Opinion ID: 2307555
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Instruction Regarding Unanimity of Penalty-Phase Verdict

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court's charge and the verdict sheet improperly directed the penalty-phase jury to reach a unanimous verdict to impose a life sentence or a unanimous verdict imposing a death sentence. Defendant asserts that the court should have included non-unanimity, resulting in a life sentence, as a third verdict option on the verdict sheet. This contention is without merit. The court instructed the jury that its failure to agree unanimously that defendant should be sentenced to death would result in the imposition of a life sentence. In his instructions, the trial judge told the jury: In the process of weighing of the values represented by aggravating and mitigating factors, it is possible that the jurors will not be able after full and open deliberation to come to a unanimous conclusion one way or the other. Of course, you should not come to that point simply to avoid a difficult decision. But, if after thorough, open and thoughtful deliberations positions are conscientiously arrived at by the individual jurors, which preclude the possibility of unanimity, your foreman should report that fact to the Court by a note to that effect. If the Court agrees that such is a fixed state of the jury, then the Court will impose a sentence of life imprisonment with no parole available for thirty years. Similarly, the verdict sheet identified non-unanimity as an option for the jury. NOTE: If after full and considered deliberations you report to the Court that you are unable to unanimously agree on either punishment set forth above, and if the Court is satisfied that it is so, then the Court will sentence the defendant to imprisonment for life with no eligibility for parole for 30 years. The court emphasized the need for the jury to engage in reasonable deliberations, but did not press the jury to reach a unanimous verdict. Thus, the court's instructions and the note on the verdict sheet did not coerce the jury improperly to reach a unanimous decision.