POLAND v. ARIZONA
No. 85-5023
Supreme Court of the United States
May 5, 1986
476 U.S. 147
*Tоgether with No. 85-5024, Poland v. Arizona, also on certiorari to the same court.
H. K. Wilhelmsen, by appointment of the Court, 474 U. S. 943, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Marc E. Hammond.
Gerald R. Grant, Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Robert K. Corbin, Attorney General.
JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a further capital sentencing proceeding when, on appeal from a sentence of death, the reviewing сourt finds the evidence insufficient to support the only aggravating factor on which the sentencing judge relied, but does not find the evidence insufficient to support the death penalty.
I
In 1977 petitioners Patrick and Michael Poland, disguised as police officers, stopped a Purolator van that was making cash deliveries to various banks in northern Arizona. After removing some $281,000 in cash from the van, petitioners took the two Purolator guards to a lake and dumped them into the water in sacks weighted with rocks. Autopsies indi
The jury disbelieved petitioners’ alibi defense and convicted them of first-degree murder. Pursuant to former
“The court finds the aggravating circumstance in § 13-454 E(3) [sic] is not presеnt. This presumes the legislative intent was to cover a contract killing. If this presumption is inaccurate, the evidence shows the defendants received something of pecuniary value, cash in the amount of $281,000.00.
“This, then, would be an aggravating circumstance.” App. 15-16.
The judge found that the “especially heinous, cruel, [or] depraved” aggravating circumstance was present, stating that the murders were “shockingly evil, insensate, and marked by debasement.” Id., at 16. Finding that this aggravating circumstance outweighed the mitigating evidence, the judge sentenced petitioners to death. Id., at 14.
On appeal, petitioners argued that the evidence was insufficient to support the judge‘s finding of the “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved” aggravating circumstance. They
On remand, petitioners were again convicted of first-degree murder. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecution, relying on the evidence presented at the second trial and also presenting additional evidence, argued that the “pecuniary gain” and “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved” aggravating factors were present in each petitioner‘s case. The prosecution alleged a third aggravating circumstance in petitioner Patrick Poland‘s case: previous conviction of “a felony... involving the use or threat of violence on another person,”
“Our holding in Poland I... was simply that the death penalty could not be based solely upon [the ‘especially heinous, cruel, or depraved‘] aggravating circumstance because there was insufficient evidence to support it. This holding was not tantamount to a death penalty ‘acquittal.‘” State v. Poland (Patrick), 144 Ariz. 388, 404, 698 P. 2d 183, 199 (1985).
Accord, State v. Poland (Michael), 144 Ariz. 412, 698 P. 2d 207 (1985).
The court found the evidence still insufficient to support the “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved” aggravating circumstance, but sufficient to support the “pecuniary gain” aggravating circumstance with respect to both defendants and the “prior conviction involving violence” circumstance with respect to Patrick Poland. State v. Poland (Patrick), supra, at 404-406, 698 P. 2d, at 199-201; accord, State v. Poland (Michael), supra. After again reviewing and independently weighing the mitigating and aggravating circumstances, the court concluded that the death penalty was appropriate in each petitioner‘s case. We granted certiorari to consider whether reimposing the death penalties on petitioners violated the Double Jeopardy Clause. 474 U. S. 816 (1985). We hold that it did not.
In Bullington v. Missouri, supra, this Court held that a defendant sentenced to life imprisonment by a capital sentencing jury is protected by the Double Jeopardy Clause against imposition of the death penalty in the event that he obtains reversal of his conviction and is retried and reconvicted. The Court recognized the usual rule to be that when a defendant obtains reversal of his conviction on appeal,
“the original conviction has been nullified and ‘the slate wiped clean.’ Therefore, if the defendant is convicted again, he constitutionally may be subjected to whatever punishment is lawful, subject only to the limitation that he receive credit for time served.” Id., at 442 (quoting North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 721 (1969)).
However, the Court found that its prior decisions had created an exception to this rule: “[T]he ‘clean slate’ rationale... is inapplicable whenever a jury agrees or an appellate court decides that the prosecution has not proved its case.” Bullington, 451 U. S., at 443.2 Although it is usually “impossible to conclude that a sentence less than the statutory maximum ‘constitute[s] a decision to the effect that the gov-
Recently, the Court held that the rationale of Bullington applies to the Arizona capital sentencing scheme at issue in this case. Arizona v. Rumsey, supra.4 In Rumsey, the
Under Bullington and Rumsey, therefore, the relevant inquiry in the cases before us is whether the sentencing judge or the reviewing court has “decid[ed] that the prosecution has not proved its case” for the death penalty and hence has “acquitted” petitioners. Bullington, 451 U. S., at 443.
III
At no point during petitioners’ first capital sentencing hearing and appeal did either the sentencer or the reviewing court hold that the prosecution had “failed to prove its case” that petitioners deserved the death penalty. Plainly, the sentencing judge did not acquit, for he imposed the death penalty. While the Arizona Supreme Court held that the sentencing judge erred in relying on the “especially heinous, cruel, or deprаved” aggravating circumstance, it did not hold that the prosecution had failed to prove its case for the death penalty. Indeed, the court clearly indicated that there had been no such failure by remarking that “the trial court mistook the law when it did not find that the defendants ‘committed the offense as consideration for the receipt, or in expectation of the receipt, of anything of pecuniary value,‘” and that
Petitioners argue, however, that the Arizona Supreme Court “acquitted” them of the death penalty by finding the “evidence [insufficient] to support the sole aggravating circumstances found by the sentencer.” Brief for Petitioners 16. Petitioners’ implicit argument is, first, that the sentencing judge “acquitted” them of the “pecuniary gain” aggravating circumstance, and second, that the Double Jeopardy Clause rendered this “acquittal” final, so that the evidence relating to this circumstance was effectively removed from the case at the time of petitioners’ first appeal.5
We reject the fundamental premise of petitioners’ argument, namely, that a capital sentencer‘s failure to find a particular aggravating circumstance alleged by the prosecution always constitutes an “acquittal” of that circumstance for double jeopardy purposes. Bullington indicates that the proper inquiry is whether the sentencer or reviewing court has “decided that the prosecution has not proved its case” that the death penalty is appropriate.6 We are not prepared
Aggravating circumstances are not separate penalties or offenses, but are “standards to guide the making of [the] choice” between the alternative verdicts of death and life imprisonment. 451 U. S., at 438. Thus, under Arizona‘s capital sentencing scheme, the judge‘s finding of any particular aggravating circumstance does not of itself “convict” a defendant (i. e., require the death penalty), and the failure to find any particular aggravating circumstance does not “quit” a defendant (i. e., preclude the death penalty).
It is true that the sentencer must find some aggravating circumstance before the death penalty may be imposed, and that the sentencer‘s finding, albeit erroneous, that no aggravating circumstance is present is an “acquittal” barring a second death sentence proceeding. Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203 (1984). This is because
“the law attaches particular significance to an acquittal. To permit a second trial after an acquittal, however mistaken the acquittal may have been, would present an unacceptably high risk that the Government, with its vastly superior resources, might wear down the defendant so that ‘even though innocent he may be found guilty.‘” United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 91 (1978) (quoting Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 188 (1957)).
This concern with protecting the finality of acquittals is not implicated when, as in these cases, a defendant is sentenced to death, i. e., “convicted.” There is no cause to shield such a defendant from further litigation; further litigation is the only hope he has. The defendant may argue on appeal that the evidence presented at his sentencing hearing was as a matter of law insufficient to support the aggravating circum
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, dissenting.
There is one difference between these cases and Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203 (1984), in which seven Members of this Court interpreted the Double Jeopardy Clause to bar impоsition of a death sentence after a life sentence has been reversed on appeal: the sentencing judge in petitioners’ cases made two errors of state law, while Rumsey‘s judge made only one. According to the majority, that makes the difference between life and death.
In Rumsey, the defendant was convicted of murder and robbery; the trial judge sentenced him to life imprisonment
Petitioners, Patrick and Michael Poland, were convicted of the murders of two guards in the course of a robbery. Like the trial court in Rumsey, the sentencing court rejected the aggravating circumstance of murder for pecuniary gain, believing that it applied only to murders for hire. Unlike the Rumsey court, however, the trial judge did not then impose a life sentence. Instead, he concluded that another of the statutory aggravating circumstances was present: that the murders were “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved.” Based on this sole aggravating circumstance, therefore, the court sentenced petitioners to death. On joint appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court reviewed the death sentences and concluded that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of state law to establish that the murders had been “especially heinous,
The Court makes much of the fact that, unlike Rumsey, petitioners never received sentences of life imprisonment. Yet the majority fails to recognize the teaching of Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1 (1978). In Burks, we held that an appellate reversal of a conviction, based on the legal conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict, has the same effect under the Dоuble Jeopardy Clause as an acquittal at trial. Id., at 16. “To hold otherwise,” the Court concluded, “would create a purely arbitrary distinction between those in petitioner‘s position and others who would enjoy the benefit of a correct decision by the District Court.” Id., at 11. That arbitrary distinction is precisely the one that the Court creates today. The initial death sentences that petitioners received were “convictions,” see Rumsey, supra, and their reversal for insufficiency of the evidence to support the sole aggravating circumstance found by the sentencing judge must, under Burks, be accorded the same effect as an “acquittal” at trial—the same effect as Rumsey‘s life sentence. As much as Rumsey‘s life sentence constituted the all-important “acquittal on the merits,” even
The analogy, first drawn in Bullington v. Missouri, supra, between an acquittal at trial and an “acquittal” of death at sentencing, is not perfect, and the imperfections perhaps can explain the majority‘s mischaracterization of the issue in these cases. At trial, a defendant is charged with an offense containing certain specified elements; he is either convicted or acquitted of that offense, the trier of fact having concluded that the prosecution has or has not proved all the elements of the offense. The sentencing proceeding, however, is quite different. In Arizona, for example, a death sentence may be imposed if any one of seven statutory aggravating factors is proved. While it might be possible to treat each aggravating circumstance as a separate “offense,” of which a defendant is either convicted or acquitted, this Court has taken a different approach. We have said that “on the merits” of a capital proceeding, the “central issue [is] whether death was the appropriate punishment for [the] offense.” Rumsey, 467 U. S., at 211. Thus, the “offense” for which the defendant receives his “conviction” or “acquittal” is that of the appropriatеness of the death penalty, not the elements of any particular aggravating factor. Ante, at 153, n. 3.
In these cases, the trial judge found death to be the appropriate punishment because petitioners’ offenses were “especially heinous, cruel, or depraved.” On appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the sole basis offered by the trial court to support its “conviction” of petitioners was insufficient as a matter of law.
The majority believes that, since other aggravating circumstanсes might have been found to support the “convictions,” it was permissible to remand the cases for further factfinding on those alternative factors. But this overlooks what our cases have said a conviction is in the sentencing context—a determination that death is the appropriate penalty, not separate trials on the existence of all statutory aggravat
Notes
Also, when a defendant‘s conviction is overturned on appeal on the grounds that the evidence was insufficient to convict, the Double Jeopardy Clause forbids a retrial. “Since we necessarily accord absolute finality to a jury‘s verdict of acquittal—no matter how erroneous its decision—it is difficult to conceive how society has any greater interest in retrying a defendant when, on review, it is decided as a matter of law that the jury could not properly have returned a verdict of guilty.” Bullington, supra, at 442-443 (quoting Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1, 16 (1978)).
“The capital sentencing proceeding in Arizona shares the characteristics of the Missouri proceeding that make it resemble a trial for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 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 eaсh 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.... [T]hese characteristics make the Arizona capital sentencing proceeding indistinguishable for double jeopardy purposes from the caрital sentencing proceeding in Missouri.” Ibid. (citations omitted).
Petitioners seem to attach importanсe to the fact that the prosecution did not cross-appeal the trial judge‘s finding regarding the “pecuniary gain” aggravating circumstance. However, the Arizona Supreme Court did not accord any significance to the prosecution‘s failure to cross-appeal, and we certainly cannot say that as a matter of state law the court was precluded from considering the evidence regarding the “pecuniary gain” aggravating circumstance.