Goodwin v. Balkcom, Civ. A. No. 79-102-ATH.

• Decision Date: 25 November 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 79-102-ATH.
• Citation: 501 F. Supp. 317
• Parties: Terry Lee GOODWIN v. Charles BALKCOM, Warden, Georgia State Prison.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Georgia

501 F. Supp. 317

Terry Lee GOODWIN v. Charles BALKCOM, Warden, Georgia State Prison.

Civ. A. No. 79-102-ATH.

United States District Court, M. D. Georgia, Macon Division.

November 25, 1980.

Thomas McKee West, Frank L. Derrickson, Bowen, Derrickson, Goldberg & West, Atlanta, Ga., for petitioner.

Arthur Bolton, Atty. Gen., Harrison Kohler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for respondent.

RULING ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS

OWENS, Chief Judge.

Petitioner in the above styled action seeks federal habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254. Petitioner is presently under a death sentence imposed by the Superior Court of Walton County following his conviction by jury in that court on August 27, 1975 of murder and armed robbery. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 636(b)(1)(B), the petition was referred to United States Magistrate John D. Carey, who on August 18, 1980 filed proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition by the court. Petitioner and respondent have each filed objections to the Magistrate's proposed findings and recommendations (28 U.S.C.A. § 636(b)(1)(C)), and this habeas corpus petition is now ready for determination by the court.

The Magistrate, citing the dissenting opinion of Georgia Supreme Court Justices Hill and Marshall in Goodwin v. Hopper, 243 Ga. 193, 197, 253 S.E.2d 156 (1979), found the trial court's jury charge to be constitutionally defective because, in the Magistrate's opinion, the charge did not clearly instruct the jury concerning the option to recommend against death in the event the jury found aggravating circumstances. (Magistrate's Report, p. 8.) For this reason, the Magistrate recommends that this habeas corpus petition be granted as to the imposition of the death sentence. Having carefully considered this question regarding the trial court's jury charge during the sentencing phase of the trial, the court reaches a different opinion from that of the Magistrate. The court will therefore enter its own findings on this question.

The United States Supreme Court has announced general constitutional guidelines governing the imposition of death sentences by juries. In Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972), the Supreme Court ruled that the death sentence cannot be imposed under sentencing procedures that create a substantial risk that it will be inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. A jury must be given standards to guide and limit its discretion whether to recommend life imprisonment or death. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). Finally, in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978), and the companion case of Bell v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 637, 98 S.Ct. 2977, 57 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1978), the Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that a sentencing jury in a capital case "not be precluded from considering as a mitigating factor any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death." See also, Wolfson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976). The Supreme Court has not laid down any requirements governing state capital sentencing procedures other than these constitutional guidelines. As long as a state's capital sentencing procedures meet these constitutional requirements, the state's courts are free to adopt additional standards governing its capital sentencing procedures.

The Georgia statutory capital sentencing procedures under which petitioner was sentenced to death, Ga.Code Ann. §§ 27-2534.1, 27-2503, and 27-2302, were found by the Supreme Court of the United States to be constitutionally sufficient, Gregg v. Georgia, supra. These sentencing procedures, in this court's opinion, clearly meet the test of the later case of Lockett v. Ohio, supra, regarding mitigating circumstances.

The Georgia Supreme Court has adopted its own test of the adequacy of the jury charge on the sentencing phase of the trial, to wit:

"The ultimate test is whether a reasonable juror, considering the charge as a whole, would know that he should consider all the facts and circumstances of the case as presented during both phases of the trial (which necessarily include any mitigating and aggravating facts), and then, even though he might find one or more of the statutory aggravating circumstances to exist, would know that he might recommend life imprisonment."

Spivey v. State, 241 Ga. 477, 481, 246 S.E.2d 288 (1978).

In Goodwin v. Hopper, 243 Ga. 193, 253 S.E.2d 156, the Georgia Supreme Court held that the jury charge in the present case met the test of Spivey.

It is well settled that the role of the federal court in deciding a habeas corpus petition is a limited one. A federal court may consider only those claims that rise to the level of a federal constitutional violation. 28 U.S.C.A. § 2254(a). See generally, Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U.S. 335, 342, 100 S.Ct. 1708, 1715, 64 L.Ed.2d 333, 343 (1980); Stuckey v. Stynchcombe, 614 F.2d 75 (5th Cir. 1980); Easter v. Estelle, 609 F.2d 756 (5th Cir. 1980). A federal court is required to review the federal constitutionality of a state's capital sentencing procedures; as pointed out, that was done in Gregg v. Georgia, supra. As long as the state's sentencing procedures pass federal constitutional muster, the state's failure to adhere to the standards the state courts adopt to judge these procedures does not raise a federal constitutional violation reviewable by a federal court in a habeas proceeding. See, Nichols v. Estelle, 556 F.2d 1330 (5th Cir. 1977), cert. den. 434 U.S. 1020, 98 S.Ct. 744, 54 L.Ed.2d 767 (1978). Thus, whether the Supreme Court of Georgia followed its own sentencing criteria and whether it decided rightly or wrongly that the jury charge in this case violated the Georgia Supreme Court's test in Spivey, supra, are not questions with which this court can concern itself.

In Chenault v. Stynchcombe, 581 F.2d 444 (5th Cir. 1978), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals read Lockett v. Ohio, supra, and Bell v. Ohio, supra, to mandate that the trial judge "clearly instruct the jury about mitigating circumstances and the option to recommend against death." Having carefully considered the trial court's jury charge during the sentencing phase of petitioner's trial according to this test, this court finds, contrary to the proposed findings of the Magistrate, that taking the charge as a whole, the trial court judge did clearly instruct the jury concerning their right to consider all the evidence and their option to recommend against death.

Consider all the jury was told during the sentencing phase of the trial, to wit:

"THE COURT: All right. Thank you. Let the verdict be filed.

Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, having convicted the defendant of the offenses of murder and armed robbery, it is necessary that the Court resume the trial and conduct a presentence hearing before you, the only issue to be the determination of the punishment to be imposed.

Subject to the laws of evidence, you, the Jury, shall hear additional evidence in extenuation, mitigation or aggravation of punishment, including the record of any prior crimes, convictions, or pleas of guilty or pleas of nolo contendere of the defendant, or

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