Opinion ID: 1486009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Did the trial judge improperly instruct the jury on the requirements for finding and weighing aggravating factors?

Text: Defendant asserts that the trial court erred by instructing the jury at the penalty phase that life imprisonment would result if it unanimously found no aggravating factors or unanimously found that the aggravating factors did not outweigh the mitigating factors. Defendant argues that those instructions gave the erroneous impression that life imprisonment would result only if those findings were unanimous. Clearly, unanimity is not required on negative findings of aggravating factors, although it is required on positive findings. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(3)(a), construed in State v. Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. at 158-59, 548 A. 2d 887. In fact, the statute requires that in a death-penalty case [t]he jury shall also be informed that a failure to reach a unanimous verdict shall result in sentencing by the court pursuant to subsection b [thirty-year imprisonment]. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3f; see also State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 312, 524 A. 2d 188 (Legislature intended that juries be informed of, and free to exercise, their option to return non-unanimous verdict resulting in imprisonment). The trial court charged the jury: Each juror who has found that a mitigating factor exists or that mitigating factors exist, must weigh the aggravating factor or factors against such mitigating factor or factors as that juror believes to be present. If you unanimously find that the State has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt any aggravating factor as to a victim, the punishment shall be imprisonment as to that victim. If you unanimously find that the State has proven one or more aggravating factors beyond a reasonable doubt, and that beyond a reasonable doubt such factor or factors outweigh the mitigating factor or factors, you have found to exist, then the punishment shall be death. If you unanimously find that the State has failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factor or factors outweigh the mitigating factor or factors, then the punishment shall be imprisonment as to the victim under consideration. [Emphasis added.] On their face the statements on unanimous findings of the State's failure to carry its burden of proof, although correct as far as they went, could give the impression that unanimity is required for the result of life imprisonment. Subsequent instructions, however, made it clear to the jury that any lack of unanimity on capital punishment would block that result. The court further charged: If, after a full discussion, you cannot reach a unanimous verdict on the question of punishment as to a murder, then in that case the sentence will be imprisonment for that crime for the term of years previously described and up to life. Moreover, the penalty-phase verdict sheet shows that the jurors not only understood that unanimity was not required to reject an aggravating factor, but also that unanimity was required to find it. They found no depravity of mind concerning Melva by a vote of ten in favor to two against. In the context of the entire charge, which conveyed to the jury the requirement of unanimity on positive findings, we believe that the somewhat misleading charge caused no prejudice to defendant. To avoid confusion, however, on remand the trial court should take care to instruct the jury uniformly that unanimity is not required for a sentence of imprisonment. State v. Clausell, 121 N.J. 298, 346, 580 A. 2d 221 (1990).