Opinion ID: 1820473
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: the effect of outside contact with a juror during deliberations on the sentencing phase

Text: As we have stated above, a jury's verdict must be based upon the evidence and not affected by extraneous influences. We have also repeatedly recognized the gravity and immeasurable solemnity of a jury's deliberations during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. See Williams v. State, 445 So.2d 798 (Miss. 1984); Wiley v. State, 449 So.2d 756 (Miss. 1984). The importance of this deliberation may at times cause inconvenience and hardship; however, to allow distractions and outside influences to infect the jury's thoughts at this critical juncture of the proceedings is to devalue human life. At a hearing on Fuselier's motion for a new trial, the court took the testimony of Willie Clark, the husband of one of the jurors. Mr. Clark testified that while the jury was deliberating during the sentencing phase he sent a message through the bailiff that his wife's mother had died. The bailiff allowed him to speak to his wife on the phone. The only words he told her were Baby, your mother passed. There is no member of this Court who would deny feeling a degree of anguish and sympathy for Mrs. Clark; however, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the most important issue at hand during the sentencing deliberations was Eric Fuselier's life. It is part of the universal human experience that the ability to reason often folds in the face of grief. The loss of only one reasoned vote against the death penalty may have resulted in that verdict. While we do not mean to imply that Mrs. Clark's or anyone else's vote was not based on reason and rules of law, we, as mortals, cannot be blind to the possibility of a subconscious yet substantial impact upon the jury's verdict. We repeat the rule that during a jury's deliberations outside influences must be eliminated if possible and minimized if not. Otherwise the integrity of the verdict is in question and a mistrial is appropriate. Perkins v. State, 244 So.2d 414 (Miss. 1971).