Opinion ID: 1730477
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 36

Heading: the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury it must make findings of the acgravating circumstances.

Text: Carr argues that the failure to instruct the jury that it must make written findings of aggravating circumstances, before using them in the weighing process, produced an ambiguous verdict in violation of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and Art. 3,  24 of the Mississippi Constitution. Carr accuses the jury of merely parroting the list of aggravating factors in the sentencing forms. The State maintains that there was nothing ambiguous about the four written jury verdicts. Miss. Code Ann.  99-19-101, (Supp. 1993) is the applicable law to be followed in the sentencing of a capital murder defendant. Section 99-19-101(3) states that in order for a jury to impose a sentence of death, it must unanimously find in writing that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating ones. It further requires that the determination of the jury be supported by specific written findings of fact based upon the mitigating and aggravating circumstances. The jury unanimously found in writing that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones. The fact that specific written findings supporting the jury's determination were parroted from the sentencing forms does not render the verdict ambiguous. In fact, it renders the jury's findings specific. This assignment of error lacks merit.