☢ test - Í
evidence.’ Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 380, 110 S.Ct. 1190, 108 L.Ed.2d 316 (1990) (emphasis added). The alleged confusion stemming from the jury instructions used at the defendants’ sentencings does not clear that bar. A meager ‘possibility’ of confusion is not enough. Ibid. ” “The instruction makes clear that both the existence of aggravating circumstances and the conclusion that they outweigh mitigating circumstances must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt; mitigating circumstances themselves, on the other hand, must merely be ‘found to exist.’ ‘Found to exist’ certainly does not suggest proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The instructions as a whole distinguish clearly between aggravating and mitigating circumstances: ‘ The State has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there are one or more aggravating circumstances ...,’ and the jury must decide unanimously that the State met that burden. [Cit.] ‘Mitigating circumstances,’ on the other hand, ‘do not need to be found by all members of the jury’ to ‘be considered by an individual juror in arriving at his or her sentencing decision.’ [Cit.]. Not once do the instructions say that defense counsel bears the burden of proving the facts constituting a mitigating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt—nor would that make much sense, since one of the mitigating circumstances is (curiously) ‘mercy,’ which simply is not a factual determination.” Sears v. Humphrey, 294 Ga. 117, 751 S.E.2d 365 (November 18, 2013). Habeas court properly denied relief from capitol sentence where defendant kidnapped victim in Georgia, raped her in Tennessee, and murdered her in Kentucky. Defendant’s additional proposed mitigating evidence presented at habeas hearing might just have likely been considered aggravating by a jury. 1. “‘[P]resenting evidence of a defendant's drug addiction to a jury is often a “two-edged sword”; while providing a mitigating factor, such details may alienate the jury and offer little reason to lessen the sentence.’ Pace v. McNeil, 556 F3d 1211, 1224(V) (11 th Cir., 2009). We particularly find that to be the case here. The evidence of Sears' drug use is weak, and there is no evidence that he used any drugs other than marijuana. Nor is there any evidence that Sears began using drugs at an extremely young age, that he was using drugs at the time of the crimes, or that drugs were connected with the crimes in any way, and testimony that Sears was a drug abuser would have negated much of the testimony at trial regarding Sears' good character.” Also citing “ Tompkins v. Moore, 193 F3d 1327, 1338 (11th Cir.1999) (stating that showing drug abuse ‘is a two-edged sword which can harm a capital defendant as easily as it can help him at sentencing’).” 2. “[A] reasonable jury could have viewed evidence that Sears suffers from frontal lobe damage as aggravating. See Martinez v. Dretke, 404 F3d 878, 889–890(III)(2) (5 th Cir., 2005) (stating that ‘evidence of organic brain injury presents a “double-edged” sword’ because of its association with poor impulse control and a violent propensity and, thus, future dangerousness). Moreover, this evidence could have been used by the prosecuting attorney to support his sentencing phase closing argument that Sears was ‘a Defendant out of control’ who ‘cannot comply with the rules of a community’ or ‘a structured ... pretrial detention center.’” 3. “ We also note that ‘[a]ffidavit testimony regarding the addiction, dysfunction, and brutality that spanned multiple generations of [Sears'] family that occurred before [Sears'] birth or did not directly affect [Sears] would not have been significantly mitigating.’ (Punctuation omitted.) Hall v. Lee, 286 Ga. 79, 90–91(II)(B)(4)(b) (684 S.E.2d 868) (2009).” Bryant v. State, 288 Ga. 876, 708 S.E.2d 362 (March 18, 2011). Capital murder conviction affirmed, but sentence reversed based on improper victim impact testimony. Trial court properly excluded “mitigation evidence that does not focus on the character, background, or offense of the particular defendant on trial is properly excluded,” including here: “the testimony of a witness who had been previously incarcerated as a young person in another state, as it was uncontroverted that this witness had never met, spoken with, or been imprisoned with or in the same state as Bryant. For the same reason, we find no error in the trial court's exclusion of a videotaped documentary produced by the sheriff's department that was composed of statements of former methamphetamine users and individuals who had worked with such persons, as the videotape did not mention Bryant nor his victims, and none of them contributed to its production.” Also, document describing defendant’s deceased grandmother “was not a statement ‘of a witness’ but ‘about’ a witness, as it was filled with a variety of observations of a third, unknown party and was unreliable. We find no error in the trial court's exclusion of this evidence. See Gulley v. State, 271 Ga. 337, 346-347(13) (519 S.E.2d 655) (1999) (finding no error in the exclusion of mitigating evidence in the sentencing phase where there were insufficient circumstances of reliability).” Porter v. McCollum, 558 U.S. 30, 130 S.Ct. 447, 175 L.Ed.2d 398 (November 30, 2009). Florida Supreme Court and Eleventh Circuit erred in denying defendant’s postconviction relief; defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel when counsel failed to investigate or present mitigating evidence at sentencing phase of capital murder trial, resulting in death sentence. “It was the first time this lawyer had represented a defendant during a penalty-phase proceeding. At the postconviction hearing, he testified that he had only one short meeting with Porter regarding the penalty phase. He did not obtain any of Porter's school, medical, or military service records or interview any members of Porter's family. In Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 524, 525, 123 S.Ct. 2527, 156 L.Ed.2d 471 (2003), we held counsel ‘fell short of ... professional standards’ for not expanding their investigation beyond the presentence investigation report and one set of
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator