Neal v. State

256 S.W.3d 264, 2008 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 754, 2008 WL 2437667
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 18, 2008
DocketAP-75406
StatusPublished
Cited by896 cases

This text of 256 S.W.3d 264 (Neal v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Neal v. State, 256 S.W.3d 264, 2008 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 754, 2008 WL 2437667 (Tex. 2008).

Opinions

OPINION

KELLER, P.J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court

in which WOMACK, KEASLER, HERVEY and HOLCOMB, JJ., joined.

A jury convicted appellant of capital murder.1 Pursuant to the jury’s answers to the special issues set forth in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 37.071, §§ 2(b) and 2(e), the trial judge sentenced him to death.2 Direct appeal to this Court is automatic.3 Appellant raises twenty-six points of error. We find all of them to be without merit and therefore affirm.

I. DETERMINATION OF MENTAL RETARDATION

Appellant’s first three points of error concern the absence of legislation implementing procedures consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Atkins v. Virginia,4 In point of error one, appellant argues that Texas’s death penalty scheme violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution given the absence of such legislation.

The Supreme Court held in Atkins that the execution of a mentally retarded person violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.” 5 Recognizing that there is “serious disagreement” in “determining which offenders are in fact retarded,” the Court “[left] to the States the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction upon its execution of sentences.”6 In response to Atkins, this Court created temporary judicial guidelines for trial courts in the absence of legislation.7 We set forth a substantive test (detailed below under points of error eight and nine) and procedural guidelines for trial courts to follow in determining whether a defendant is mentally retarded for the purposes of an Atkins claim.8 Over four years later, the Texas legislature still has not enacted any legislation on this matter.

[271]*271Appellant argues that the use of judicial rather than statutory guidelines contravenes the mandate of Atkins. The Supreme Court repeatedly stated, however, that it was “leav[ing] up to the States” how to ensure that the death penalty not be imposed on mentally retarded defendants.9 The opinion never specified that this task must be performed exclusively by state legislatures rather than any other state government entity. Atkins specified the end result to be achieved; it did not delineate the mechanisms through which to achieve them, except that they are to occur at the state level. If the Court had intended to direct only legislatures to act, then it could have easily referred to “the state legislatures.” Appellant’s contention that the Supreme Court’s references to “the States” actually meant “the state legislatures” is untenable.

Appellant argues that the Supreme Court itself, in Schriro v. Smith, reversed a Ninth Circuit opinion instructing a trial court on how to comply with Atkins.10 This argument misreads that case. The Supreme Court did not say that the Ninth Circuit was a judicial body usurping a function properly reserved to the legislature. Rather, the Court explained — in a short, per curiam opinion — that the Ninth Circuit was a federal body usurping a function that the Atkins opinion had plainly vested in “the States.”11 Schriro simply did not present any issue of whether a particular ruling by a state court might be subject to constitutional challenge.12

Appellant maintains that the continued application of our guidelines violates the separation of powers clause of the Texas Constitution,13 relying largely on our statement in Briseno that “[t]his Court does not, under normal circumstances, create law.”14 Yet we included that dictum precisely because we faced not a “normal” situation but an extraordinary one.15 The holding in Atkins had compelled us, in the absence of any applicable legislation, to ensure that the procedures used in Texas conform to the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment.16 Appellant does not take issue with that decision, but maintains that the procedures are no longer valid because we stated in Briseno that they would be merely “temporary judicial guidelines” during a “legislative interregnum.” 17 However, in the four years since we decided Briseno, nothing new has happened to invalidate those guidelines. We remain in the same situation we were in the day we decided Briseno: the legislature has not acted. The rationale set forth in that opinion thus continues to apply to capital cases in which mental retardation is at issue.

Unless legislative action is taken, the current guidelines remain in effect because there is no adequate alternative that would ensure that our judicial system complies with the Supreme Court’s mandate. Appellant asks us to delay the administration of justice until some indeterminate point in the future, but we must remember that, as we observed in Briseno, “justice delayed is [272]*272justice denied.”18 Indeed, if we were to satisfy appellant’s request, we would not know if that point would ever arrive, as it is impossible to know whether the legislature will ever take action. Appellant never clarifies what he would like to happen if no legislation is ever enacted, but the logical extension of his argument is that capital cases in which mental retardation is at issue would be relegated to a legal no-man’s land, unable to reach a final resolution. To avoid such a denial of justice, we uphold the Briseno framework unless and until relevant legislation is enacted. Point of error one is overruled.

In point of error two, appellant argues that the lack of statutory procedures for adjudicating Atkins claims violates equal protection by subjecting different defendants to different trial procedures. We have repeatedly held to the contrary.19 Appellant draws an analogy to the county-to-county discrepancies among election procedures at issue in Bush v. Gore>20 but we have rejected precisely this analogy in previous cases.21 Point of error two is overruled.

In point of error three, appellant contends that the trial court erred in failing to abate the proceedings until the legislature enacts statutory guidelines for determining mental retardation. This point of error presupposes that the lack of such legislation violates appellant’s constitutional rights. As we have already rejected appellant’s claims to that effect, we reject this one as well. Point of error three is overruled.

In point of error six, appellant contends that the trial court erred in declining to empanel a separate jury to determine whether appellant is mentally retarded. Appellant argues that the jury had not been qualified at voir dire to determine the issue of mental retardation, but he forfeited this claim by failing to question the jurors on mental retardation at voir dire.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
256 S.W.3d 264, 2008 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 754, 2008 WL 2437667, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/neal-v-state-texcrimapp-2008.