Payne v. Tennessee
501 U.S. 808 (1991)
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Rule of Law:
The Eighth Amendment does not impose a per se bar on the admission of victim impact evidence or prosecutorial argument on that subject during the penalty phase of a capital trial. A state may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and the impact of the murder on the victim's family is relevant to the jury's sentencing decision.
Facts:
- On June 27, 1987, Pervis Tyrone Payne was at the apartment building of his girlfriend, Bobbie Thomas.
- Payne had spent the morning injecting cocaine and drinking beer.
- Payne entered the apartment of Charisse Christopher, who lived across the hall with her 2-year-old daughter Lacie and 3-year-old son Nicholas.
- Payne made sexual advances towards Charisse Christopher, and when she resisted, he became violent.
- Payne brutally stabbed Charisse Christopher, Lacie, and Nicholas with a butcher knife.
- Charisse Christopher and her daughter Lacie died from their wounds.
- Nicholas Christopher, despite life-threatening injuries, survived the attack.
- Payne was apprehended later that day; the blood on his body and clothes matched the victims' blood types.
Procedural Posture:
- Pervis Tyrone Payne was convicted by a jury in a Tennessee state trial court on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder.
- During the penalty phase of the trial, the State presented testimony from the surviving victim's grandmother about the emotional impact of the murders on the child.
- The prosecutor's closing argument commented on the character of the victims and the impact of their deaths.
- The jury sentenced Payne to death for each of the murder convictions.
- Payne appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the state's highest court, arguing that the admission of the victim impact evidence and the prosecutor's argument violated the Eighth Amendment under Booth v. Maryland and South Carolina v. Gathers.
- The Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed the convictions and sentences, holding that any constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to reconsider its holdings in Booth and Gathers.
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Issue:
Does the Eighth Amendment prohibit the introduction of victim impact evidence and argument during the sentencing phase of a capital trial?
Opinions:
Majority - Chief Justice Rehnquist
No, the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit the introduction of victim impact evidence and argument during the sentencing phase of a capital trial. The assessment of harm caused by a defendant has long been an important factor in determining punishment. Barring victim impact evidence unfairly weights the scales by allowing a defendant to introduce unlimited mitigating evidence about their own character while preventing the state from showing the human cost of the crime. A state has a legitimate interest in reminding the sentencer that the victim was a unique individual whose death represents a loss to their family and society. Such evidence is not inherently prejudicial, and if it becomes so unduly prejudicial as to render a trial fundamentally unfair, the Due Process Clause provides a mechanism for relief. The Court's prior holdings in Booth v. Maryland and South Carolina v. Gathers, which established a per se bar, were wrongly decided and are now overruled.
Concurring - Justice O'Connor
No, the Eighth Amendment does not create a per se bar to victim impact evidence. A state may legitimately determine that a jury should know the full extent of the harm caused by the crime, including the victim's uniqueness, before deciding on the death penalty. The possibility that such evidence might be inflammatory in some cases does not justify a complete constitutional prohibition; rather, trial courts can exclude unduly inflammatory evidence, and the Due Process Clause protects against proceedings that are fundamentally unfair. In this case, the brief testimony from the victim's grandmother and the prosecutor's remarks did not cross that line, especially in light of the horrific facts of the crime itself.
Concurring - Justice Scalia
No, the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit victim impact evidence. The Court's prior decision in Booth was egregiously wrong, with no basis in constitutional text, history, or logic, and it conflicted with the public's sense of justice. The principle of stare decisis should not protect a plainly inadequate and harmful constitutional decision; it was Booth, not today's decision, that compromised the fundamental values underlying stare decisis by announcing a novel rule contrary to long practice.
Concurring - Justice Souter
No, the Eighth Amendment does not bar this evidence. Booth and Gathers were wrongly decided because the harm to a victim's family is a foreseeable consequence of murder, making it morally relevant to the defendant's blameworthiness. Furthermore, the Booth rule is unworkable because details about the victim are often properly introduced during the guilt phase of a trial, making it impossible to keep this information from the sentencing jury without major, costly changes to the trial process. The rule's unworkability and the tension it creates justify overruling the precedent.
Dissenting - Justice Marshall
Yes, the Eighth Amendment should prohibit victim impact evidence. Today's decision is an exercise of 'Power, not reason,' as the only thing that has changed since the Court upheld this prohibition in Booth and Gathers is the Court's personnel. Overruling recent precedent based on a change in the Court's composition undermines the doctrine of stare decisis and the rule of law, signaling that scores of established constitutional liberties are now ripe for reconsideration. The reasoning of Booth remains sound: victim impact evidence is irrelevant to a defendant's blameworthiness and creates an unacceptable risk that the death penalty will be imposed arbitrarily based on emotional reactions to the victim's social status or the family's eloquence.
Dissenting - Justice Stevens
Yes, the Eighth Amendment should prohibit this evidence. This decision is a dramatic departure from decades of capital jurisprudence requiring that the death penalty be based on the character of the defendant and the circumstances of the offense, not on emotion. The victim is not on trial; their character is not an aggravating or mitigating circumstance. Allowing this evidence serves no purpose other than to appeal to the jury's sympathies, leading to arbitrary and capricious sentencing in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The harm to a victim's family is unforeseeable in its specifics and is therefore irrelevant to the defendant's personal responsibility and moral guilt.
Analysis:
This decision represents a major reversal of the Court's recent capital punishment jurisprudence, expressly overruling Booth v. Maryland (1987) and South Carolina v. Gathers (1989). By permitting victim impact statements, the Court significantly altered the balance in capital sentencing, allowing the prosecution to present evidence of the victim's character and the crime's effect on their family to counter the defendant's mitigating evidence. This holding empowers states to give victims a 'voice' in the process but has been criticized for potentially introducing arbitrary factors, such as the victim's social standing or the family's ability to express grief, into the life-or-death calculus of capital sentencing.
