Martin v. Ohio

480 U.S. 228, 107 S. Ct. 1098, 94 L. Ed. 2d 267, 1987 U.S. LEXIS 933

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 20, 1987
• Docket: 85-6461
• Status: Published

Opinions

Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Ohio Code provides that “[e]very person accused of an offense is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the burden of proof for all elements of the offense is upon the prosecution. The burden of going forward with the evidence of an affirmative defense, and the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, for an affirmative defense, is upon the accused.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2901.05(A)(1982). An affirmative defense is one involving “an excuse or justification peculiarly within the knowledge of the accused, on which he can fairly be required to adduce supporting evidence.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2901.05(C)(2)(1982). The Ohio courts have “long determined that self-defense is an affirmative defense,” 21 Ohio St. 3d 91, 93, 488 N. E. 2d 166, 168 (1986), and that the defendant has the burden of proving it as required by § 2901.05(A).

As defined by the trial court in its instructions in this case, the elements of self-defense that the defendant must prove are that (1) the defendant was not at fault in creating the situation giving rise to the argument; (2) the defendant had an honest belief that she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that her only means of escape from such danger was in the use of such force; and (3) the defendant did not violate any duty to retreat or avoid danger. App. 19. The question before us is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment forbids placing the burden of proving self-defense on the defendant when she is charged by the State of Ohio with committing the crime of aggravated murder, which, as relevant to this case, is defined by the Revised Code of Ohio as “purposely, and with prior calculation and design, causing] the death of another.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §2903.01 (1982).

The facts of the case, taken from the opinions of the courts below, may be succinctly stated. On July 21, 1983, petitioner Earline Martin and her husband, Walter Martin, argued over grocery money. Petitioner claimed that her husband struck her in the head during the argument. Petitioner’s version of what then transpired was that she went upstairs, put on a robe, and later came back down with her husband’s gun which she intended to dispose of. Her husband saw something in her hand and questioned her about it. He came at her, and she lost her head and fired the gun at him. Five or six shots were fired, three of them striking and killing Mr. Martin. She was charged with and tried for aggravated murder. She pleaded self-defense and testified in her own defense. The judge charged the jury with respect to the elements of the crime and of self-defense and rejected petitioner’s Due Process Clause challenge to the charge placing on her the burden of proving self-defense. The jury found her guilty.

Both the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the conviction. Both rejected the constitutional challenge to the instruction requiring petitioner to prove self-defense. The latter court, relying upon our opinion in Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197 (1977), concluded that the State was required to prove the three elements of aggravated murder but that Patterson did not require it to disprove self-defense, which is a separate issue that did not require Mrs. Martin to disprove any element of the offense with which she was charged. The court said, “the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant purposely, and with prior calculation and design, caused the death of her husband. Appellant did not dispute the existence of these elements, but rather sought to justify her actions on grounds she acted in self defense.” 21 Ohio St. 3d, at 94, 488 N. E. 2d, at 168. There was thus no infirmity in her conviction. We granted certiorari, 475 U. S. 1119 (1986), and affirm the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio.

In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), declared that the Due Process Clause “protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” A few years later, we held that Winship’s mandate was fully satisfied where the State of New York had proved beyond reasonable doubt each of the elements of murder, but placed on the defendant the burden of proving the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance, which, if proved, would have reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter. Patterson v. New York, supra. We there emphasized the preeminent role of the States in preventing and dealing with crime and the reluctance of the Court to disturb a State’s decision with respect to the definition of criminal conduct and the procedures by which the criminal laws are to be enforced in the courts, including the burden of producing evidence and allocating the burden of persuasion. 432 U. S., at 201-202. New York had the authority to define murder as the intentional killing of another person. It had chosen, however, to reduce the crime to manslaughter if the defendant proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he had acted under the influence of extreme emotional distress. To convict of murder, the jury was required to find beyond a reasonable doubt, based on all the evidence, including that related to the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime, each of the elements of murder and also to conclude that the defendant had not proved his affirmative defense. The jury convicted Patterson, and we held there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed in Winship. Referring to Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), and Rivera v. Delaware, 429 U. S. 877 (1976), we added that New York “did no more than Leland and Rivera permitted it to do without violating the Due Process Clause” and declined to reconsider those cases. 432 U. S., at 206, 207. It was also observed that “the fact that a majority of the States have now assumed the burden of disproving affirmative defenses — for whatever reasons — [does not] mean that those States that strike a different balance are in violation of the Constitution.” Id., at 211.

As in Patterson, the jury was here instructed that to convict it must find, in light of all the evidence, that each of the elements of the crime of aggravated murder has been proved by the State beyond reasonable doubt, and that the burden of proof with respect to these elements did not shift. To find guilt, the jury had to be convinced that none of the evidence, whether offered by the State or by Martin in connection with her plea of self-defense, raised a reasonable doubt that Martin had killed her husband, that she had the specific purpose and intent to cause his death, or that she had done so with prior calculation and design. It was also told, however, that it could acquit if it found by a preponderance of the evidence that Martin had not precipitated the confrontation, that she had an honest belief that she was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, and that she had satisfied any duty to retreat or avoid danger. The jury convicted Martin.

We agree with the State and its Supreme Court that this conviction did not violate the Due Process Clause. The State did not exceed its authority in defining the crime of murder as purposely causing the death of another with prior calculation or design. It did not seek to shift to Martin the burden of proving any of those elements, and the jury’s verdict reflects that none of her self-defense evidence raised a reasonable doubt about the State’s proof that she purposefully killed with prior calculation and design. She nevertheless had the opportunity under state law and the instructions given to justify the killing and show herself to be blameless by proving that she acted in self-defense. The jury thought she had failed to do so, and Ohio is as entitled to punish Martin as one guilty of murder as New York was to punish Patterson.

It would be quite different if the jury had been instructed that self-defense evidence could not be considered in determining whether there was a reasonable doubt about the State’s case, i. e., that self-defense evidence must be put aside for all purposes unless it satisfied the preponderance standard. Such an instruction would relieve the State of its burden and plainly run afoul of Winship’s mandate. 397 U. S., at 364. The instructions in this case could be clearer in this respect, but when read as a whole, we think they are adequate to convey to the jury that all of the evidence, including the evidence going to self-defense, must be considered in deciding whether there was a reasonable doubt about the sufficiency of the State’s proof of the elements of the crime.

We are thus not moved by assertions that the elements of aggravated murder and self-defense overlap in the sense that evidence to prove the latter will often tend to negate the former. It may be that most encounters in which self-defense is claimed arise suddenly and involve no prior plan or specific purpose to take life. In those cases, evidence offered to support the defense may negate a purposeful killing by prior calculation and design, but Ohio does not shift to the defendant the burden of disproving any element of the state’s case. When the prosecution has made out a prima facie case and survives a motion to acquit, the jury may nevertheless not convict if the evidence offered by the defendant raises any reasonable doubt about the existence of any fact necessary for the finding of guilt. Evidence creating a reasonable doubt could easily fall far short of proving self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence. Of course, if such doubt is not raised in the jury’s mind and each juror is convinced that the defendant purposely and with prior calculation and design took life, the killing will still be excused if the elements of the defense are satisfactorily established. We note here, but need not rely on, the observation of the Supreme Court of Ohio that “[ajppellant did not dispute the existence of [the elements of aggravated murder], but rather sought to justify her actions on grounds she acted in self-defense.” 21 Ohio St. 3d, at 94, 488 N. E. 2d, at 168.

*

Petitioner submits that there can be no conviction under Ohio law unless the defendant’s conduct is unlawful, and that because self-defense renders lawful what would otherwise be a crime, unlawfulness is an element of the offense that the state must prove by disproving self-defense. This argument founders on state law, for it has been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court and by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. White v. Arn, 788 F. 2d 338, 346-347 (1986); State v. Morris, 8 Ohio App. 3d 12, 18-19, 455 N. E. 2d 1352, 1359-1360 (1982). It is true that unlawfulness is essential for conviction, but the Ohio courts hold that the unlawfulness in cases like this is the conduct satisfying the elements of aggravated murder — an interpretation of state law that we are not in a position to dispute. The same is true of the claim that it is necessary to prove a “criminal” intent to convict for serious crimes, which cannot occur if self-defense is shown: the necessary mental state for aggravated murder under Ohio law is the specific purpose to take life pursuant to prior calculation and design. See White v. Arn, supra, at 346.

As we noted in Patterson, the common-law rule was that affirmative defenses, including self-defense, were matters for the defendant to prove. “This was the rule when the Fifth Amendment was adopted, and it was the American rule when the. Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.” 432 U. S., at 202. Indeed, well into this century, a number of States followed the common-law rule and required a defendant to shoulder the burden of proving that he acted in self-defense. Fletcher, Two Kinds of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study of Burden-of-Persuasion Practices in Criminal Cases, 77 Yale L. J. 880, 882, and n. 10 (1968). We are aware that all but two of the States, Ohio and South Carolina, have abandoned the common-law rule and require the prosecution to prove the absence of self-defense when it is properly raised by the defendant. But the question remains whether those States are in violation of the Constitution; and, as we observed in Patterson, that question is not answered by cataloging the practices of other States. We are no more convinced that the Ohio practice of requiring self-defense to be proved by the defendant is unconstitutional than we are that the Constitution requires the prosecution to prove the sanity of a defendant who pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. We have had the opportunity to depart from Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), but have refused to do so. Rivera v. Delaware, 429 U. S. 877 (1976). These cases were important to the Patterson decision and they, along with Patterson, are authority for our decision today.

The judgment of the Ohio Supreme Court is accordingly

Affirmed.

The dissent believes that the self-defense instruction might have led the jury to believe that the defendant had the burden of proving the ab-senee of prior calculation and design. Indeed, its position is that no instruction could be clear enough not to mislead the jury. As is evident from the text, we disagree. We do not harbor the dissent’s mistrust of the jury; and the instructions were sufficiently clear to convey to the jury that the State’s burden of proving prior calculation did not shift and that self-defense evidence had to be considered in determining whether the State’s burden had been discharged. We do not depart from Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197 (1977), in this respect, or in any other.