Opinion ID: 2365094
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged Error in Jury Charge During Penalty Phase

Text: Defendant contends, for the first time on appeal, that he is entitled to a new penalty-phase trial because the court failed to inform the jury of the exact length of the New York sentence. He argues that the trial court's omission of the exact length of the New York sentence in the jury instructions violated his Eighth Amendment rights under Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed. 2d 133 (1994). A capital sentencing jury must be fully informed of its responsibility in determining the appropriateness of the death penalty. State v. Loftin, 146 N.J. 295, 370, 680 A. 2d 677 (1996) (citing Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 304-05, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 2991, 49 L.Ed. 2d 944, 961 (1976)). As was explained in Ramseur, supra, [t]o hide from the jury the full range of its sentencing options, thus permitting its decision to be based on uninformed and possibly inaccurate speculation, is to mock the goals of rationality and consistency required by modern death penalty jurisprudence. 106 N.J. at 311, 524 A. 2d 188. Generally, in capital sentencing proceedings, the trial court should inform the jury of prior sentences being served by the defendant because that information may bear on the jury's thought process in determining the adequacy of a life sentence as opposed to death. Cooper, supra, 151 N.J. at 373, 700 A. 2d 306; Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 603, 610 A. 2d 814 (noting that jury's sentencing decision may be affected by uncertainty about whether the defendant has been punished adequately for the earlier murder, when prior murder is presented as aggravating factor); Loftin, supra, 146 N.J. at 372, 680 A. 2d 677 (stating that jury should be informed of defendant's prior sentences if there is a reasonable likelihood that [the judge] will impose a sentence to be served consecutively to any of defendant's prior sentences). However, a trial court is not required to inform the jury about a defendant's prior sentence absent a request by the defendant or an inquiry by the jury. Bey III, supra, 129 N.J. at 603, 610 A. 2d 814. Defendant concedes that he made no such request at trial. However, he contends that the failure to inform the jury of the length of the New York sentence constituted plain error, and alternatively, that a jury inquiry was made in the form of a request to clarify the verdict sheet. We disagree that the jury instructions prejudiced defendant. The jury was told on numerous occasions that if it did not vote for death, defendant would be sentenced to two life terms with sixty years of parole ineligibility to run consecutive to his New York sentence. Specifically, in his opening statement, defense counsel informed the jury that defendant will never get out of prison, and that even without the New York sentence the earliest defendant would be released is when he is eighty-seven years old. Defense counsel reminded the jury of that fact in his closing argument. In addition, the court charged the jury that if defendant was not sentenced to death for both victims, it would impose consecutive life sentences with 60 years to be served before parole eligibility which sentence shall be made to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed in the State of New York. Because the jury was adequately informed of its sentencing options and the effect the prior sentence would have on the present sentence, we find that the omission in the jury instructions of the exact length of defendant's prior murder sentence does not constitute plain error. Regarding the jury's inquiry made in the form of a request to clarify the verdict sheet, we note that the inquiry in question was as follows: A and B refer to a unanimous decision on which set of factors outweigh the other and on what the appropriate punishment is. C refers to the punishment with no reference to the factors. Are we being asked to unanimously agree on both the factors and the punishment? Nothing in that inquiry pertained to the New York sentence. Indeed, in addition to answering the jury's question, the court clarified that the total amount of parole ineligibility that it would impose would be sixty years since the sentences would be made to run consecutively. Finally, defendant urges us to reconsider our holding in Loftin, supra, to the extent that it interpreted Simmons, supra . In Simmons, the United States Supreme Court held that when future dangerousness is alleged as an aggravating factor, and the defendant is ineligible for parole under state law, the jury must be informed that the defendant is ineligible for parole. 512 U.S. at 156, 114 S.Ct. at 2193, 129 L.Ed. 2d at 138. As we noted in Loftin, Simmons is not applicable in New Jersey because future dangerousness is not an aggravating factor in New Jersey. 146 N.J. at 371, 680 A. 2d 677. We recently reaffirmed Loftin in Koskovich, supra, 168 N.J. at 531-32, 776 A. 2d 144. Defendant presents no novel argument or law that undermines our holding in Loftin, and thus we reaffirm that Simmons is inapplicable to our jurisprudence on aggravating factors.