Opinion ID: 1345594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: henderson's requested instruction on parole eligibility

Text: We base our decision herein on the fundamental fairness, due process and eighth amendment rationales implicit in the decision in California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. 992, 103 S.Ct. 3446, 77 L.Ed.2d 1171 (1983), to the effect that `the jury [must] have before it all possible relevant information about the individual defendant whose fate it must determine,' id. at 1003, 103 S.Ct. at 3454 (quoting Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262, 276, 96 S.Ct. 2950, 2958, 49 L.Ed.2d 929 (1976)), and in McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279, 107 S.Ct. 1756, 95 L.Ed.2d 262 (1987), to the effect that states cannot limit the sentencer's consideration of any relevant circumstance that could cause it to decline to impose the death sentence. Id. at 304, 107 S.Ct. at 1773. Nothing in our decision in State v. Clark, 108 N.M. 288, 772 P.2d 322, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S.Ct. 291, 107 L.Ed.2d 271 (1989), detracts from our belief that the qualitative difference of death from all other punishments requires a correspondingly greater degree of scrutiny of the capital sentencing determination. Caldwell v. Mississippi, 472 U.S. 320, 329, 105 S.Ct. 2633, 2639, 86 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985) (quoting California v. Ramos, 463 U.S. at 998-99, 103 S.Ct. at 3452). The requested instruction would have given the jury accurate information on what a life sentence actually means and would have served to correct misimpressions in some jurors' minds that a life sentence means five or six years or some other erroneously conceived period of time. In actuality, Henderson received fifty-one years and six months imprisonment on the other convictions, to be served consecutively to the death penalty. We cannot believe that, had the jury known ahead of time that a life sentence actually meant a minimum of twenty-five years and nine months (assuming all meritorious deductions), plus another thirty years before Henderson even would be eligible for parole, it would not have been more likely to impose a life sentence instead of a death sentence. This particular jury had members on it who thought that life meant as little as five or six years. Such a jury was oriented impermissibly toward the death penalty even before it began its deliberations, and thus it was error for the court not to have restored a proper balance to the jury's orientation by instructing it according to the requested instruction.