Opinion ID: 2540167
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whitfield

Text: In 2003, in Whitfield, this Court applied Ring retroactively [7] and set aside a defendant's death sentence that had been previously affirmed on appeal before Ring was decided. Whitfield held that, under Ring, the defendant was entitled to have a jury make the factual determinations on which his eligibility for the death sentence was predicated. Whitfield, 107 S.W.3d at 256. In Whitfield, the judge had determined the factual issues necessary for imposition of the death penalty after the jury had found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder but then was unable to reach a verdict in the punishment phase of his trial. Id. at 261. Whitfield found that the defendant's Sixth Amendment rights to jury sentencing as outlined in Ring were violated when, after the jury deadlocked, the judge found the essential facts under section 565.030.4, RSMo 1994, that were necessary to impose the death sentence. Id. at 261-62. Whitfield observed that the burden was on the State to show that the Ring error was harmless, and it concluded that the State could not show the error was harmless because it was unknown, based on the jury deadlock, at what phase the jury reached an impasse when making the required statutory determinations for imposing a death sentence. Id. at 262-64. [8] Accordingly, the defendant in Whitfield had his death sentence reduced to a sentence of life imprisonment because his death sentence had been unconstitutionally imposed when it was based on determinations not made by a jury. Id. at 271-72.