Opinion ID: 1737008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Weighing the Circumstances

Text: In assignment number two the defendant argues that the trial judge failed to instruct the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances prior to recommending the death sentence and, therefore, committed error. This court has recently considered and rejected this argument. State v. Welcome, ___ So. 2d ___ (La.1983), No. 82-KA-2232. The law of this state, La.C.Cr.P. art. 905.3 requires that the jury find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least one statutorily defined aggravating circumstance. Having found a statutory aggravating circumstance, the jury is required to consider evidence of any mitigating circumstances, and to weigh it against the statutory aggravating circumstance so found, before recommending that the sentence of death be imposed. State v. Willie, 410 So.2d 1019, 1033 (La.1982). Our statute is modeled upon the one approved by the United States Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). This assignment has no merit. 5. Irrelevant Aggravating Circumstances By this assignment of error, the defendant argues that the trial judge committed reversible error at the sentencing phase when he instructed the jury on aggravating circumstances under La.C.Cr.P. art. 905.4 that had no possible evidentiary basis in the record. In his instructions to the jury the trial judge read the lists of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, C.Cr.P. arts. 905.4 and 905.5 and then stated: The fact that you are given a list of aggravating circumstances should not cause you to infer that the Court believed that any of the circumstances do or do not exist. The law requires that the jury be given such a list in every case. Whether any aggravating or mitigating circumstances exists is a fact for you to determine based upon the evidence presented. In addition to the evidence presented at this sentence hearingsentencing hearing in deciding the sentence to be imposed you may consider evidence presented during the guilt determination of the trial. Defense counsel contends that when the trial judge instructed the jury on the admittedly extraneous aggravating circumstances, i.e. that the victim was a fireman or peace officer, the defendant was a hired killer, the defendant was imprisoned at the time of the murder, or that the victim was a correctional officer or an employee of the Louisiana Department of Corrections, he failed to properly guide and focus the jury's deliberations as is required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 100 S.Ct. 1759, 64 L.Ed.2d 398 (1980). We can find no reversible merit in counsel's argument. The court clearly instructed the jury that it must review the evidence before it and determine which, if any, of the aggravating circumstances was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to exist. The trial judge did not tell the jury to disregard the aggravating circumstances which obviously could not be found to exist, but such instructions are implicit in the ones given. Furthermore, we cannot accept counsel's argument as it suggests that a judge, with the aid of counsel, should review the nine aggravating circumstances and instruct the jury only as to the ones supported by the evidence at trial. While such a procedure is permissible and desirable, it is not required constitutionally or statutorily. This assignment has no merit.