Opinion ID: 1258573
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trial Court's Instructions on Mitigating Circumstances

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court gave an incorrect definition of mitigating circumstances in its final charge to the jury at the close of the penalty proceeding. He challenges the following portion of the trial court's final charge to the jury at the conclusion of the penalty proceeding, although no timely objection was raised at the charge conference or made contemporaneously with the instructions: A mitigating circumstance is a fact or group of facts which do not  which do not constitute a justification or excuse for a killing or reduce it to a lesser degree of crime than first degree murder, but which may be considered as extenuating or reducing the moral culpability of the killing or as making it less deserving of the extreme punishment than other first degree murders. Our law identifies several possible mitigating circumstances; however, in considering issue two, it is your duty  it would be your duty to consider as a mitigating circumstance any aspect of the defendant's character or record or any circumstances of this murder that the defendant contends is a basis for a sentence less than death and to consider any other circumstances arising from the evidence which you deem to have mitigating value. Because defendant did not object to the trial court's jury instructions, this assignment of error was not preserved for appellate review. See State v. Hardy, 353 N.C. 122, 131, 540 S.E.2d 334, 342 (2000), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 840, 122 S.Ct. 96, 151 L.Ed.2d 56 (2001). Alternatively, defendant asserts plain error; however, this Court has repeatedly upheld virtually identical instructions. See, e.g., State v. Williams, 350 N.C. 1, 32-34, 510 S.E.2d 626, 647, cert. denied, 528 U.S. 880, 120 S.Ct. 193, 145 L.Ed.2d 162 (1999); State v. Harden, 344 N.C. 542, 564, 476 S.E.2d 658, 669-70 (1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1147, 117 S.Ct. 1321, 137 L.Ed.2d 483 (1997); State v. Skipper, 337 N.C. 1, 52-53, 446 S.E.2d 252, 280-81 (1994), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1134, 115 S.Ct. 953, 130 L.Ed.2d 895 (1995), superseded by statute on other grounds, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2002, as recognized in State v. Price, 337 N.C. 756, 448 S.E.2d 827 (1994). Thus, there was no error in the trial court's instructions, plain or otherwise. Accordingly, defendant's assignment of error is overruled.