stroud and reaffirmed in Pearce. Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957), held that a defendant convicted of second-degree murder, who successfully attacks his conviction on appeal, cannot be convicted of first-degree murder at retrial. Green established the principle that conviction of a lesser-included offense operates as an implied acquittal of the greater offense. Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978), held that a defendant may not be retried if he obtains a reversal of his conviction on the ground that the evidence presented against him at trial was legally insufficient to convict him. The Bullington Court found that both the exceptions of Burks and Green applied to its case at bar and relied on these exceptions to establish the exception it created in Bullington. Bullington at 444-445,
SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE: THE BURKS’ EXCEPTION
Before the death penalty can be imposed in Kentucky, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least one aggravating factor, and the jury must designate any aggravating factors in writing.
The Bullington Court found that Missouri‘s capital sentencing procedure created
In support of this conclusion, we note that the Bullington Court framed the issue before it as “whether the reasoning of Stroud is also to apply under a system where a jury‘s sentencing decision is made at a bifurcated proceeding‘s second stage at which the prosecution has the burden of proving certain elements beyond a reasonable doubt before the death penalty may be imposed.” Bullington at 432,
The trial court entered findings denying the existence of each of the seven statutory aggravating circumstances, and as required by state law, the court then entered judgment in respondent‘s favor on the issue of death. That judgment, based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence, amounts to an acquittal on the merits and, as such, bars any retrial of the appropriateness of the death penalty.
Rumsey at 211,
IMPLIED ACQUITTAL: THE GREEN EXCEPTION
As set forth in Bullington, under Missouri‘s capital sentencing procedure, once a defendant has been found guilty of a capital crime, the trial moves on to the sentencing phase. Bullington at 433,
Under Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure, the issue before the jury is not whether death is an appropriate sentence, but rather, the issue is what sentence is appropriate for the defendant. Even if the jury finds the existence of an aggravating factor, the jury may still recommend a sentence within the entire range of possible sentences. Marlowe v. Commonwealth, Ky., 709 S.W.2d 424, 432 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 946, 107 S.Ct. 427, 93 L.Ed.2d 378 (1986). In other words, the jury is not required to choose between death and not death. Thus, Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure does not have this particular hallmark of a trial on guilt or innocence in common with the capital sentencing procedures found in Missouri and Arizona. This restriction of the sentencer to
In contrast, the sentencing procedures considered in the Court‘s previous cases did not have the hallmarks of the trial on guilt or innocence. In Pearce, Chaffin, and Stroud, . . . the sentencer‘s discretion was essentially unfettered. . . . In Pearce, the judge had a wide range of punishments from which to choose. . . . And in Chaffin, the discretion given to the jury was extremely broad. That defendant, . . . could have been sentenced to death, to life imprisonment, or a prison term of between 4 and 20 years.
Bullington, at 439-40,
Taken to its extreme, the implied acquittal theory results in any sentence being an implied acquittal of any higher sentence. This result is incompatible with Pearce and our decision in Bruce. We reject any such outcome out of hand. Thus, had Eldred‘s jury returned a recommendation of 20 years’ imprisonment, this recommendation would not have been an implied acquittal of a term of years greater than 20 or an implied acquittal of life. Nor would it have been an implied acquittal of Life-25, even though a sentence of Life-25, like the death penalty, requires a written finding of the existence of at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt. See Monge v. California, 524 U.S. 721, 118 S.Ct. 2246, 141 L.Ed.2d 615 (1998), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Bullington exception has no application beyond the death penalty.
Consequently, the only conceivable way that Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure can be amenable to an analogy with the implied acquittal exception found in Green and extended to capital sentencing Bullington, is to view any sentence other than death as a sentence of not death, but at the same time, in order to be consistent with Pearce, not to view this same sentence as an implied acquittal of any greater offense other than death. Going back to the above example, a recommended sentence of 20 years would have to be viewed as an implied acquittal of death, but it could not be viewed as an implied acquittal of a term of years greater than 20 years, an implied acquittal of life, or an implied acquittal of Life-25. This result stretches the implied acquittal exception of Green to the breaking point. Further, this result cannot be squared with the function and purpose of Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure.
The purpose of Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure is to determine what sentence is appropriate for the defendant. This is the same issue that is present during the penalty phase of a bifurcated, felony trial. The only relevant difference between the two penalty phases is that in a capital case a jury may not consider death or Life-25 unless the Commonwealth meets its burden of proving aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. However, after the Commonwealth has met its burden, the ultimate issue in both penalty phases is identical: What punishment is appropriate for the particular defendant? The difference in the gravity of the offense committed in a capital case and the gravity of the corresponding possible punishment does not in this case create a constitutional distinction.
We acknowledge that death is different from other forms of punishment. However, under Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure, the difference remains one of degree rather than one of kind. This conclusion is supported by Bullington itself. Bullington did not overrule Stroud, in which the death penalty at retrial was at issue. On the contrary, Bullington began its discussion with Stroud and how the general rule of Stroud has survived and been reaffirmed in a number of subsequent and important Supreme Court cases. Thus, we can only conclude that the death penalty has not been exorcised from the general rule, which was first laid down in Stroud, that the imposition of a lesser sentence does not prevent the prosecution from seeking a higher sentence at retrial. Therefore, we find no constitutional distinction between death and all the other possible sentencing options available to a jury in the penalty phase of a capital trial in Kentucky. Accordingly, because death is
We hold that, under Kentucky‘s capital sentencing procedure, after a conviction of a capital crime and upon a written finding by a jury of a statutory aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt, an imposed sentence of less than death at the defendant‘s first trial does not prevent, in the case of a successful appeal, the Commonwealth from again seeking the death penalty at a subsequent trial. Therefore, the Bullington exception does not preclude the Commonwealth from seeking the death penalty at Eldred‘s new trial.
For the reasons set forth above, the order of the Russell Circuit Court is reversed.
COOPER, GRAVES and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur.
STEPHENS, C.J., dissents by separate opinion, with LAMBERT and STUMBO, JJ., joining that dissent.
LAMBERT, J., dissents by separate opinion, with STEPHENS, C.J., and STUMBO, J., joining that dissent.
STEPHENS, Chief Justice, dissenting.
I strongly disagree with the majority opinion. I would affirm the decision of the Russell Circuit Court. In Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981), the United States Supreme Court held that Double Jeopardy barred imposition of a death sentence at a second capital murder trial where the jury in the first trial, in a separate penalty phase, had sentenced the defendant to life.
The case at bar is nearly a duplicate of Bullington. The majority has erroneously isolated two factors from Bullington and identified them as the critical considerations in the Court‘s decision, to wit: the fact that under Missouri law there are only two options for the jury, and the fact that there is no wide range of penalty options in Missouri.
The procedures used in securing a life sentence in Bullington, were characterized as the “hallmarks of a trial on guilt or innocence.” 451 U.S. at 439,
The guilty verdicts returned by the first jury indicate that the Commonwealth met its burden of proof at the guilt/innocence phase to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Eldred murdered Mr. Cannon, and that Eldred committed first degree arson.
To obtain a death penalty for Eldred, the Commonwealth had the burden of proving two things beyond a reasonable doubt, (1) the existence of an aggravating factor, and (2) that Eldred should be sentenced to death. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravator of murder for hire existed. Most significantly, the jury was further instructed, “[i]f upon the whole case you have a reasonable doubt whether the Defendant should be sentenced to death, you shall instead fix his punishment at a sentence of imprisonment.”
In my view, and according to Bullington, the jury acquitted Eldred of the death penalty when it fixed his punishment for murder at a sentence of imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole until he has served a minimum of 25 years.
The Commonwealth had its fair opportunity to prove that Eldred deserved to be sentenced to death, and failing to do that it should not be allowed to take a second bite of the apple. Therefore, I would affirm the decision of the Russell Circuit Court.
LAMBERT and STUMBO, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.
LAMBERT, Justice, dissenting.
To reach the conclusion that Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U.S. 430, 101 S.Ct. 1852, 68 L.Ed.2d 270 (1981), does not control this
In its Bullington decision the Supreme Court stated,
Chief Justice Bardgett, in his dissent from the ruling of the Missouri Supreme Court majority, observed that the sentence of life imprisonment which petitioner received at his first trial meant that “the jury has already acquitted the defendant of whatever was necessary to impose the death sentence.” 594 S.W.2d at 922. We agree.
Id., 451 U.S. at 445,
The Supreme Court of Kentucky should agree also, or at least yield gracefully, to the views of the final arbiter of Federal constitutional law. Eldred has already been tried; and the jury recommended and the court imposed a sentence of life without parole for twenty-five years. He should not have to face the death penalty a second time.
STEPHENS, C.J., and STUMBO, J., join this dissenting opinion.
