Blystone v. Pennsylvania

• Decision Date: 28 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-6222,88-6222
• Parties: Scott Wayne BLYSTONE, Petitioner v. PENNSYLVANIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

494 U.S. 299

110 S.Ct. 1078

108 L.Ed.2d 255

Scott Wayne BLYSTONE, Petitioner

v PENNSYLVANIA.

No. 88-6222.

Argued Oct. 10, 1989.

Decided Feb. 28, 1990.

Syllabus

After convicting petitioner of robbery, first-degree murder, and related crimes, a Pennsylvania jury—having found as an aggravating circumstance that petitioner committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony and having found that no mitigating circumstances existed—sentenced him to death. The State Supreme Court affirmed, rejecting petitioner's argument that the State's death penalty statute—which requires a sentence of death if a jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances or one or more aggravating circumstances that outweigh any mitigating ones—is unconstitutional because it mandates a death sentence based on the outcome of the weighing process.

Held: The Pennsylvania death penalty statute, and petitioner's sentence under it, comport with this Court's decisions interpreting the Eighth Amendment. The statute satisfies the requirement that a capital sentencing jury be allowed to consider and give effect to all relevant mitigating evidence since it does not unduly limit the types of mitigating evidence that may be considered. Nor is the statute impermissibly mandatory. Death is not automatically imposed upon conviction for certain types of murder, but is imposed only after a determination that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating ones present in the particular crime committed by the particular defendant, or that there are no such mitigating circumstances. This is sufficient under Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973, and Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256. Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 96 S.Ct. 3001, 49 L.Ed.2d 974, distinguished. Petitioner's argument that the mandatory feature of his jury instructions precluded the jury from considering whether the severity of his aggravating circumstance warranted the death sentence is rejected. The presence of aggravating circumstances serves the purpose of limiting the class of death-eligible defendants, and the Eighth Amendment does not require that such circumstances be further refined or weighed by a jury. Also rejected is petitioner's argument that the mandatory aspect of his jury instructions—where the instructions additionally stated that the jury was allowed to consider, inter alia, whether petitioner was affected by "extreme" mental or emotional disturbance, whether he was "substantially" impaired from appreciating his conduct, or whether he acted under "extreme" duress—foreclosed the jury's consideration of lesser degrees of disturbance, impairment, or duress. The judge clearly stated that these were merely items that the jury could consider, and that it was also entitled to consider "any other mitigating matter concerning the character or record of the defendant, or the circumstances of his offense," an instruction that fully complies with the requirements of Lockett, supra, and Penry, supra. That other States have enacted different forms of death penalty statutes which also satisfy constitutional requirements casts no doubt on Pennsylvania's choice, since within the constitutional limits defined by this Court's cases, the States enjoy their traditional latitude to prescribe the method of punishment for those who commit murder. Pp. 303-309.

519 Pa. 450, 549 A.2d 81, affirmed.

REHNQUIST, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, and in all but Part IV of which BLACKMUN and STEVENS, JJ., joined, post, p. 309.

Paul R. Gettleman, Zelienople, Pa., for petitioner.

Ernest D. Preate, Jr., Harrisburg, Pa., for respondent.

Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

A Pennsylvania jury sentenced petitioner Scott Wayne Blystone to death after finding him guilty of robbing and murdering a hitchhiker who was unlucky enough to have accepted a ride in his car. Petitioner challenges his sentence on the ground that the State's death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it requires the jury to impose a sentence of death if, as in this case, it finds at least one aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances. We hold that the Pennsylvania death penalty statute, and petitioner's sentence under it, comport with our decisions interpreting the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

On a September night in 1983, Dalton Charles Smithburger, Jr., an individual characterized at trial as possessing a learning disability, was attempting to hitch a ride along a Pennsylvania road. Petitioner, who was driving an auto carrying his girlfriend and another couple, observed Smithburger and announced: "I am going to pick this guy up and rob him, okay . . .?" His friends acquiesced in the idea. Once petitioner had Smithburger in the car, he asked him if he had any money for gas. Smithburger responded that he only had a few dollars and began searching a pocket for money. Dissatisfied, petitioner pulled out a revolver, held it to Smithburger's head, and demanded that Smithburger close his eyes and put his hands on the dash. Petitioner then pulled off the road and ordered Smithburger out of the car and into a nearby field. After searching his victim at gunpoint and recovering $13, petitioner told Smithburger to lie face down in the field. He later said to a friend: " 'He [Smithburger] was so scared. When I was searching him, his body was shaking.' " 519 Pa. 450, 490, 549 A.2d 81, 100 (1988).

Petitioner then ordered his victim not to move, and crept back to the car to tell his companions he was going to kill Smithburger. Petitioner returned to the field where, para- lyzed by fright, Smithburger remained with his face to the ground. Petitioner asked his victim what kind of car he had been in. Smithburger responded with the wrong answer—he accurately described the car as green with a wrecked back end. Petitioner then said " 'goodbye' " and discharged six bullets into the back of Smithburger's head. During a subsequent conversation with a friend, petitioner was recorded on a concealed device "bragging in vivid and grisly detail of the killing of that unlucky lad." Id., at 457, 549 A.2d, at 84. In response to a query during the conversation as to whether petitioner dreamed about, or felt anything from, the murder, petitioner stated: " 'We laugh about it. . . . [I]t gives you a realization that you can do it. . . . You can walk and blow somebody's brains out and you know that you can get away with it. It gives you a feeling of power, self-confidence. . . .' " Id., at 489-490, 549 A.2d, at 100.

Petitioner was charged with and convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, criminal conspiracy to commit homicide, and criminal conspiracy to commit robbery. The same jury that convicted petitioner found as an aggravating circumstance that petitioner "committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony." 42 Pa.Cons.Stat. § 9711(d)(6) (1988). The jury found that no mitigating circumstances existed, and accordingly sentenced petitioner to death pursuant to the Pennsylvania death penalty statute which provides that "[t]he verdict must be a sentence of death if the jury unanimously finds at least one aggravating circumstance . . . and no mitigating circumstance or if the jury unanimously finds one or more aggravating circumstances which outweigh any mitigating circumstances." § 9711(c)(1)(iv). On direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, petitioner argued that the death penalty statute was unconstitutional because it mandated a sentence of death based on the outcome of the weighing process. The court summarily rejected this argument, see 519 Pa., at 473, 549 A.2d, at 92, noting that it had been expressly refuted in its decision in Commonwealth v. Peterkin, 511 Pa. 299, 326-328, 513 A.2d 373, 387-388 (1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1070, 107 S.Ct. 962, 93 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1987). In Peterkin, the court reasoned that the statute properly accommodated the concerns of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), that jury discretion be channeled to avoid arbitrary and capricious capital sentencing, and Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), that a capital jury be allowed to consider all relevant mitigating evidence. 511 Pa., at 326-328, 513 A.2d, at 387-388. We granted certiorari, 489 U.S. 1096, 109 S.Ct. 1567, 103 L.Ed.2d 934 (1989), to decide whether the mandatory aspect of the Pennsylvania death penalty statute renders the penalty imposed upon petitioner unconstitutional because it improperly limited the discretion of the jury in deciding the appropriate penalty for his crime. We now affirm.

The constitutionality of a death penalty statute having some "mandatory" aspects is not a novel issue for this Court. In Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976), we upheld a statute requiring the imposition of a death sentence if the jury made certain findings against the defendant beyond the initial conviction for murder. See id., at 278, 96 S.Ct., at 2959 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment). A majority of the Court believed that the Texas sentencing scheme at issue in Jurek cured the constitutional defect identified in Furman—namely, that unguided juries were imposing the death penalty in an inconsistent and random manner on defendants. See Furman, supra, 408 U.S., at 309-310, 92 S.Ct., at 2762-2763 (Stewart, J., concurring). Thus, by suitably directing and limiting a sentencing jury's discretion "so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action," Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and...