## Facts

- Duncan Peder McKenzie, Jr. was convicted in Montana state court of deliberate homicide by torture and aggravated kidnapping for the January 1974 killing of schoolteacher Lana Harding.
- Harding disappeared and was found dead the next day after a prolonged assault involving strangulation and torture.
- The prosecution presented extensive physical and circumstantial evidence linking McKenzie to the crime, including items with blood and tissue evidence and materials traced to McKenzie’s pickup truck.
- McKenzie presented defenses based on insanity and diminished capacity, supported by expert testimony; the State sought a death sentence under Montana’s capital sentencing scheme.
- The trial court gave intent instructions later characterized as Sandstrom-type presumptions that could be understood to shift the burden of proof on intent.
- The Montana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence.
- McKenzie sought federal habeas relief challenging the intent instructions and asserting additional constitutional defects in the death-penalty procedures, including claims tied to plea negotiations and alleged victim-impact influence.
- The federal district court dismissed the habeas petition; the Ninth Circuit reheard the appeal en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether Sandstrom-type intent-presumption jury instructions constituted constitutional error requiring habeas relief, or were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt on the trial record.
2. Whether Montana’s capital sentencing statute and review procedures were unconstitutional as applied to McKenzie.
3. Whether the collapse of a contemplated plea agreement and the alleged involvement of the victim’s family in that process rendered the death sentence unconstitutional.

## Decision

- The en banc Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of McKenzie’s habeas petition.
- The court held the Sandstrom-type instructional errors were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given the strength of the evidence of intent and the verdicts returned.
- The court rejected challenges to Montana’s death-penalty framework, concluding that its sentencing procedures and layers of review satisfied constitutional requirements as applied.
- The court rejected claims based on plea negotiations and alleged victim-impact influence, finding no constitutional defect warranting habeas relief.

## Legal Principles

- Sandstrom-type burden-shifting or mandatory-presumption instructions on intent are constitutional error, but they may be subject to harmless-error review on habeas.
- An instructional error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt where, on the entire record, the verdict is not attributable to the flawed instruction and the evidence establishes the required mental state without reliance on the presumption.
- A state capital sentencing scheme is constitutionally permissible where it allows presentation of mitigating evidence, channels sentencing discretion, and provides meaningful appellate or other review against arbitrariness.
- A failed plea negotiation does not invalidate a later death sentence absent a showing that the statutory scheme or state action unconstitutionally penalized the exercise of the right to trial or that prohibited considerations actually drove the sentencing decision.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, denied federal habeas relief by concluding that the unconstitutional intent-presumption instructions did not affect the verdict in light of overwhelming evidence of intent, and that Montana’s capital sentencing procedures and the plea-negotiation-related claims did not establish a constitutional basis to disturb the conviction or death sentence.


McKenzie v. Risley, 842 F.2d 1525 (9th Cir. 1988) (en banc)