U.S. v. Jacques
| Decision Date | 04 May 2011 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Vermont |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. MICHAEL JACQUES, Defendant. |
Defendant Michael Jacques has moved this Court to strike or modify the Government's notice of intent to seek the death penalty. Def.'s Mot. to Strike, ECF No. 146. Jacques advances several arguments that the Court should strike the notice in its entirety because the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994 (FDPA), 18 U.S.C. § 3591 et seq., and the federal death penalty itself, must be declared unconstitutional. In the alternative, he argues that certain of the statutory and non-statutory aggravating factors identified in the Government's notice should be struck or that the Government should be required to provide a more detailed offer of proof with regard to each of these factors.
For the reasons that follow, the Court declines to declare either the FDPA or the federal death penalty itself unconstitutional and denies the motion to strike on those grounds. The Court grants in part and denies in part the motion to strike certain of the aggravating factors and to require theGovernment to provide a more detailed offer of proof with regard to some of these factors. In particular, the Court orders that the non-statutory aggravating factors pertaining to Jacques' alleged "manipulation and deception of the Vermont criminal justice system," to "witness elimination," and to unadjudicated allegations of sexual misconduct from the 1970s and 1980s be struck from the notice of intent. Furthermore, the Court orders the Government to provide the defendant and the Court with a written outline of the victim impact evidence it intends to offer as a non-statutory aggravating factor. The other statutory and non-statutory aggravating factors need not be struck from the notice of intent. However, the Court will of course retain the option to exclude at the sentencing phase any evidence the "probative value [of which] is outweighed by the danger of creating unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, or misleading the jury." 18 U.S.C. § 3593(c).
In October 2008, Michael Jacques was indicted on one count of kidnapping resulting in death, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a), and on several counts of producing and possessing child pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a). The kidnapping charge arose out of the abduction and killing of twelve-year-old Brook Bennett on June 25, 2008.
Section 1201(a) provides that a violation of the statutethat results in the death of a victim "shall be punished by death or life imprisonment." Id. Under the FDPA, 18 U.S.C. § 3591 et seq., if the Government wishes to seek the death penalty in a case, the Government must, at a reasonable time before trial, serve on the defendant a notice stating that death will be sought and "setting forth the aggravating factor or factors that the government, if the defendant is convicted, proposes to prove as justifying a sentence of death." 18 U.S.C. § 3593. In order to impose a death sentence under the FDPA, at a separate sentencing phase, the jury must first find beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant convicted of a crime punishable by death acted with the requisite intent. See 18 U.S.C. § 3591.1 The jury must then find beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one enumerated statutory aggravating factor exists. See 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c). Only if these two preconditions are satisfied is a defendant eligible to receive a death sentence. In order to decide whether to impose a capital sentence, the jury mustbalance the statutory and non-statutory aggravating factors it finds the Government has proved beyond a reasonable doubt against the mitigating factors it finds the defendant has proved by a preponderance of the evidence at the sentencing hearing. The jury imposes a capital sentence only if it finds by unanimous vote that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors sufficiently to warrant the death penalty. See 18 U.S.C. § 3593(e).
On August 29, 2009, the Government filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in this case, as prescribed by the FDPA. 18 U.S.C. § 3593(a).
Jacques raises several claims attacking the constitutionality of the federal death penalty in general and the FDPA specifically. Each of these claims is addressed in turn.
Jacques's first constitutional claim asserts that the federal death penalty operates in an "arbitrary, capricious, irrational and discriminatory manner" in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments. He relies on three purported indicators of arbitrary and discriminatory operation: 1) the infrequency with which the death penalty is sought and imposed; 2) the apparent lack of a principled basis for distinguishing betweenthe cases where the death penalty is imposed and those where it is not; and 3) statistical evidence of discrepancies in the application of the death penalty based on race, gender, and geography.
Jacques's first line of argument-that the infrequency with which the federal death penalty is sought and imposed is indicative of arbitrariness-relies heavily on language from the concurring opinions in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). In Furman, the Supreme Court held in a per curiam, one paragraph opinion that Georgia's then existing capital punishment scheme was unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. More than one of the Justices commented in their concurring opinions that the infrequency with which death sentences were imposed was one factor that led them to conclude that the Georgia statute was unconstitutional. Id. at 293 (Brennan, J., concurring); id. at 309-10 (Stewart, J., concurring); id. at 312-13 (White, J., concurring). In particular, Jacques relies on one portion of Justice Stewart's concurring opinion:
These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual. For, of all the people convicted of rapes and murders in 1967 and 1968, many just as reprehensible as these, the petitioners are among a capriciously selected random handful upon whom the sentence of death has in fact been imposed... I simply conclude that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannottolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under legal systems that permit this unique penalty to be so wantonly and so freakishly imposed.
Id. at 309-10 (Stewart, J., concurring) (footnotes and citations omitted). Citing a statistical summary of the disposition of all potential federal capital cases from 1988 to 2010, Jacques observes that the "federal death penalty is sought and imposed far more rarely than in the cases examined by Furman[.]" Def.'s Mot. to Strike, 29-31.2 He argues that application of the constitutional principles recognized in the Furman opinions therefore must lead this Court to conclude that "[b]ecause the federal death penalty is so infrequently sought, imposed, or carried out, it operates in an unconstitutionally arbitrary and capricious manner." Id. at 33.
Other courts that have considered the assertion that the federal death penalty is unconstitutionally arbitrary in its operation because it is infrequently imposed have rejected this argument. See e.g. United States v. Sampson, 486 F.3d 13, 19-23 (1st Cir. 2007); United States v. Mitchell, 502 F.3d 931, 983 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v. Barnes, 532 F. Supp. 2d 625, 631-32 (S.D.N.Y. 2008); United States v. Hammer, 25 F. Supp. 2d 518, 546-47 (M.D. Pa. 1998); United States v. O'Driscoll, 203 F. Supp. 2d 334, 341 (M.D. Pa. 2002). As a number of these courtshave pointed out, in its post-Furman jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has indicated that the problem of arbitrariness may be addressed by a capital punishment scheme that guides the discretion of the decision-makers responsible for imposing the death penalty.
[T]he concerns expressed in Furman that the penalty of death not be imposed in an arbitrary or capricious manner can be met by a carefully drafted statute that ensures that the sentencing authority is given adequate information and guidance. As a general proposition these concerns are best met by a system that provides for a bifurcated proceeding at which the sentencing authority is apprised of the information relevant to the imposition of sentence and provided with standards to guide its use of the information.
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 195 (1976). More specifically, the Supreme Court has indicated that, Kansas v. Marsh, 548 U.S. 163, 17374 (2006) (citations omitted).
Because the FDPA creates a bifurcated scheme which narrows the class of death-eligible defendants using statutory and non-statutory aggravating factors and which permits the jury to makean individualized sentencing determination, the statute "meets the requirements of guided discretion, suitably directing and limiting the leeway afforded to the decisionmakers." Sampson, 486 F.3d at 24; see also Barnes, 532 F. Supp. 2d at 632. And because FDPA addresses concerns of arbitrariness in the manner prescribed by the Supreme Court's post-Furman cases, this Court must reject Jacques's argument that infrequency with which the federal death penalty is imposed renders the FDPA unconstitutional. See Barnes, 532 F. Supp. 2d at 631 ()...
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