Opinion ID: 1858107
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 28

Heading: Lessening of Jury's Understanding of Responsibility/Supplemental Assignment of Error 8

Text: Defendant argues the jury's understanding of its responsibility was improperly diminished when the trial court sustained State objections to the use of the word kill by defense counsel during penalty phase closing argument. Defense counsel had told the jury it had to decide whether you're going to kill this kid to which the State objected, and defense counsel withdrew the remark. He rephrased the issue as whether you're going to vote for somebody else to do it to which the State again objected, and defense counsel again rephrased as if you vote to kill this kid. There were more objections, and, ultimately, the court cautioned defendant that it would buy that [the lapse] was a mistake once, but don't do it again. In Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985), the United States Supreme Court held that arguments which diminish a jury's sense of responsibility for the verdict and sentence, i.e. which imply the jury's verdict is not the final determination of whether defendant would be sentenced to death or not, inject an arbitrary factor into the proceedings and may result in reversible error. The typical comment in this area is a reference to appellate review of the jury's decision implying to the jury it is not responsible for the ramifications of its decision to impose the death penalty. See, e.g., State v. Scales, 93-2003, p. 12 (La.5/22/95), 655 So.2d 1326, 1335, cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1050, 116 S.Ct. 716, 133 L.Ed.2d 670 (1996); State v. Jones, 474 So.2d 919, 930-32 (La.1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1178, 106 S.Ct. 2906, 90 L.Ed.2d 992 (1986). The sentencing jury in a capital case must not be left with the mistaken impression that the ultimate responsibility for determining the death sentence did not lie with them. State v. Lindsey, 543 So.2d 886, 903 (1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 966, 110 S.Ct. 2579, 109 L.Ed.2d 761 (1990). There is no violation of Caldwell in the trial judge's decision to prohibit defense counsel from stating the jury would kill this kid if it voted for the death penalty. Certainly, it was reasonable, and within the judge's discretion, for him to require defendant to convey the importance and ramifications of the jury's decision in a less inflammatory manner. The jurors were repeatedly apprised of, and had no mistaken impressions about, their duty as jurors. Panel members were properly instructed they bore the sole responsibility for deciding between life imprisonment or death by lethal injection. The State did not mention appellate review nor did it tell or encourage the jury to believe it was not responsible for the outcome. Rather, the State told the jury in its penalty phase closing argument and in its rebuttal argument that the sentence to be imposed was in the jury's hands, that the purpose of the jury was to return a penalty, death or life, and that this decision was the jury's alone. This assignment of error lacks merit.