Opinion ID: 1540460
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Penalty Phase & Sentencing Challenges

Text: Defendant raises two penalty-phase arguments that we have rejected elsewhere and that we reject here again. These include (1) that fundamental fairness requires that defendant make the initial opening statement and trial summation at the penalty phase, State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 318 n. 81; and (2) that a defendant's constitutional rights are violated by the lack of any finding that death was the appropriate punishment. Id. at 316-17 n. 80.
The State concedes that the charge on the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors did not conform with the standards defined in State v. Biegenwald, supra, 106 N.J. at 53. The charge in the instant case did not require the jury to find that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. Were we not reversing defendant's murder conviction, this shortcoming would provide independent grounds to vacate the death sentence. Consequently, we find it unnecessary to address defendant's claims with regard to the court's instructions on aggravating factors c(4)(c) and c(4)(f). We likewise find it unnecessary to address defendant's contention that a second jury should have been impanelled for the penalty phase trial pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1).
Just prior to the start of the penalty phase, the trial court received a doctor's note indicating that one juror, Mr. Sessler, was very nervous and had health problems that might worsen if he continued to serve on the jury. Without objection from counsel, the trial court discharged the juror. The court convened the jury to start the penalty phase, and told the remaining fourteen jurors (one had already been excused during the guilt phase when he recognized that an expert witness was a family doctor) that Mr. Sessler had been released and that at the close of the penalty phase one of the three alternates would join the eleven remaining guilt phase jurors in penalty phase deliberations. As part of her motion for a new trial on January 3, 1985, defendant argued that the trial court committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury that it had a duty to deliberate anew on the guilt phase charges with the alternate juror. The trial court rejected this argument, finding no evidence of prejudice to defendant. On appeal, defendant raises the same argument, claiming that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury to deliberate anew constitutes plain error. Defendant reads State v. Trent, 79 N.J. 251 (1979), to require the trial court to give such an instruction whenever a juror is substituted during deliberations. Moore claims that the alternate was substituted during deliberations because the guilt phase and penalty phase deliberations were linked, given the recognized impact of lingering doubt concerning a defendant's guilt in penalty phase deliberations, see Ramseur, 106 N.J. at 254, and the fact that guilt phase evidence was used in the penalty phase. The State argues that defendant's claim fails because no objection was made by trial counsel, and that prejudice, if any resulted, was sustained by the prosecution because the alternate juror selected might have had reasonable doubt concerning murder, unlike the twelve who voted to convict, and so could have brought that doubt in as a new juror and voted for a life verdict. This argument was adopted by the trial court in rejecting the motion. The State argues further that penalty-phase deliberations are separate from the guilt phase, thus distinguishing Trent. Further, the State points out that a 1985 amendment to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1), which was not in place at the time of trial, expressly authorizes this kind of substitution without requiring any instructions. The Attorney General as amicus argues the same points, but adds that the court must find the failure to instruct to be plain error because it was not objected to at trial. We find no error, plain or otherwise, in the trial court's failure to instruct the jury to deliberate anew upon seating an alternate juror for the penalty phase proceeding. We are not persuaded that State v. Trent is dispositive in the instant case. In fact, we find that that case is readily distinguishable. There, an alternate juror replaced a juror who fell ill during the jury's deliberations. We held, per Justice Clifford, that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury to begin deliberating again and to disregard prior deliberations constituted reversible error. This Court reasoned `that a defendant may not be convicted except by 12 jurors who have heard all the evidence and argument and who together have deliberated to unanimity.' 79 N.J. at 256 (quoting People v. Collins, 17 Cal. 3d 687, 689, 131 Cal. Rptr. 782, 786, 552 P. 2d 742, 746 (1976), cert. den., 429 U.S. 1077, 97 S.Ct. 820, 50 L.Ed. 2d 796 (1977)); see also State v. Corsaro, 107 N.J. 339 (1987) (juror substitution after partial verdict returned constituted plain error requiring reversal of convictions on open charges arrived at after substitution of juror). In the instant case, Mr. Sessler was not replaced until after the jury had considered and reached a determination regarding all the various charges brought against defendant. Defendant's argument that the guilt and penalty phases are linked such that a final verdict in the guilt phase should be disregarded if a juror takes ill is not persuasive in light of the statute's bifurcation of guilt and penalty phases. Prior to the 1985 amendment, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1) provided that there would be a separate sentencing procedure conducted by the jury that determined guilt or innocence, except that, for good cause, the court may discharge that jury and conduct the proceeding before a jury empaneled for the purpose of the proceeding. This provision shows that a divided process was intended by the Legislature, in which even separate juries could, for good cause, try the guilt and penalty phases. This legislative purpose is not consistent with defendant's argument that the substitution occurred during deliberations, because the split between guilt and penalty phase determinations shows the two were and are separate. Thus, there is no need to instruct the jury to begin deliberations anew under Trent or under the statute. The 1985 amendment to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(1) offers further support for the State's position because it explicitly authorizes the type of substitution made in the instant case without even mentioning that deliberations should begin again. The amendment adds to this subsection the following provision: Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prevent the participation of an alternate juror in the sentencing proceeding if one of the jurors who rendered the guilty verdict becomes ill or is otherwise unable to proceed before or during the sentencing proceeding. The defendant's claim that the guilt phase and penalty phase deliberations are not distinctive is weakened further by this court's decision in Biegenwald. There, we held that re-sentencing was proper using a newly selected jury, and distinguished precedent under the prior capital murder statute, particularly State v. Laws, 51 N.J. 494, cert. den., 393 U.S. 971, 89 S.Ct. 408, 21 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1968), which had rejected re-sentencing on penalty alone, stating: Because Laws was decided under a unitary trial statute and because the Laws Court's major misgiving about a separate trial on the issue of penalty  the foreignness of bifurcation  has been removed, Laws is not controlling precedent for the present case. [106 N.J. at 69-70.] Thus, the Biegenwald court, as well as the Ramseur court, recognized that the capital murder statute set up a bifurcated system in which guilt and penalty phases are separate. Because neither the relevant case law nor the capital murder statute itself supports defendant's position, we find no error in the trial court's failure to instruct the jury to deliberate anew.
Today we reverse defendant's murder conviction, and agree that the trial court's erroneous penalty-phase instructions would have provided independent grounds to vacate the death sentence. Despite that disposition, we will nonetheless briefly address defendant's proportionality argument. Defendant argued repeatedly to the jury that Flores was the more culpable party, and that his deal with the prosecutor was unfair, especially in light of the penalties she was to face. On appeal, Moore argues that her death sentence must be vacated because it is disproportionate to the sentence imposed on her co-perpetrator, Ricky Flores. According to defendant, the prosecutor was unauthorized to enter into a plea agreement with Flores that would permit him to escape prosecution for capital murder. To support her argument that the prosecutor's plea bargain with Flores was impermissible, defendant relies on our interpretation of the Act in Ramseur. We noted there that [t]he Act prevents potential capital defendants from avoiding a capital sentencing proceeding by pleading guilty to the murder charge. 106 N.J. at 195. That statement assumes, of course, that the defendant who would otherwise plead guilty to capital murder is in fact death-eligible. In State v. Bey (I), 112 N.J. 45, 93-94 (1988) we held that [i]t is patently clear to us that the Legislature never had intended to subject juvenile offenders to capital punishment, and did intend that its ameliorative amendment would apply retroactively to defendant's case. See N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3g. We thus reversed defendant Bey's capital murder conviction in order to comply with the legislative intent. Because Flores was a juvenile at the time of the murder, he is not within the death-eligible class of murderers who would be considered in a proportionality review of Moore's sentence. Consequently, defendant's proportionality claim is without merit. We likewise reject defendant's contention that the prosecutor's plea agreement with Flores was unauthorized under the Act, namely, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3d. That section provides that [t]he sentencing proceeding set forth in subsection c. of this section shall not be waived by the prosecuting attorney. This section obviously requires a death-penalty proceeding where a person pleads guilty to capital murder. Here, however, Flores was not even eligible to plead guilty to capital murder, and instead pleaded guilty to a lesser offense. Our concern in Ramseur and the concern of the Legislature as reflected in N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3d was not to prevent persons from pleading guilty to lesser offenses, but rather to prevent prosecutors from coercing defendants into pleading guilty to capital murder in order to avoid a possible death sentence. As we noted in Ramseur, in 1972 this Court invalidated the death penalty precisely because it allowed (and thereby tended to compel) defendants to forgo a trial on guilt and plead non vult in order to avoid death. 106 N.J. at 195.
Because he found that it merged with defendant's capital murder conviction, the trial court dismissed the felony murder conviction at the sentencing hearing. On the remaining counts, the court imposed a custodial sentence of 224 years with 87 1/2 years of parole ineligibility. Defendant does not challenge the validity of those convictions but claims only that the sentence is excessive and manifestly illegal. We disagree. In sentencing defendant, the trial court identified and weighed the aggravating and mitigating factors as required by N.J.S.A. 2C:44-1a & b. The court found four aggravating factors: (1) the heinous, cruel, or depraved nature of the crimes; (2) the gravity and seriousness of harm inflicted; (3) the risk that defendant will commit another offense; and (4) the need to deter. The court found only one mitigating factor, namely, that defendant had no history of prior criminal activity. Based on its finding that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating, the court concluded that consecutive sentences and sentences with parole stipulations were warranted. The court recognized that it had imposed a substantial sentence calling for consecutive sentences and periods of parole eligibility because the Court finds that they are warranted by the horror of the case and the damage done to the victims who suffered over substantial periods of time. Defendant suggests that in the event we were to reverse her murder conviction, she would have to be resentenced in accordance with the guidelines contained in State v. Yarbough, 100 N.J. 627, 643-44 (1985), particularly those guidelines governing the overall outer limit on the cumulation of consecutive sentences. Although we reverse defendant's murder conviction, we refuse to order adjustment of her custodial sentences on remand, so as to have them comply with Yarbough 's consecutive sentencing guideline. As we recognized in Yarbough, even within the general parameters that we have announced there are cases so extreme and so extraordinary that deviation from the guidelines may be called for. 100 N.J. at 647 (emphasis added). No one can doubt that defendant's brutal pattern of conduct involving the various victims fits the exception we envisioned in Yarbough. Nonetheless, we have serious reservations about the length of the custodial term imposed and believe that a more realistic sentence would be one that ensured that Moore would be ineligible for parole for the remainder of her life. We thus defer to the trial court with respect to the custodial sentences it imposed and leave to its discretion any reconsideration following disposition of the murder count. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment entered on the murder conviction and imposition of the death sentence, and remand the matter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.