Parks v. Saffle

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

The issue to be decided in this, our second en banc consideration of petitioner’s habeas petition, is whether the prosecutor’s anti-sympathy comments combined with an anti-sympathy instruction given by the court during the penalty stage of petitioner’s capital trial influenced the jury improperly to discount mitigating evidence presented by the defendant. The United States Supreme Court in Saffle v. Parks, — U.S. —, 110 S.Ct. 1257, 108 L.Ed.2d 415 (1990), held that the anti-sympathy jury instruction by itself did not violate the defendant Robyn Leroy Parks’ constitutional…