Opinion ID: 1708859
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: The request for a promise to return the death penalty.

Text: During voir dire, the prosecutor asked the jurors if they could return the death penalty under the following conditions: [H]ow many of those that have said that they are in favor of the death penalty and they could vote for the death penalty if he shot the other person  how many of those people could not vote for the death penalty if he didn't himself pull the trigger and killed [sic] the person he is charged with killing here? Is there anyone that would base their decision on sympathy? The prosecutor reminded the jury of those questions during his closing argument in the sentencing phase. Each one of you said under oath  I can vote for the death penalty in the proper case. Will it matter that he's young? Will he have to have killed more than one person? Will he have to have pulled the trigger himself on this murder? Can you still do it? Can you do it based on the testimony of the two people that you convicted him on? And every single one of you said yes  on your oath  I can do that. If you hadn't you wouldn't be here. If one of you  if one of you looks for an excuse and says  I'm not gonna vote for the death penalty and I'm not gonna give you a reason  just as Mr. Kelley said you can do  then you can keep from giving this person the death penalty. You can forget what you promised me. You can forget what you said under oath Monday. [emphasis added.] It is reversible error to ask a juror during voir dire to commit to returning a particular verdict. West v. State, 485 So.2d 681 (Miss. 1985); Murphy v. State, 246 So.2d 920 (Miss. 1971). See also Rule 5.02, Mississippi Uniform Criminal Rules of Circuit Court Practice. The prosecutor in this case did not specifically request a verdict during voir dire; this conduct is not per se reversible; however, when accumulated with other factors, a different result is reached. During closing argument, the district attorney characterized the jurors' negative responses to his voir dire as a promise, under oath, to return the death penalty in this case. When combined with the question regarding Stringer's involvement in the crime and the question about sympathy, the jurors could have had the mistaken impression that they had pledged to ignore the only mitigating factors which he could present in his defense. Those factors were his relatively minor role in the killing of Mr. McWilliams, and his unique personal characteristics which would invoke sympathy: his age, his high school record, his troubled home life, and the domination by his father. It is an improper influence to put the jury in a box by voir dire tactics which extract a promise, prior to trial, to ignore evidence favorable to the defendant. This promise or pledge prevents the jurors from considering all factors relative to the verdict. The jurors are then called upon during closing argument to fulfill that promise, and the effect  whether calculated or not  is to shame or coerce the jury into rejecting factors which would tend to mitigate against the death penalty. We charge the jury in a capital murder case to narrow and distinguish the cases deserving of the death penalty from those which do not warrant such an extreme punishment. This awesome responsibility demands the freedom and flexibility to consider all relevant factors. A verdict returned on the basis of anything less cannot stand. When combined with other tactics used by the prosecution during the sentencing phase, we hold that the cumulative effect was to deny Jimbo Stringer a fundamentally fair trial at the penalty phase.