## Facts

- Leslie Lowenfield was convicted in Louisiana state court of three counts of first-degree murder arising from the killing of five people, including his girlfriend, a sheriff’s deputy, and members of her family.
- The first-degree murder theory required proof that Lowenfield intended “to kill or inflict great bodily harm upon more than one person.”
- At the penalty phase, the jury struggled to reach unanimity on sentence.
- The trial judge twice polled jurors on whether further deliberations could be productive; majorities responded yes.
- The judge then gave a supplemental instruction resembling an Allen charge, urging jurors to consult with one another toward unanimity while not surrendering honest beliefs, and stating that if the jury could not agree, the court would impose life imprisonment without probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
- Defense counsel did not object to the polls or the supplemental instruction.
- The jury returned death sentences on all three counts and found a single statutory aggravating circumstance: that Lowenfield “knowingly created a risk of death or great bodily harm to more than one person.”
- State appellate review affirmed; federal habeas relief was denied by the district court and affirmed by the Fifth Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether the penalty-phase jury polls and Allen-type supplemental instruction impermissibly coerced a death sentence in violation of due process and the Eighth Amendment.
2. Whether the Eighth Amendment narrowing requirement is violated when the sole aggravating circumstance found by the jury duplicates an element of the capital offense.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of habeas relief.
- The Court held that, evaluated in context and under all circumstances, the jury polls and supplemental charge did not impermissibly coerce the jury’s death verdict.
- The Court held that the Eighth Amendment permits an aggravating factor to overlap with, or be contained within, the definition of the capital offense, so long as the statutory scheme sufficiently narrows the class of death-eligible defendants.

## Legal Principles

- Whether a supplemental unanimity instruction is coercive depends on the instruction’s language and the surrounding circumstances, including whether jurors are told not to surrender honest convictions.
- An Allen-type charge is not unconstitutional per se in capital sentencing; lack of explicit focus on minority jurors is a factor weighing against coercion.
- A state’s capital scheme satisfies the Eighth Amendment if it genuinely narrows death eligibility either at the guilt phase, the penalty phase, or through the combined operation of both.
- The Eighth Amendment is not violated solely because the aggravating circumstance found duplicates an element of the underlying capital offense, if the narrowing function is otherwise performed.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld Lowenfield’s death sentences, ruling that the penalty-phase polls and Allen-type instruction were not unconstitutionally coercive and that Louisiana’s narrowing requirement was satisfied even though the sole aggravator overlapped with an element of first-degree murder.


Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231 (1988)