Johnson v. Mississippi

Decision Date13 June 1988
Docket NumberNo. 87-5468,87-5468
PartiesSamuel Bice JOHNSON, Petitioner v. MISSISSIPPI
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

Petitioner was convicted in a Mississippi court of murder. Finding the existence of three aggravating circumstances and that such circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the jury sentenced petitioner to death. The sole evidence supporting one of the aggravating circumstances—that petitioner had been "previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to [another] person"—consisted of an authenticated copy of his commitment to prison in 1963 following his New York conviction of second-degree assault with intent to commit first-degree rape. The prosecutor repeatedly referred to the commitment document at the sentencing hearing. After the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's death sentence, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the 1963 conviction. However, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied petitioner's motion for postconviction relief from the death sentence, arguing, inter alia, that (1) petitioner had waived his right to challenge the New York conviction by not raising the point on direct appeal of his death sentence; (2) Mississippi's capital sentencing procedures could be rendered capricious and standardless if the postsentencing decision of another State could invalidate a Mississippi death sentence; and (3) the New York conviction provided adequate support for the death penalty even if it was invalid, since petitioner had served time on the conviction.

Held: By allowing petitioner's death sentence to stand despite the fact that it was based in part on the vacated New York conviction, the Mississippi Supreme Court violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Pp. 584-590.

(a) The New York conviction did not provide any legitimate support for petitioner's sentence. Its reversal deprives the prosecutor's sole piece of evidence as to the aggravating circumstance of any relevance to the sentencing decision. The fact that petitioner served time in prison pursuant to an invalid conviction does not make the conviction itself relevant, or prove that petitioner was guilty of the crime. Furthermore, use of the New York conviction in the sentencing hearing was clearly prejudicial since the prosecutor repeatedly urged the jury to give it weight in connection with its assigned task of balancing aggravating and mitigating circumstances "one against the other." Pp. 585-586.

(b) The state court's concern that its vacatur of the death sentence here would render its capital sentencing procedures capricious is unfounded. That court has itself held that the reversal of a Kentucky conviction supporting an enhanced sentence under Mississippi's habitual criminal statute justified postconviction relief. Phillips v. State, 421 So.2d 476. A rule that regularly gives a defendant the benefit of such relief is not even arguably arbitrary or capricious and, in fact, reduces the risk that a capital sentence will be imposed arbitrarily. Pp. 586-587.

(c) The state court's conclusion that petitioner's failure to raise his claim on direct appeal constitutes a procedural bar under state law does not prevent this Court from considering the claim. Under federal law, such a bar can constitute an adequate and independent state ground for affirming a sentence only if it has been consistently or regularly applied. The bar raised here has not been so applied in Mississippi. In Phillips v. State, supra, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that collateral attack rather than direct appeal was the appropriate means of challenging a prior conviction used to enhance a habitual offender's sentence, and the Mississippi Supreme Court recently has applied that reasoning to facts substantially similar to those presented in this case. See Nixon v. State, 533 So.2d 1078 (Miss.1987). Pp. 587-589.

(d) The State's argument that the decision below should be affirmed because the state court did not mention the New York conviction when it conducted its proportionality review of the death sentence on direct appeal is without merit since the fact that the sentence might be consistent with Mississippi law even absent evidence of the New York conviction is not determinative here. The error here extended beyond the mere invalidation of an aggravating circumstance supported by otherwise admissible evidence since the jury was allowed to consider evidence that has been revealed to be materially inaccurate. Moreover, the state court's express refusal to rely on harmless-error analysis in upholding petitioner's sentence was plainly justified on the facts of this case. Pp. 589-590.

511 So.2d 1333, reversed and remanded.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. ----. WHITE, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., joined, post, p. ----. O'CONNOR, J., concurred in the judgment.

Floyd Abrams, New York City, for petitioner.

Marvin L. White, Jr., Jackson, Miss., for respondent.

Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In 1982, petitioner was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The sentence was predicated, in part, on the fact that petitioner had been convicted of a felony in New York in 1963. After the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's death sentence, the New York Court of Appeals reversed the 1963 conviction. Petitioner thereafter unsuccessfully sought postconviction relief from the Mississippi Supreme Court. The question presented to us is whether the state court was correct in concluding that the reversal of the New York conviction did not affect the validity of a death sentence based on that conviction.

I

On December 31, 1981, petitioner and three companions were stopped for speeding by a Mississippi highway patrolman. While the officer was searching the car, petitioner stabbed him and, in the ensuing struggle, one of his companions obtained the officer's gun and used it to kill him. Petitioner was apprehended, tried and convicted of murder, and sentenced to death. At the conclusion of the sentencing hearing, the jury found three aggravating circumstances,1 any one of which, as a matter of Mississippi law, would have been sufficient to support a capital sentence. After weighing mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances "one against the other," the jury found "that the aggravating circumstances do outweigh the mitigating circumstances and that the Defendant should suffer the penalty of death." 13 Record 2290, 2294; App. 32. The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, Johnson v. State, 477 So.2d 196 (1985), and we denied certiorari, 476 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 1958, 90 L.Ed.2d 366 (1986).

The sole evidence supporting the aggravating circumstance that petitioner had been "previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person of another" consisted of an authenticated copy of petitioner's commitment to Elmira Reception Center in 1963 following his conviction in Monroe County, New York, for the crime of second-degree assault with intent to commit first-degree rape. App. 8-9. The prosecutor repeatedly referred to that evidence in the sentencing hearing, stating in so many words: "I say that because of having been convicted of second degree assault with intent to commit first degree rape and capital murder that Samuel Johnson should die." 13 Record 2276; App. 23.2

Prior to the assault trial in New York in 1963, the police obtained an incriminating statement from petitioner. Despite petitioner's objection that the confession had been coerced, it was admitted into evidence without a prior hearing on the issue of voluntariness. Moreover, after petitioner was convicted, he was never informed of his right to appeal. He made three efforts to do so without the assistance of counsel, each of which was rejected as untimely. After his Mississippi conviction, however, his attorneys successfully prosecuted a postconviction proceeding in New York in which they persuaded the Monroe County Court that petitioner had been unconstitutionally deprived of his right to appeal. The County Court then entered a new sentencing order from which petitioner was able to take a direct appeal. In that proceeding, the New York Court of Appeals reversed his conviction.3 People v. Johnson, 69 N.Y.2d 339, 506 N.E.2d 1177 (1987).

Petitioner filed a motion in the Mississippi Supreme Court seeking postconviction relief from his death sentence on the ground that the New York conviction was invalid and could not be used as an aggravating circumstance. That motion was filed before the New York proceeding was concluded, but it was supplemented by prompt notification of the favorable action taken by the New York Court of Appeals. Nevertheless, over the dissent of three justices, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied the motion. 511 So.2d 1333 (1987).

The majority supported its conclusion with four apparently interdependent arguments. First, it stated that petitioner had waived his right to challenge the validity of the New York conviction because he had not raised the point on direct appeal.4 Second, it expressed concern that Mississippi's capital sentencing procedures would become capricious and standardless if the postsentencing decision of another State could have the effect of invalidating a Mississippi death sentence. Id., at 1338. Third, it questioned whether the New York proceedings were "truly adversarial." Id., at 1338-1339. Finally, it concluded that the New York conviction provided adequate support for the death penalty even if it was invalid, stating:

"The fact remains that Johnson was convicted in 1963 by a New York court of a serious felony involving...

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