Opinion ID: 3159995
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Separate Juries for Guilt and Penalty Phases

Text: Relying in part on his previous argument alleging the unfairness inherent in death-qualified juries, Appellant contends that the trial court erred by denying his request to have separate juries serve during the guilt and penalty phases of trial. Presuming that a death-qualified jury is predisposed to convict and impose the death penalty, Appellant asserts, without citation to authority, that there is no legitimate reason for jurors who heard the guilt phase of trial to continue to be jurors during the penalty phase. He argues that the additional costs or the logistics of having two juries are inadequate reasons to deny a capital defendant a fair and impartial jury. Appellant concludes that the only rationale for having the same jury during the guilt and penalty phases of trial is to make it easier for the Commonwealth to convict. [J-2-2015] - 42 The Commonwealth counters that there is no merit to Appellant’s claim because the Sentencing Code requires expressly that the same jury decide both guilt and penalty. See 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(a)(1) (providing that “[a]fter a verdict of murder of the first degree is recorded and before the jury is discharged, the court shall conduct a separate sentencing hearing in which the jury shall determine whether the defendant shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment”). It relies on case law from this Court holding that Section 9711(a)(1) requires that the jury that rendered a verdict of murder in the first degree also determine whether the appropriate sentence is life imprisonment or death. Similarly relying on Section 9711(a)(1), the trial court denied Appellant relief on this claim, holding that the law on this issue is clear that the same jury adjudicates guilt and penalty in a capital murder case. We find no error in the trial court’s holding as it correctly sets forth the law of this Commonwealth. See Commonwealth v. Mattison, 82 A.3d 386, 397 (Pa. 2013) (holding that “[t]his Court has repeatedly interpreted Section 9711(a)(1) as providing that ‘the same jury which renders the verdict of murder in the first degree is the same jury which is to determine whether the sentence is to be death or life imprisonment’”) (quoting Commonwealth v Bryant, 574 A.2d 590, 595 (Pa. 1990)); Commonwealth v. Haag, 562 A.2d 289 (Pa. 1989) (same); Commonwealth v. Williams, 522 A.2d 1058 (Pa. 1987) (same).