Opinion ID: 1898079
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Reference to Defendant's Future Dangerousness

Text: In his penalty-phase summation, the prosecutor also urged the jury to impose the death penalty on defendant because he'll kill again. Specifically, the prosecutor said: In the end, because they can't abandon common sense entirely, these mental health experts tell us what we already knew: That Frank Pennington knows right from wrong; that he's of average, normal intelligence, knows what he's doing, knew what he was doing when he killed Arlene Connors; that he's Hedonistic [sic], selfish, self-centered and violent; that he'll rob again if given the chance because that's what he's chosen to do; that he'll kill again if you provoke him by what he considers a dirty look, or by jossling [sic] him he'll kill again. And yet he [defense counsel] asks for thirty years' incarceration for Frank Pennington along [sic] chance to kill perhaps a prison guard, one of the inmates, another chance to cause sorrow and pain and shatter another family. How many chances will our patient, long suffering and merciful law give him? Thus, the prosecutor urged that defendant was too dangerous to exist not only in society at large, but even in State Prison. Defendant asserts that these remarks were designed to lead the jury to conclude that only by voting to kill defendant could it protect the public, prison officials, and other inmates. As we have previously stated, in a capital case, remarks suggesting the need to protect society from crime constitute prosecutorial misconduct. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 321, 524 A. 2d 188; Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 520-21, 548 A. 2d 1058. Future dangerousness  the likelihood that defendant will kill again  is not one of the enumerated aggravating factors to be considered when imposing the death penalty. By exhorting the jury that defendant must be put to death to deter him from committing homicidal acts, the prosecutor's arguments focused the jury's attention on matters extraneous to the aggravating and mitigating factors established by the Legislature to channel the jury's deliberations in the penalty phase of a capital case. Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 521, 548 A. 2d 1058. The point of the prosecutor's remarks was to encourage the jury to impose the death penalty for reasons other than those approved by the Legislature. As the United States Supreme Court has declared, any decision to impose the death sentence must `be, and appear to be, based on reason rather than caprice or emotion.' Booth, supra, 482 U.S. at 508, 107 S.Ct. at 2536, 96 L.Ed. at 452 (citation omitted). By beseeching the jury to depart from the legislative guidelines, the prosecutor, in effect, sought the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.