Opinion ID: 2307555
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Adequacy of Instruction Concerning Defendant's Parole-Ineligibility Period

Text: On direct appeal, defendant challenged the trial court's refusal to instruct the penalty-phase jury that, if defendant was not sentenced to death, he would be sentenced to two life sentences with an aggregate seventy-year parole ineligibility period, for both the Peniston and Alston murders. The court charged the jury only with respect to defendant's alternative sentence for the Peniston murder, a life sentence with a thirty-year parole ineligibility period. We found that the court's failure to instruct the jury constituted harmless error. Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 606, 610 A. 2d 814. As we stated, based on our thorough review of the record, we conclude that the jury was fully informed of the practical consequences of imposing a life sentence in this case. Id. at 604, 610 A. 2d 814. To support that conclusion we relied on statements made by the court and counsel during the voir dire and by both defense counsel and the prosecutor in their summations. Ibid. At the PCR proceeding below, defendant sought to prove that the error was not harmless. Defendant argued that consideration of the seventy-year period of parole ineligibility would have led some jurors to believe that a life sentence was sufficient punishment. The PCR court denied defendant's request for an evidentiary hearing on this issue. Defendant urges that: (1) he should be permitted an evidentiary hearing to develop evidence of the prejudice; (2) this Court's ruling on direct appeal is in violation of the United States Supreme Court's holding in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed. 2d 133 (1994); and (3) this Court failed to address on direct appeal all of the grounds for reversal that defendant had raised. First, defendant objects to the PCR court's denial of his request to hold an evidentiary hearing. This request focused on resolving the alleged ambiguity of the jury's verdict. We described the relevant facts in Bey III: Approximately two hours into their deliberations, the jury sent the trial court a note with the following question: Is Mr. Bey ever eligible for parole in the next seventy years? Some time elapsed before the court met with counsel to discuss the jury's question.... Nearly one hour after the note had been sent, the court officer interrupted that discussion by announcing that [t]he Foremen [sic] informed me he has a verdict and they don't need an answer to the question. When the jury was brought into the courtroom, the trial court engaged in the following colloquy: THE COURT: And before I answered your question, you advised the Court that you had a verdict and you didn't want this question answered, is that correct? THE FOREMAN: That's correct. [ Bey III, 129 N.J. at 605-06, 610 A. 2d 814.] The court also explained the situation on the record: [B]etween [the first note] and my coming from the bench, I also got a message from the Court Officer that they had a verdict depending uponthey had a verdict. Defendant asserts that the court's initial use of the words depending upon suggests that the verdict was conditioned on receiving an answer to the question about defendant's parole ineligibility period. Defendant sought the evidentiary hearing to ask the jurors what they had told the court officer and to interview the court officer who had relayed the message from the jury to Judge Arnone, and to question Judge Arnone about the meaning of his statement. Defendant asked Judge Arnone, as a potential witness, to recuse himself. Judge Arnone denied each of defendant's requests, reasoning that this Court had determined in Bey III that the jury did not require an answer to its question before rendering its verdict. On appeal, defendant seeks permission to interview the jurors and the court officer. Unfortunately, during the pendency of this appeal, Judge Arnone died. In Bey III, we stated: The question can be understood in two different ways: either the jury was confused about the length of the parole-ineligibility period, or the jury was asking whether the defendant could be paroled at any time before the completion of the seventy-year period. We find the latter reading more plausible because the phrasing of the question itself reveals that the jury knew the aggregate parole-ineligibility period from two life sentences would be seventy years. More importantly, though, the jury reached its verdict without waiting to have its question answered. Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 606, 610 A. 2d 814. The trial court's initial misstatement does not provide a sufficient basis for conducting an evidentiary hearing. The foreman told the court that the jury did not need an answer to the question about defendant's parole ineligibility period. When questioned by Judge Arnone, the court officer summarized the jurors' communication: They knocked and said they had a verdict and I informed Judge Arnone, who was with Judge Ricciardi at that time. Rule 1:16-1, Interviewing Jurors Subsequent to Trial, states: Except by leave of court granted on good cause shown, no attorney or party shall directly, or through any investigator or other person acting for the attorney interview, examine, or question any grand or petit juror with respect to any matter relating to the case. The record does not support the requisite a finding of good cause. As we have stated, [C]alling back jurors for interrogation after they have been discharged is an extraordinary procedure which should be invoked only upon a strong showing that a litigant may have been harmed by jury misconduct. Loftin I, supra, 146 N.J. at 382, 680 A. 2d 677 (citations omitted). The record does not demonstrate the requisite showing of harm. We therefore deny defendant's request for an evidentiary hearing and find that it was unnecessary for Judge Arnone to recuse himself from the PCR proceeding. Second, defendant challenges our conclusion in Bey III that the trial court's refusal to instruct the jury concerning defendant's seventy-year parole ineligibility period was harmless error. Defendant contends that the conclusion contravenes the United States Supreme Court's holding in Simmons, supra . Simmons involved a defendant against whom the State asserted future dangerousness as an aggravating factor. 512 U.S. at 157, 114 S.Ct. at 2190. The Court held that the defendant was entitled to inform the jury that he would be ineligible for parole for life if he was not sentenced to death. Id. at 163, 114 S.Ct. at 2194. Here, in contrast, the State did not argue that the jury should consider defendant's future dangerousness. We similarly distinguish Simmons and Loftin, where we stated: [T]he State did not proffer defendant's future dangerousness as an aggravating factor and the only available alternative sentence to death was not life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Future dangerousness is not an aggravating factor in New Jersey, and our statute limits prosecutors to the enumerated aggravating factors. Loftin I, supra, 146 N.J. at 371, 680 A. 2d 677. Additionally, defendant's alternative sentence allowed for the possibility, as slight as it may be, of parole. Defendant further contends that the prior murder aggravating factor equates with future dangerousness, a contention that we implicitly rejected in Loftin I. In Loftin I, we concluded that Simmons did not apply despite the fact that the jury had found the prior-murder aggravating factor. We reach the same conclusion here. In addition, the United States Supreme Court recently held that Simmons established a new rule of law that, based on federal retroactivity principles, should not be applied on collateral review. See O'Dell v. Netherland, 521 U.S. 151, 117 S.Ct. 1969, 138 L.Ed. 2d 351 (1997). Third, defendant claims that this Court did not address several related arguments in Bey III. Defendant contends that he was deprived of his right to a fair trial and the right to the intelligent use of his peremptory challenges because voir dire proceeded on the premise that the alternative to death was two life sentences with an aggregate seventy-year parole-ineligibility period. According to defendant, the trial court's erroneous instructions violated his Eighth Amendment right to a reliable penalty-phase trial. He asserts that several jurors stated or implied that they could not deliberate impartially between sentencing alternatives of death and a thirty-year parole ineligibility period. Lastly, defendant urges the Court to adopt a rule that trial judges must decide before the penalty-phase proceeding whether non-capital sentences should be consecutive. These arguments overlap the defendant's previous contentions, which this Court resolved on direct appeal. See Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 606, 610 A. 2d 814.
Defendant renews his contention, raised on direct appeal, that the trial court's delay in responding to the jury's question regarding the length of defendant's period of parole ineligibility coerced a verdict imposing a death sentence. As we held in Bey III, the delay did not constitute reversible error. 129 N.J. at 607, 610 A. 2d 814. Relitigation of this issue is barred by Rule 3:22-5.