Opinion ID: 1467363
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Death Penalty Instruction

Text: Finally, Mr. Taylor complains that the trial court twice instructed the jury that the District does not have a death penalty. During final instructions, and over the objection of defense counsel, the trial court said: You are reminded that under the law of the District of Columbia, there is no death penalty. However, you are also instructed that in deciding guilt or innocence of the charges, you are not permitted to consider the matter of punishment. That is not an element of any of the offenses. The trial court also informed the jury that it is the responsibility of the court to impose an appropriate sentence, [and that] [a]s jurors, you are not allowed to consider what, if any, sentence might be imposed. We recently considered a virtually identical contention leveled against an identical jury instruction by the same judge and concluded that there was no plain error. Watkins v. United States, 846 A.2d 293, 301 (D.C.2004). Since Mr. Taylor objected to the instruction, we review it for harmless error. See Hunt v. United States, 729 A.2d 322, 325 (D.C.1999). In reviewing jury instructions, we must look at the instructions `as a whole in assessing whether they constituted prejudicial error.' Id. at 325 (quoting Murchison v. United States, 486 A.2d 77, 82 (D.C.1984)) (other citation omitted). Even assuming, without deciding, that the instruction regarding the death penalty constituted error, it was harmless. As we reiterated in Watkins, supra, [t]he jury is presumed to follow the instructions of the court. Id. at 301 (citation omitted). That presumption and the court's admonition that jurors are not allowed to consider what, if any, sentence might be imposed, rendered the instruction harmless. Accordingly, for the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. So ordered.