Ayers v. Belmontes - Opinion Announcement

Argument of Speaker

Mr. Speaker: Justice Kennedy has the opinion of the court in 05-493, Ayers v. Belmontes.

Argument of Justice Kennedy

Mr. Kennedy: This is the third time the court has considered the constitutionality of the particular jury instruction formally used, is no longer used and the instruction formerly used by California in capital cases.

The case concerns the jury instruction known as “factor (k)”.

Now, the previous cases in this court addressing factor (k) were Boyde v. California and Brown v. Payton.

In Payton the limiting provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) applied and when the court reviewed the “factor (k)” instruction in Payton and referred to the limitations that AEDPA imposes on federal Habeas Corpus review.

The court in Payton rejected the challenge to the “factor (k)” instruction; in this case AEDPA does not apply.

Hence, it was argued that there should be a more rigorous review here and the factor (k) challenge should be upheld in this case.

It is true that AEDPA is not relevant for today’s case; still however we find much of the reasoning in Payton and in the earlier case Boyde v. California to be applicable here.

We find no constitutional error in giving the instruction.

In preparation for a burglary Belmontes armed himself with a steel dumbbell bar, when the victim saw him he crushed his skull with it killing her after multiple blows.

In the sentencing phase he is sought to convince the jury that his religious conversion before the crime tended to show he would lead a productive life in prison.

He now contains that this and other arguments about his chances for contributing to prison life could not be given full effect in light of the factor (k) instruction.

The instruction told the jury to consider, “any other circumstance which extends the gravity of the crime even though it is not a legal excuse for the crime.”

That was the instruction given to the jury for evaluating whether Belmontes should receive the death penalty.

The question is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction to prevent consideration of Belmontes mitigating evidence.

As in the two previous cases we hold that the jury was not prevented from considering the argument that future good conduct would tend to make Belmontes less deserving of the death penalty.

Our interpretation of factor (k) is the one most consistent with the evidence presented to the jury; the party’s closing arguments and the other instruction provided by the Trial Court.

We concluded its improbably with the juror’s believe that the parties were engaging in an exercise and futility when respondent presented and both counsel later discussed this mitigating evidence in open court.

Arguments by the prosecution and the defense as well as the respondents own statement assume that the evidence was relevant.

Other instruction from the Trial Court also made it quite impossible that the jury would deem itself foreclosed from considering the respondent’s full case in mitigation.

The Judge told the jury to consider all of the evidence and all of the evidence of course included respondent’s forward looking mitigation case.

The short contrast between the courts instruction on aggravation that only enumerated factors could be considered and its instruction on mitigation, that the listed factors were merely examples further made it clear that the jury was to take a broad view of the mitigating evidence.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Justice Scalia has filed a concurring opinion in which Justice Thomas has joined.

Justice Stevens has filed a dissenting opinion in which Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer have joined.