Opinion ID: 1959182
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Dilution of Jurors' Responsibility for Death Penalty

Text: Next, defendant argues that the trial court improperly diluted the jurors' sense of responsibility during its charge at the penalty phase. During the charge at the penalty phase, and in reference to the verdict sheet the court had prepared, the trial court explained to the jurors: If you have checked one or more aggravating factors yes and ... have checked all of the mitigating factors no, then you proceed no further and you return this verdict sheet to the court as your verdict. That instruction, defendant argues, contravenes the fundamental principle of capital jurisprudence that the jurors must make a normative judgment that death is the fitting and appropriate punishment. At trial, defense counsel objected to the charge because it is our position that the jury doesn't need to find any mitigating to recommend a life sentence, and requested that the verdict sheet reflect that option. The court denied the request. In Bey II, supra, we found precisely the same sort of instruction erroneous. We explained that the jury could have believed that its weighing of the factors was merely a mechanical function. The charge could have thus failed to communicate that the jury, not the mechanics of the statute or the `law', is ultimately responsible for the imposition of the death penalty. 112 N.J. at 164, 548 A. 2d 887: The court should have expressly instructed the jury that a consequence of finding one or more aggravating factors and no mitigating factors meant that the jury thought that the death penalty was a fitting and appropriate punishment for the defendant. Such a charge would have suitably directed any belief of a juror about the inappropriateness of the death penalty to one or more mitigating factors. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed. 2d 859, 883 (1976). [ Ibid. ] In Bey II the jury had failed to find the existence of any mitigating factors and had returned a death verdict. We reiterated that the jury was not relieved by some statutory scale as the ultimate arbiter of defendant's life. Id. We held this, in conjunction with the failure of the trial court to have indicated that the jury did not have to be unanimous in finding mitigating factors, constituted reversible error. Although the court in this case did not specifically instruct that jury that it must find death to be a fitting and appropriate punishment, it did tell the jury that their determination of whether the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors to a sufficient degree would result in the sentence of death. The jury found two mitigating factors, and proceeded to engage in the weighing process. While the charge could have been more specifically stated, we do not find that it constitutes independent grounds for reversal of the death sentence.