Woodward v. Alabama

• Decision Date: 18 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. 13–5380.,13–5380.
• Citation: 82 USLW 3299,82 USLW 3302,187 L.Ed.2d 449,134 S.Ct. 405
• Parties: Mario Dion WOODWARD v. ALABAMA.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

134 S.Ct. 405

187 L.Ed.2d 449

82 USLW 3302

82 USLW 3299

Mario Dion WOODWARD

v.ALABAMA.

No. 13–5380.

Supreme Court of the United States

Nov. 18, 2013.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice BREYER joins as to Parts I and II, dissenting from denial of certiorari.

The jury that convicted Mario Dion Woodward of capital murder voted 8 to 4 against imposing the death penalty. But the trial judge overrode the jury's decision and sentenced Woodward to death after hearing new evidence and finding, contrary to the jury's prior determination of the same question, that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances. The judge was statutorily entitled to do this under Alabama law, which provides that a jury's decision as to whether a defendant should be executed is merely an “advisory verdict” that the trial judge may override if she disagrees with the jury's conclusion. In the last decade, Alabama has been the only State in which judges have imposed the death penalty in the face of contrary jury verdicts. Since Alabama adopted its current statute, its judges have imposed death sentences on 95 defendants contrary to a jury's verdict.¹ Forty-three of these defendants remain on death row today. Because I harbor deep concerns about whether this practice offends the Sixth and Eighth Amendments, I would grant Woodward's petition for certiorari so that the Court could give this issue the close attention that it deserves.

I

A

In Alabama, a defendant convicted of capital murder is entitled to an evidentiary sentencing hearing before a jury. Ala.Code §§ 13A–5–45, 13A–5–46 (2005). At that hearing, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least one aggravating circumstance; otherwise, the defendant cannot be sentenced to death and instead receives a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. § 13A–5–45(e),(f). The defendant may present mitigating circumstances, which the State may seek to disprove by a preponderance of the evidence. § 13A–5–45(g). If it has found at least one aggravating circumstance, the jury then weighs the aggravating and mitigating evidence and renders its advisory verdict. If it finds that the aggravating circumstances do not outweigh the mitigating circumstances, the jury must return a life-without-parole verdict; if it finds that the aggravating circumstances do outweigh the mitigating circumstances, it must return a death verdict. § 13A–5–46(e). A life-without-parole verdict requires a vote of a majority of the jurors, while a death verdict requires a vote of at least 10 jurors. § 13A–5–46(f).

After the jury returns its advisory verdict, the trial judge makes her own determination whether the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances and imposes a sentence accordingly. § 13A–5–47. Alabama's statute provides that “[w]hile the jury's recommendation concerning [the] sentence shall be given consideration, it is not binding upon the court.” § 13A–5–47(e).

B

Woodward was convicted of capital murder for fatally shooting Keith Houts, a city of Montgomery police officer. By a vote of 8 to 4, the jury determined that the aggravating circumstances shown by the State did not outweigh the mitigating circumstances presented by the defense. It therefore recommended a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

The trial judge conducted his own sentencing proceeding. At that hearing, the State presented additional evidence concerning the mitigating circumstances presented to the jury. The trial judge, in part on the basis of the new evidence, rejected the jury's finding. Making his own determination that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances, the judge imposed the death penalty, thereby overriding the jury's prior advisory verdict of life without parole. The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Woodward's conviction and sentence, 123 So.3d 989, 2011 WL 6278294 (Aug. 24, 2012), and the Alabama Supreme Court denied certiorari.

II

This Court has long acknowledged that death is fundamentally different in kind from any other punishment. See Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 286–291, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972) (Brennan, J., concurring); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 188, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.). For that reason, we have required States to apply special procedural safeguards to “minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action” in imposing the death penalty. Gregg, 428 U.S., at 189, 195, 96 S.Ct. 2909 (joint opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.); see also Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 614, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002) (BREYER, J., concurring in judgment) (explaining that without adequate procedural safeguards, “the constitutional prohibition against ‘cruel and unusual punishments'would forbid [the] use” of the death penalty). One such safeguard, as determined by the vast majority of States, is that a jury, and not a judge, should impose any sentence of death. ²

Of the 32 States that currently authorize capital punishment, 31 require jury participation in the sentencing decision; only Montana leaves the jury with no sentencing role in capital cases. See Mont.Code Ann. §§ 46–18–301, 46–18–305 (2013). In 27 of those 31 States, plus the federal system, 18 U.S.C. § 3593, the jury's decision to impose life imprisonment is final and may not be disturbed by the trial judge under any circumstance. That leaves four States in which the jury has a role in sentencing but is not the final decisionmaker. In Nebraska, the jury is responsible for finding aggravating circumstances, while a three-judge panel determines mitigating circumstances and weighs them against the aggravating circumstances to make the ultimate sentencing decision. See Neb.Rev.Stat. §§ 29–2520, 29–2521 (2008). Three States—Alabama, Delaware, and Florida—permit the trial judge to override the jury's sentencing decision.

In Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984), we upheld Florida's judicial-override sentencing statute. And in Harris v. Alabama, 513 U.S. 504, 115 S.Ct. 1031, 130 L.Ed.2d 1004 (1995), we upheld Alabama's similar statute. Eighteen years have passed since we decided Harris, and in my view, the time has come for us to reconsider that decision. Cf. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 555, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (reconsidering after 16 years the issue decided in Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 109 S.Ct. 2969, 106 L.Ed.2d 306 (1989)); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 307, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002) (reconsidering after 13 years the issue decided in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U.S. 302, 109 S.Ct. 2934, 106 L.Ed.2d 256 (1989)).

In the nearly two decades since we decided Harris, the practice of judicial overrides has become increasingly rare. In the 1980's, there were 125 life-to-death overrides: 89 in Florida, 30 in Alabama, and 6 in Indiana. In the 1990's, there were 74: 26 in Florida, 44 in Alabama, and 4 in Indiana. ³ Since 2000, by contrast, there have been only 27 life-to-death overrides, 26 of which were by Alabama judges.⁴

IMAGE

As these statistics demonstrate, Alabama has become a clear outlier. Among the four States that permitted judicial overrides at the time of Harris, Alabama now stands as the only one in which judges continue to override jury verdicts of life without parole. One of the four States, Indiana, no longer permits life-to-death judicial overrides at all. See Ind.Code § 35–50–2–9(e) (2004). Only one defendant in Delaware has ever been condemned to death by a judicial life-to-death override, and the Delaware Supreme Court overturned his sentence.⁵ And no Florida judge has overridden a jury's verdict of a life sentence since 1999.⁶ In sum, whereas judges across three States overrode roughly 10 jury verdicts per year in the 1980's and 1990's, a dramatic shift has taken place over the past decade: Judges now override jury verdicts of life in just a single State, and they do so roughly twice a year.

What could explain Alabama judges' distinctive proclivity for imposing death sentences in cases where a jury has already rejected that penalty? There is no evidence that criminal activity is more heinous in Alabama than in other States, or that Alabama juries are particularly lenient in weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances. The only answer that is supported by empirical evidence is one that, in my view, casts a cloud of illegitimacy over the criminal justice system: Alabama judges, who are elected in partisan proceedings, appear to have succumbed to electoral pressures. See Symposium, Politics and the Death Penalty: Can Rational Discourse and Due Process Survive the Perceived Political Pressure? 21 Fordham Urban L.J. 239, 256 (1994) (comments of Bryan Stevenson) (concluding, based on “a mini-multiple regression analysis of how the death penalty is applied and how overrideis applied, [that] there is a statistically significant correlation between judicial override and election years in most of the counties where these overrides take place”); see also Equal Justice Initiative, The Death Penalty in Alabama: Judge Override, at 16, http:// eji. org/ files/ Override_ Report. pdf (as visited on November 15, 2013, and available in Clerk of Court's case file) (hereinafter Override Report) (noting that the proportion of death sentences imposed by override in Alabama is elevated in election years). One Alabama judge, who has overridden jury verdicts to impose the death penalty on six occasions, campaigned by running several advertisements voicing his support for capital punishment. One of these ads boasted that he had “ ‘presided over more than 9,000 cases, including some of the most heinous murder trials in our history,’ ” and expressly named some of the defendants whom he had sentenced to death, in at least one case over a jury's contrary...