Opinion ID: 2331534
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: 1991 Death Penalty Statute Constitutional

Text: Reyes was sentenced under the 1991 version of Section 4209. Reyes' final argument is that the United States Supreme Court's decision in Ring v. Arizona [42] rendered the 1991 version of Delaware's death penalty statute, title 11, section 4209 of the Delaware Code, unconstitutional. In Brice v. State, [43] this Court recently addressed several questions concerning the 2002 amendment to Section 4209. The rationale for our narrowing phase holding in Brice controls our disposition of Reyes' specific challenge to the 1991 Delaware death penalty statute. In Brice, we held that Ring only extends to the so-called narrowing phase of the sentencing process. [44] Accordingly, once a jury finds, unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of at least one statutory aggravating factor, the defendant becomes death eligible. [45] In Brice, this Court held that a jury finding during the guilt phase of the existence of the underlying facts that are necessary to establish a statutory aggravator beyond a reasonable doubt complied with the construction of the United States Constitution in Ring. [46] The record reflects that Ring's constitutional requirement of such fact-finding by a jury is satisfied in Reyes' case. The jury convicted Reyes of, among other crimes, two counts of Murder in the First Degree under Section 636(a)(1). Multiple convictions under Section 636(a)(1), resulting from a single course of conduct, establish the existence of a statutory aggravator under Section 4209(e)(1)(k). The statutory aggravator in Section 4209(e)(1)(k) is described as follows: [t]he defendant's course of conduct resulted in the deaths of [two] or more persons where the deaths are a probable consequence of the defendant's conduct. The jury's finding of the statutory aggravator described in 4209(e)(1)(k) complies with the holding in Ring. The jury's verdict that Reyes was guilty of committing two counts of Murder in the First Degree during a single course of conduct established the existence of the statutory aggravating narrowing circumstance, which made Reyes death eligible. Such a finding during the guilt phase of Reyes' trial was made by the jury unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. When the very nature of a jury's guilty verdict simultaneously establishes the statutory aggravating circumstance set forth under Section 4209(e)(1)(k), that jury verdict authorizes a maximum punishment of death in a manner that comports with the United States Supreme Court's holding in Ring. [47] Therefore, we hold that the 1991 version of Section 4209, as applied to Reyes, is constitutional.