Kelly v South Carolina

• Decision Date: 09 January 2002
• Docket Number: 00-9280
• Citation: 534 U.S. 246,151 L.Ed.2d 670,122 S.Ct. 726
• Parties: WILLIAM ARTHUR KELLY, PETITIONER v. SOUTH CAROLINASUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

534 U.S. 246

122 S.Ct. 726

151 L.Ed.2d 670

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press

WILLIAM ARTHUR KELLY, PETITIONER v SOUTH CAROLINA

No. 00-9280

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Argued November 26, 2001

Decided January 9, 2002

Syllabus

After convicting petitioner Kelly of murder and related crimes, a South Carolina jury was asked to determine whether any aggravating factors had been shown and, if so, to recommend a sentence of death or life imprisonment. At the sentencing proceeding, the prosecutor presented testimony that Kelly had made a knife while in prison and taken part in an escape attempt with plans to hold a female guard hostage. The prosecutor's cross-examination of a psychologist brought out evidence of Kelly's sadism at an early age and his current desires to kill anyone who irritated him. In his closing argument, the prosecutor spoke of Kelly as a "dangerous" "bloody" "butcher." Relying on the holding of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 that when "a capital defendant's future dangerousness is at issue, and the only sentencing alternative to death is life imprisonment without possibility of parole, due process entitles the defendant 'to inform the jury of [his] parole ineligibility,' " Shafer v. South Carolina,532 U.S. 36 , 39 defense counsel requested a jury instruction stating that Kelly would be ineligible for parole if he received a life sentence. The trial court refused, saying that the State's evidence went to Kelly's character and characteristics, not to future dangerousness. The jury recommended a death sentence. In affirming the sentence, the State Supreme Court held Simmons inapposite for two reasons: state law provided the jury with a third sentencing alternative, and future dangerousness was not at issue.

Held: Kelly was entitled to a jury instruction that he would be ineligible for parole under a life sentence. The State Supreme Court's statement that Simmons is inapplicable under South Carolina's new sentencing scheme because life without the possibility of parole is not the only legally available sentence alternative to death mistakes the relationship of Simmons to the state sentencing scheme. Although a murder defendant facing a possible death sentence can, under some circumstances, receive a sentence less than life imprisonment, under the state scheme a jury now makes a sentencing recommendation only if the jurors find an aggravating circumstance. When they do make a recommendation, their only alternatives are death or life without parole. Thus, the state court's reasoning is not to the point. The court also erred in ruling that Kelly's future dangerousness is not at issue. The evidence and argument cited by the court are flatly at odds with that conclusion. The court saw the evidence as going only to Kelly's behavior in prison, or to his proclivity to escape from it, and overlooked the fact that evidence of violent behavior in prison can raise a strong implication of generalized future dangerousness, Simmons, supra, at 171. A jury hearing evidence of a defendant's propensity for violence reasonably will conclude that he presents a risk of violent behavior, whether locked up or free, and whether free as a fugitive or as a parolee. Evidence of future dangerousness under Simmons is evidence with a tendency to prove dangerousness in the future; its relevance to that point does not disappear merely because it might support other inferences or be described in other terms. The prosecutor accentuated the clear inference of future dangerousness raised by the evidence and placed the case within the four corners of Simmons. Although his characterizations of butchery went to retribution, that did not make them any the less arguments that Kelly would be dangerous down the road. Thus was Kelly's jury, like its predecessor in Simmons, invited to infer "that petitioner is a vicious predator who would pose a continuing threat to the community." Simmons, supra, at 176. It is not dispositive that Kelly's jury did not ask the judge for further instruction on parole eligibility, whereas the Simmons and Shafer juries did. A trial judge's duty is to give instructions sufficient to explain the law, an obligation that exists independently of any question from the jurors or any other indication of perplexity on their part. Nor is there any reason to believe that Kelly's jury was better informed than Simmons's or Shafer's on the matter of parole eligibility. Pp. 5 11.343 S. C. 350, 540 S. E. 2d 851, reversed and remanded.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, O'Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined.

Opinion of the Court

Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.

Last Term, we reiterated the holding of Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994), that when "a capital defendant's future dangerousness is at issue, and the only sentencing alternative to death available to the jury is life imprisonment without possibility of parole, due process entitles the defendant 'to inform the jury of [his] parole ineligibility, either by a jury instruction or in arguments by counsel.' " Shafer v. South Carolina, 532 U.S. 36 , 39 (2001) (quoting Ramdass v. Angelone, 530 U.S. 156 , 165 (2000) (plurality opinion)). In this case, the Supreme Court of South Carolina held Simmons inapposite for two reasons: state law provided the jury with a third sentencing alternative, and future dangerousness was not at issue. Each reason was error.

I

In 1996, the State of South Carolina indicted petitioner William Kelly for an extraordinarily brutal murder, kidnaping, and armed robbery, and for possession of a knife during the commission of a violent crime. The jury convicted Kelly on all charges.

The trial then proceeded to a separate sentencing phase calling for the jury to determine whether any aggravating factor had been shown and, if so, to choose between recommendations of death or life imprisonment. The prosecutor began by telling the jurors that "I hope you never in your lives again have to experience what you are experiencing right now. Being some thirty feet away from such a person. Murderer." App. 64. He went on to present testimony that while in prison, Kelly had made a knife (or shank) and had taken part in an escape attempt, even to the point of planning to draw a female guard into his cell where he would hold her hostage. See id., at 129-132, 140-141. The prosecutor's cross-examination of a psychologist brought out evidence of Kelly's sadism at an early age, see id., at 218, and his inclination to kill anyone who rubbed him the wrong way, see id., at 195.

After presentation of this evidence but before closing arguments, Kelly's counsel relied on Simmons in requesting the judge to instruct the jurors that if Kelly received a sentence of life imprisonment, he would be ineligible for parole. The instruction she sought was a near-verbatim excerpt of S. C. Code Ann. §16-3 20 (2000 Cum. Supp.):

" '[L]ife imprisonment' means imprisonment until the death of the offender. No person sentenced to life imprisonment is eligible for parole, community supervision, or any early release program, nor is the person eligible to receive any work credits, education credits, good conduct credits, or any other credits that would reduce the mandatory life imprisonment required by law." 343 S. C. 350, 360, 540 S. E. 2d 851, 856 (2001).

The prosecutor objected that "I'm not going to argue future dangerous[ness]. So that takes it out of Simmons anyhow." App. 245. The defense responded that "the State ha[d] already raised future dangerousness" through presentation of sentencing phase evidence, "calling correctional officers to testify to an escape attempt, to testify to the fact that [Kelly] had possession of a shank, by calling inmates who testified to [Kelly's] behavior in the jail [and] his plan to take a female guard hostage." Ibid. Defense counsel argued that the State's cross-examination of the psychologist reinforced the other evidentiary indications of Kelly's future dangerousness. Id., at 245-246. The trial court denied the requested instruction, saying that the State's evidence went to Kelly's character and characteristics, not to future dangerousness. Id., at 249.

The sentencing proceeding then closed with arguments in which the prosecutor spoke of Kelly as "the butcher of Batesburg," "Bloody Billy," and "Billy the Kid." Id., at 267-268. The prosecutor told the jurors that "[Kelly] doesn't have any mental illness. He's intelligent . He's quick-witted. Doesn't that make somebody a little more dangerous " id., at 269. Defense counsel interrupted the prosecutor in midsentence with an objection, presumably for raising Kelly's future dangerousness. The prosecutor nonetheless went on immediately, " for this lady, this crime on January the 5th, doesn't that make him more unpredictable for [the victim] Shirley Shealy." Ibid. Kelly's counsel did not renew her objection, and the trial court never ruled on the objection entered.¹ The prosecutor continued that "murderers will be murderers. And he is the cold-blooded one right over there." Id., at 272.

After the closing arguments, the trial judge instructed the jury that in choosing between recommendations of death and life imprisonment, it should consider the possible presence of five statutory aggravating circumstances, and three possible statutory mitigating circumstances. The judge explained "that the terms 'life imprisonment' and 'death sentence' are to be understood in this ordinary and plain meaning." Id., at 289. But, in accordance...