Opinion ID: 2070845
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: The Court's Decision in LaValle

Text: The deadlock instruction is set forth in CPL 400.27 (10), which deals with summations and the charge to the jury in the separate sentencing proceeding that follows a defendant's conviction of capital murder. This provision states in its entirety as follows: At the conclusion of all the evidence, the people and the defendant may present argument in summation for or against the sentence sought by the people. The people may deliver the first summation and the defendant may then deliver the last summation. Thereafter, the court shall deliver a charge to the jury on any matters appropriate in the circumstances. In its charge, the court must instruct the jury that with respect to each count of murder in the first degree the jury should consider whether or not a sentence of death should be imposed and whether or not a sentence of life imprisonment without parole should be imposed, and that the jury must be unanimous with respect to either sentence. The court must also instruct the jury that in the event the jury fails to reach unanimous agreement with respect to the sentence, the court will sentence the defendant to a term of imprisonment with a minimum term of between twenty and twenty-five years and a maximum term of life. Following the court's charge, the jury shall retire to consider the sentence to be imposed. Unless inconsistent with the provisions of this section, the provisions of sections 310.10 [`Jury deliberation; requirement of; where conducted'], 310.20 [`Jury deliberation; use of exhibits and other material'] and 310.30 [`Jury deliberation; request for information'] shall govern the deliberations of the jury (emphasis added). In LaValle, the jury found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder in the course of and in furtherance of first-degree rape (Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]). The trial judge delivered a short, unembellished instruction to the jury on the subject of potential deadlock, advising simply that in the event that you fail to reach unanimous agreement [on death or life without parole], then I will sentence the defendant to life imprisonment with a minimum term of between 20 and 25 years for Murder, 1st Degree. On appeal, we address[ed] the constitutionality of [this] `deadlock instruction' (3 NY3d at 116). We started our analysis by surveying several empirical studies on juror behavior regarding capital sentencing, which concluded that jurors tend to grossly underestimate how long capital murderers not sentenced to death usually stay in prison; and that the sooner jurors think a defendant will be released from prison, the more likely they are to vote for death and the more likely they are to see the defendant as dangerous ( id. at 117 [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). As a result, we reasoned that the deadlock instruction was objectionable on two related grounds. First, the instruction suggested that the defendant might be paroled in as few as 20 years if the jurors proved unable to achieve unanimity, thus introducing into their deliberations a consideration that was not a statutory aggravatorthe defendant's future dangerousness. Second, [b]y interjecting future dangerousness, the deadlock instruction [gave] rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that one or more jurors who [could not] bear the thought that a defendant [might] walk the streets again after serving 20 to 25 years [would] join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence ( id. at 118). At the conclusion of this discussion, we stated that [w]e hold today that the deadlock instruction required by CPL 400.27 (10) is unconstitutional under the State Constitution because of the unacceptable risk that it may result in a coercive, and thus arbitrary and unreliable, sentence  ( id. at 120 [emphasis added]). We buttressed this holding with discussions of the legislative debate on the deadlock instruction; federal precedent, most prominently the United States Supreme Court's decision in Jones v United States (527 US 373 [1999]); and New York precedent on coerced verdicts. We stated that we regarded Jones as unfaithful to the often repeated principle that death is qualitatively different and thus subject to a heightened standard of reliability ( id. at 127), which our State Constitution mandated. Accordingly, we concluded that it was necessarily our responsibility to strike down the deadlock instruction in CPL 400.27 (10) because it creates the substantial risk of coercing jurors into sentencing a defendant to death in violation of our Due Process Clause. The deadlock instruction is invalid under our own case law condemning coercive instructions, and the State Constitution's Due Process Clause, providing greater protection than its federal counterpart. Consequently, defendant's death sentence must be set aside ( id. at 128 [emphasis added]). Next, we conclude[d] that the absence of any instruction [was] no better than the current instruction under our constitutional analysis, and so again decline[d] to adopt Jones  ( id. ). We reasoned that without an instruction as to the consequences of a deadlock, jurors might speculate, as the Legislature apparently feared when it decided to prescribe the [deadlock] instruction ( id. ). We again pointed to empirical studies to support the view that jurors might fear that the failure to reach a unanimous verdict would lead to a defendant's release, retrial or sentence to an even lesser term than the one currently prescribed in the deadlock scenario [a minimum of 20 to 25 years to life]; and that [i]ndeed, a key motivation for jurors to vote for the death penalty is undoubtedly their fear that a defendant will otherwise pose a danger on the streets ( id. ). In this section of the opinion, we articulated our holding in two related ways. First, we stated that [w]e hold that in this case the Due Process Clause of the New York Constitution requires a higher standard of fairness than the Federal Constitution as interpreted by the Jones majority ( id. at 129). [1] Second, we [held] that providing no deadlock instruction in the course of capital sentencing violates our Due Process Clause ( id. at 130). As further support for these holdings, we called attention to the clear legislative intent that there be a jury instruction on the consequences of a deadlock, and court rules and legislative enactments to this effect in eight states ( id. ). At the end of the discussion of the deadlock instruction, we determined that [w]e cannot ... ourselves craft a new instruction, because to do so would usurp legislative prerogative ( id. at 131). We then made the following pronouncements, which lie at the heart of our quarrel with the majority on this appeal: We thus conclude that under the present statute, the death penalty may not be imposed. Cases in which death notices have been filed may go forward as noncapital first degree murder prosecutions ( id. ). In sum, LaValle held that the deadlock instruction delivered by the trial judge in that case violated the Due Process Clause of our State Constitution by creating a substantial risk that a juror favoring life without parole would be coerced into voting for the death sentence so as to prevent the defendant's eventual release on parole. In addition, LaValle held that the Due Process Clause of our State Constitution mandates that our death penalty statute include a deadlock instruction, which only the Legislature may devise. I continue to believe that LaValle was wrongly decided for the reasons articulated by Judge R.S. Smith in his dissent, which I joined. Nonetheless, I accept the foregoing holdings as binding precedent for reasons of stare decisis. The majority has now, however, chosen to convert the spare closing comment in LaValle that under the present statute, the death penalty may not be imposed into our holding in that case that the death penalty sentencing statute is unconstitutional on its face (plurality op at 155). There was no discussion in LaValle of the deadlock instruction's facial constitutionality; the opinion is devoid of any legal reasoning to support a holding that the deadlock instruction in CPL 400.27 (10) is facially unconstitutional. While both the legitimacy and the ability of the judiciary to function dictate that legal issues that have been addressed by a jurisdiction should not be revisited every time they arise (plurality op at 148), this maxim presupposes that the legal issue in question has, in fact, been analyzed and decided by a court. To the extent that any judicial utterance in LaValle may be read as purporting to hold the deadlock instruction facially unconstitutional, it does not meet this test and is dictum. (A judge's power to bind is limited to the issue that is before him; he cannot transmute dictum into decision by waving a wand and uttering the word `hold' [ United States v Rubin, 609 F2d 51, 69 n 2 (2d Cir 1979, Friendly, J., concurring)].) In the New York University School of Law's annual James Madison Lecture in 2005, Judge Pierre N. Leval of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit discussed the hazards inherent in the failure of courts to distinguish between dictum and holding ( see Leval, Madison Lecture: Judging Under the Constitution: Dicta about Dicta, 81 NYU L Rev 1249 [2006]). Two of his observations are particularly telling in the context of this appeal. First, Judge Leval set out a handy test to separate dictum from holding: To identify dictum, it is useful to turn the questioned proposition around to assert its opposite, or to assert whatever alternative proposition the court rejected in its favor. If the insertion of the rejected proposition into the court's reasoning, in place of the one adopted, would not require a change in either the court's judgment or the reasoning that supports it, then the proposition is dictum. It is superfluous. It had no functional role in compelling the judgment ( id. at 1257). Here, the questioned proposition is that the deadlock instruction is facially unconstitutional, and its opposite is that the deadlock instruction is, in fact, facially constitutional. If we applied this analysis to LaValle, our judgment in the defendant's favor would not have changed because the deadlock instruction delivered by the trial judge created a substantial risk of a coerced verdict of death. Any assertion in LaValle about whether the deadlock instruction was facially unconstitutional was superfluous to this reasoning and had no functional role in compelling the judgment. Second, Judge Leval observed that [h]owever grievous the errors a court commits when it writes dictum disguised as holding, those errors would be neutralized if the next court would recognize the prior dictum as nonbinding and go on to grapple with and decide the issue  ( id. at 1268-1269 [emphasis added]). The way the majority now treats the LaValle dictum as precedent is a cautionary tale in this regard. Wrapping itself in a false mantle of stare decisis, the majority ignores the legal issues presented by this case. If ever so politely, the majority even chides the People for having the temerity to prosecute an appeal in a case where we are ultimately left exactly where we were three years ago (plurality op at 155). [2] Rather than shrinking defensively from the least suggestion of error or inadvertence, the plurality should have taken the path of self-correction advised by Judge Leval. The plurality should have squarely confronted and decided the legal issues raised by this appeal: whether the deadlock instruction was constitutional as applied to the defendant in this case, and whether, even if it was, his conviction must nonetheless be vacated because the deadlock instruction in CPL 400.27 (10) is facially unconstitutional. I now turn to those issues.