The Supreme Court/The Supreme Court.iso/pc/ascii/1991/91_7580/91_7580.zd

Text File | 1993-01-25 | 5.9 KB | 118 lines

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-7580
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GARY GRAHAM, PETITIONER v. JAMES A. COL-
LINS, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPART-
MENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, IN-
STITUTIONAL DIVISION
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the fifth circuit
[January 25, 1993]

  Justice Stevens, dissenting.
  Neither the race of the defendant nor the race of the
victim should play a part in any decision to impose a
death sentence.  As Justice Thomas points out, there is
reason to believe that this imperative was routinely
violated in the years before the Court first held that
capital punishment may violate the Eighth Amendment,
when racial discrimination infected the administration of
the death penalty -particularly in Southern States, and
most particularly in rape cases.-  Ante, at 2.  And Justice
Thomas is surely correct that concern about racial dis-
crimination played a  significant role in the development
of our modern capital sentencing jurisprudence.  Ante, at
3-7.  Where I cannot agree with Justice Thomas is in
the remarkable suggestion that the Court's decision in
Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302 (1989), somehow threat-
ens what progress we have made in eliminating racial
discrimination and other arbitrary considerations from the
capital sentencing determination.
  In recent years, the Court's capital punishment cases
have  erected four important safeguards against arbitrary
imposition of the death penalty.  First, notwithstanding
a minority view that proportionality should play no part
in our analysis, we have concluded that death is an
impermissible punishment for certain offenses.  Specifi-
cally, neither the crime of rape nor the kind of uninten-
tional homicide referred to by Justice Thomas, ante, at
7, may now support a death sentence.  See Enmund v.
Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S.
584 (1977).
     Second, as a corollary to the proportionality require-
ment, the Court has demanded that the States narrow the
class of individuals eligible for the death penalty, either
through statutory definitions of capital murder, or through
statutory specification of aggravating circumstances.  This
narrowing requirement, like the categorical exclusion of
the offense of rape, has significantly minimized the risk
of racial bias in the sentencing process.  Indeed, as I
pointed out in my dissent in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481
U. S. 279 (1987), there is strong empirical evidence that
an adequate narrowing of the class of death-eligible
offenders would eradicate any significant risk of bias in
the imposition of the death penalty.
  Third, the Court has condemned the use of aggravating
factors so vague that they actually enhance the risk that
unguided discretion will control the sentencing determina-
tion.   See, e.g., Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U. S. 356
(1988) (invalidating -especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel-
aggravating circumstance); Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U. S.
420 (1980) (invalidating -outrageously or wantonly vile,
horrible or inhuman- aggravating circumstance).  An
aggravating factor that invites a judgment as to whether
a murder committed by a member of another race is
especially -heinous- or -inhuman- may increase, rather
than decrease, the chance of arbitrary decisionmaking, by
creating room for the influence of personal prejudices.  In
my view, it is just such aggravating factors, which fail to
cabin sentencer discretion in the determination of death-
eligibility, that pose the -evident danger- of which Justice
Thomas warns.  See ante, at 2.
  Finally, at the end of the process, when dealing with
the narrow class of offenders deemed death-eligible, we
insist that the sentencer be permitted to give effect to all
relevant mitigating evidence offered by the defendant, in
making the final sentencing determination.  See, e.g.,
Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U. S. 104 (1982); Lockett v.
Ohio, 438 U. S. 586 (1978).  I have already explained my
view that once the class of death-eligible offenders is
sufficiently narrowed, consideration of relevant, individual
mitigating circumstances in no way compromises the
-rationalizing principle,- ante, at 12, of Furman v. Georgia,
408 U. S. 238 (1972).  See Walton v. Arizona, 497 U. S.
639, 715-719 (Stevens, J., dissenting).  To the contrary,
the requirement that sentencing decisions be guided by
consideration of relevant mitigating evidence reduces still
further the chance that the decision will be based on
irrelevant factors such as race.  Lockett itself illustrates
this point.  A young black woman, Lockett was sentenced
to death because the Ohio statute -did not permit the
sentencing judge to consider, as mitigating factors, her
character, prior record, age, lack of specific intent to cause
death, and her relatively minor part in the crime.-  438
U. S., at 597.  When such relevant facts are excluded
from the sentencing determination, there is more, not less,
reason to believe that the sentencer will be left to rely on
irrational considerations like racial animus.
  I remain committed to our -mitigating- line of prece-
dent, as a critical protection against arbitrary and discrim-
inatory capital sentencing that is fully consonant with the
principles of Furman.  Nothing in Justice Thomas'
opinion explains why the requirement that sentencing
decisions be based on relevant mitigating evidence, as
applied by Penry, increases the risk that those decisions
will be based on the irrelevant factor of race.  More
specifically, I do not see how permitting full consideration
of a defendant's mental retardation and history of child-
hood abuse, as in Penry, or of a defendant's youth, as in
this case, in any way increases the risk of race-based or
otherwise arbitrary decisionmaking.
  Justice Souter, in whose dissent I join, has demon-
strated that the decision in Penry is completely consistent
with our capital sentencing jurisprudence.  In my view,
it is also faithful to the goal of eradicating racial discrimi-
nation in capital sentencing, which I share with Justice
Thomas.