Free Proposed Jury Instructions - District Court of Colorado - Colorado

Case 1:00-cr-00531-WYD

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Filed 12/18/2006

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO Criminal Action No. 1:00-cr-00531-WYD UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. WILLIAM CONCEPCION SABLAN, Defendant.
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William Sablan's Proposed Preliminary Jury Instructions For the Penalty Phase ________________________________________________________________________ William Sablan, through undersigned court-appointed counsel submits the attached proposed jury instructions. We reserve the right to modify and/or add to these proposals in light of further developments. Dated: December 18, 2006 Respectfully submitted, Patrick J. Burke Patrick J. Burke P.C. 1660 Wynkoop Street, Suite 810 Denver, CO 80202 303-825-3050 By: /s/ Susan L. Foreman Susan L. Foreman 1660 Wynkoop Street, Suite 810 Denver, CO 80202 303-825-3050 Nathan Chambers Chambers, Dansky & Mulvahill 1601Blake Street, Suite 300 Denver, CO 80202 303-825-2222 Counsel of William Sablan

Case 1:00-cr-00531-WYD

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Members of the Jury: You have found William Sablan guilty of the crime of first degree murder as charged in the indictment. The statute defining this offense, 18 U.S.C. § 1111, provides that the punishment may be either life imprisonment without possibility of release or death. Thus, we are about to begin the sentencing or penalty phase of this trial, where you must now consider whether the defendant should be sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of release or whether imposition of a sentence of death is the appropriate sentence. In the federal system, a sentence of life imprisonment precludes release at any time, because there is no parole in the federal system. You are to make the extremely grave decision between these two alternative sentences. Your decision will be binding on the Court. The penalty phase is much like a second trial, although now the ultimate issue for your consideration is punishment. The law requires that you approach this sentencing trial with an open mind, able to give meaningful consideration to either possible sentence, that is, to either a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of release death or a sentence of death. Before deciding on the appropriate punishment, you must consider additional evidence about the circumstances of the offense and about the uniqueness of William Sablan as an individual human being. The parties will be calling witnesses and presenting exhibits in an effort to prove aggravating and mitigating circumstances. These factors
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have to do with the circumstances of the crime, or the personal traits, character, or background of the defendant. You may also consider the evidence presented at the first trial. The government will present evidence about aggravating circumstances that government counsel believe will tend to support a sentence of death. Then, Mr. Sablan will present evidence about mitigating circumstances that his counsel believe indicate that the defendant should not be sentenced to death. The Court will instruct you in more detail at the close of this sentencing hearing regarding questions you must answer based on all of the evidence you will have before you. For now, however, the Court will give you a brief overview as to how your deliberations will proceed. Your initial responsibility will be to decide whether statutory exemptions exist which preclude the imposition of a death sentence. First, you will be called upon to decide if the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was over eighteen years old at the time of the offense, for the law forbids a death sentence for a defendant who was not eighteen at the time of the offense. Second, you will be called upon to decide if William Sablan has proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he is mentally retarded, for the law forbids imposition of a death sentence on a mentally retarded defendant. If you determine that neither of these exemptions apply, you will then be called upon to decide whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that
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William Sablan acted with the requisite intention to cause death as charged by the government. The threshold finding of the requisite intent is not an aggravating factor and you may not consider it to be so. If you unanimously agree that the requisite intent has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, you will next decide whether the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt at least one of the two statutory aggravating factors it has alleged. A statutory aggravating factor is one which is specifically set forth in the death penalty statute and which has been explicitly identified by the government for consideration in this case. If, but only if, you find the existence of requisite intent and at least one statutory aggravating factor, you will proceed to the balancing or weighing stage of the sentencing process. At that time, you will consider whether you unanimously find that the government has proven beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of additional, but nonstatutory, aggravating factor. A nonstatutory aggravating factor is one that is not specifically set out in the death penalty statute, but which has been specifically identified by government counsel for consideration in this case. In addition to considering the existence of any nonstatutory aggravating factors, you must determine whether any of you find that William Sablan has established the existence of any mitigating factors by a preponderance of the evidence. Your consideration of mitigating factors is very different from your consideration of aggravating factors.
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Although the defendant has the burden of proving mitigating factors, his burden is only that of a preponderance of the evidence. "Preponderance of the evidence" is a lesser standard than the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt that is required of the government to prove its aggravating factors. "Preponderance of the evidence" means an amount of evidence sufficient to persuade you that a contention is more likely true than not true or that a factor is more likely present than not present. Further, a unanimous finding of a mitigating factor is not required. Any one of you may, individually and independently, find the existence of a mitigating factor, regardless of the number of other jurors who may agree, and any juror who so finds may subsequently weigh that factor. Once the process of deciding on the existence of aggravating and mitigating factors has been completed, each of you must individually engage in a balancing process in which you will weigh the aggravating factor or factors that all 12 of you have unanimously found to exist beyond a reasonable doubt against any mitigating factor or factors that you individually or with other jurors have found to exist by a preponderance of the evidence. Ultimately, you must determine whether the aggravating factor or factors found to exist sufficiently outweigh the mitigating factor or factors found to exist to justify a sentence of death, or in the absence of any mitigating factors, whether the aggravating factor or factors alone are sufficient to justify a sentence of death. This is by no means a mechanical process. You cannot simply count the number of aggravating factors and mitigating factors and decide which number is greater.
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Instead, you are called upon to make a unique, individualized judgment about the appropriateness of sentencing another human being to death. Each of you should consider the factors qualitatively, assessing the weight and value of each factor in order to make a reasoned moral judgment. As in the first phase of the trial, there will be four steps in this sentencing hearing: First, government counsel will make an opening statement. William Sablan's counsel may then make an opening statement or reserve it to a later time. Second, the parties will present evidence, beginning with the government, followed by William Sablan, and finally the government again in rebuttal, if it wishes. Third, the parties will make closing arguments, just as they did during trial, beginning with government counsel, then William Sablan's counsel, and then government counsel in rebuttal. Fourth, the Court will instruct in greater detail on the applicable law. Just as was true throughout the trial, you must keep open minds and wait until you have heard all the evidence before making any individual decision and before discussing the question of punishment with any other juror. The fundamental rule is that you must fairly and impartially consider what you have heard, both at trial and during this sentencing hearing, and follow the law in making your decision.

Note: Adapted from Sand, Reiss, Laoughlin, & Batterman Modern Federal Jury Instructions (Criminal Set), Vol. 3 (2003); Jury Instructions in United States v. Terry Lynn Nichols.
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that on December 18, 2006, I electronically filed the foregoing William Sablan's Proposed Preliminary Jury Instructions for the Penalty Phase with the Clerk of the Court using the CM/EFC system which will send notification of such filing to the following e-mail addresses: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] By: /s/Susan L. Foreman

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