Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976)
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U.S. Supreme Court JUREK v. TEXAS,
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 264]
Judgment of the Court, and opinion of STEWART, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., announced by STEVENS, J. BURGER, C. J., filed a statement concurring in the judgment, post, p. 277. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which BURGER, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 277. BLACKMUN, J., filed a statement concurring in the judgment, post, p. 279. BRENNAN, J., ante, p. 227, and MARSHALL, J., ante, p. 231, filed dissenting opinions.
Anthony G. Amsterdam argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Jack Greenberg, James M. Nabrit III, and Peggy C. Davis.
John L. Hill, Attorney General of Texas, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Bert W. Pluymen, Assistant Attorney General, and Jim D. Vollers.
Solicitor General Bork argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae. With him on the brief was Deputy Solicitor General Randolph. William E. James, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for the State of California as amicus curiae. With him on the brief were Evelle J. Younger, Attorney General, and Jack R. Winkler, Chief Assistant Attorney General.*
[Footnote *] Arthur M. Michaelson filed a brief for Amnesty International as amicus curiae.
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 265]
"by choking and strangling her with his hands, and by drowning her in water by throwing her into a river . . . in the course of committing and attempting to commit kidnapping of and forcible rape upon the said Wendy Adams."[Footnote 1]
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 266]
The evidence at his trial consisted of incriminating statements made by the petitioner,[Footnote 2] the testimony of several people who saw the petitioner and the deceased during the day she was killed, and certain technical evidence. This evidence established that the petitioner, 22 years old at the time, had been drinking beer in the afternoon. He and two young friends later went driving together in his old pickup truck. The petitioner expressed a desire for sexual relations with some young girls they saw, but one of his companions said the girls were too young. The petitioner then dropped his two friends off at a pool hall. He was next seen talking to Wendy, who was 10 years old, at a public swimming pool where her grandmother had left her to swim. Other witnesses testified that they later observed a man resembling the petitioner driving an old pickup truck through town at a high rate of speed, with a young blond girls standing screaming in the bed of the truck. The last witness who saw them heard the girl crying "help me,
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 267]
help me." The witness tried to follow them, but lost them in traffic. According to the petitioner's statement, he took the girl to the river, choked her,[Footnote 3] and threw her unconscious body in the river. Her drowned body was found downriver two days later.
At the conclusion of the trial the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
Texas law requires that if a defendant has been convicted of a capital offense, the trial court must conduct a separate sentencing proceeding before the same jury that tried the issue of guilt. Any relevant evidence may be introduced at this proceeding, and both prosecution and defense may present argument for or against the sentence of death. The jury is then presented with two (sometimes three) questions,[Footnote 4] the answers to which determine whether a death sentence will be imposed.
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 269]
In addition, Texas adopted a new capital-sentencing procedure. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc., Art. 37.071 (Supp. 1975-1976). That procedure requires the jury to answer three questions in a proceeding that takes place subsequent to the return of a verdict finding a person guilty of one of the above categories of murder. The questions the jury must answer are these:
"(1) whether the conduct of the defendant that caused the death of the deceased was committed deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that the death of the deceased or another would result;
"(2) whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society; and
"(3) if raised by the evidence, whether the conduct of the defendant in killing the deceased was unreasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by the deceased." Art. 37.071 (b) (Supp. 1975-1976).
If the jury finds that the State has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the answer to each of the three questions is yes, then the death sentence is imposed. If the jury finds that the answer to any question is no, then a sentence of life imprisonment results. Arts. 37.071 (c), (e) (Supp. 1975-1976).[Footnote 5] The law also provides for an expedited review by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. See Art. 37.071 (f) (Supp. 1975-1976).
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 270]
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has thus far affirmed only two judgments imposing death sentences under its post-Furman law - in this case and in Smith v. State, No. 49,809 (Feb. 18, 1976) (rehearing pending; initially reported in advance sheet for 534 S. W. 2d but subsequently withdrawn from bound volume). In the present case the state appellate court noted that its law "limits the circumstances under which the State may seek the death penalty to a small group of narrowly defined and particularly brutal offenses. This insures that the death penalty will only be imposed for the most serious crimes [and] . . . that [it] will only be imposed for the same type of offenses which occur under the same types of circumstances." 522 S. W. 2d, at 939.
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 271]
So far as consideration of aggravating circumstances is concerned, therefore, the principal difference between Texas and the other two States is that the death penalty is an available sentencing option - even potentially - for a smaller class of murders in Texas. Otherwise the statutes are similar. Each requires the sentencing authority to focus on the particularized nature of the crime.
But a sentencing system that allowed the jury to consider only aggravating circumstances would almost certainly fall short of providing the individualized sentencing determination that we today have held in Woodson v. North Carolina, post, at 303-305, to be required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. For such a system would approach the mandatory laws that we today hold unconstitutional in Woodson and Roberts v. Louisiana, post, p. 325.[Footnote 6] A jury must be allowed to consider on the basis of all relevant evidence not only why a death sentence should be imposed, but also why it should not be imposed.
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 272]
that directs the jury to consider any mitigating factors, and in Proffitt v. Florida we likewise hold constitutional a system that directs the judge and advisory jury to consider certain enumerated mitigating circumstances. The Texas statute does not explicitly speak of mitigating circumstances; it directs only that the jury answer three questions. Thus, the constitutionality of the Texas procedures turns on whether the enumerated questions allow consideration of particularized mitigating factors.
The second Texas statutory question[Footnote 7] asks the jury to determine "whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society" if he were not sentenced to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has yet to define precisely the meanings of such terms as "criminal acts of violence" or "continuing threat to society." In the present case, however, it indicated that it will interpret this second question so as to allow a defendant to bring to the jury's attention whatever mitigating circumstances he may be able to show:
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capital-sentencing procedure guides and focuses the jury's objective consideration of the particularized circumstances of the individual offense and the individual offender before it can impose a sentence of death.
B
As in the Georgia and Florida cases, however, the petitioner contends that the substantial legislative changes that Texas made in response to this Court's Furman decision are no more than cosmetic in nature and have in fact not eliminating the arbitrariness and caprice of the system held in Furman to violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.[Footnote 8]
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 275]
mean that it cannot be made. Indeed, prediction of future criminal conduct is an essential element in many of the decisions rendered throughout our criminal justice system. The decision whether to admit a defendant to bail, for instance, must often turn on a judge's prediction of the defendant's future conduct.[Footnote 9] And any sentencing authority must predict a convicted person's probable future conduct when it engages in the process of determining what punishment to impose.[Footnote 10] For those sentenced to prison, these same predictions must be made by parole authorities.[Footnote 11] The task that a Texas jury
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 277]
Accordingly, the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, see ante, p. 227.]
[For dissenting opinion of MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, see ante, p. 231.]
[Page 428 U.S. 262, 280]
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