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480 U.S. 910

107 S. Ct. 1339

94 L. Ed. 2d 528

Docket No. 86-5867

Calhoun v. Maryland

Supreme Court of the United States

March 2, 1987

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1987-03-02

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“In Section III, each of you must determine for yourself whether any mitigating circumstance exists in this case. For the purpose of this sentencing proceeding, a mitigating circumstance is anything about the defendant or about the facts of this case that in fairness or in mercy may make the death sentence an inappropriate penalty for this defendant. * * * As you can see on the forms, the findings recorded in Section III need not be unanimous. Before recording your findings, however, you must deliberate on every issue for a reasonable period of time. Each of you must decide the case for yourself, but do so only after an impartial consideration of the evidence with your fellow jurors. In determining whether any mitigating circumstance exists, consider all the evidence presented regardless of who introduced it. A mitigating circumstance must be proven, but need not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. A mitigating circumstance need only be proven by a preponderance of the evidence. To prove by a preponderance of the evidence means to prove that something is more likely so than not so. As you will note in the form, in determining whether mitigating circumstances exist by a preponderance of the evidence, you must consider the mitigating circumstances that are referred to on the form.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Conyers v. State

Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Myers v. United States · Huffington v. Maryland

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1987-03-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 90 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2003 · most notably Hunt v. State (1990), Conyers v. State (1999)

21 federal appellate · 6 district · 49 state decisions

650198719902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

On petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Maryland.

The petition for a writ of

certiorari is denied.

Justice BRENNAN, dissenting.

Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 227, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2950, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976), I would grant certiorari and vacate the death sentence in this case.

Justice MARSHALL, dissenting from denial of certiorari.

Maryland's capital sentencing statute provides that, "[i]f [the sentencing jury] finds that the mitigating circumstances do not outweigh the aggravating circumstances, the sentence shall be death." Md.Ann.Code, Art. 27, § 413(h)(2). The trial court's jury instruction in this case similarly stated: "If you find that the mitigating factors do not by a preponderance of the evidence outweigh the aggravating factors, then you mark that accordingly and proceed to Section 4 and enter a sentence of death." 306 Md. 692, 698, 511 A.2d 461, 464 (1986). Once again the Maryland Court of Appeals has reviewed the statute and jury instruction and has concluded that defendant was not assigned the burden of proof during his sentencing proceeding, even though neither the statute nor the instruction otherwise expressly addressed the placement of this burden.

"[I]t is plain that any rational juror would understand the language of § 413(h) and [this instruction] as placing the burden of persuasion on the accused. Indeed, I cannot imagine any other way to read the statute that does not completely ignore its words. No fair-minded juror could have understood from these instructions that the burden was upon the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that aggravating circumstances must outweigh mitigating circumstances before a sentence of death could be returned." Huffington v. Maryland, --- U.S. ----, ----, 106 S.Ct. 3315, 3318, 92 L.Ed.2d 745 (1986) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari).

¶1

I adhere to my belief that the Maryland statute, as written, and as applied, unconstitutionally places the burden of proof on capital defendants at the sentencing phase of their trials. I would grant the petition for certiorari.

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