Opinion ID: 1679780
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Inform Jurors of Consequences of Their Action

Text: Following a verdict of guilty, a sentencing hearing was conducted before the same jury that determined the issue of guilt. The prosecution, in asking for the death penalty, relied on the evidence offered at the trial on the issue of guilt and the testimony of the victim's widow who described her deceased husband as a helpless, partial paralytic. The defendant testified to the jury protesting his innocence again and asking the jurors to impose the death sentence if they did not believe him. The jury was informed that the defendant, who was thirty-seven years old, had a criminal record consisting of one felony, a simple burglary in 1973, and several misdemeanors. The jurors retired after hearing the evidence of aggravating and mitigating circumstances and being given instructions by the judge. Following a period of deliberation of approximately three hours the jury returned to the courtroom where a colloquy occurred between the trial judge and the jury foreman. [2] In essence, the jury foreman asked if the jury's recommendation had to be unanimous. The trial judge informed the jury that its recommendation, whatever, as to the two, either death or life imprisonment without benefitmust be unanimous. Must. The foreman responded that, at that time, the jury could not reach a decision. However, when the judge inquired if further deliberation would be useful and indicated the jury could be brought back the next day after being given food and rest in sequestration, the foreman requested leave for the jury to deliberate for another thirty to forty minutes. After an additional period of deliberation lasting forty-five minutes, the jury returned and unanimously recommended that the defendant be sentenced to death, assigning the armed robbery as an aggravating circumstance. This occurred at the end of a seven-day trial on the issue of guilt and a one-day sentencing hearing. The trial judge did not inform the jury either in his general or additional instructions that its inability unanimously to agree on a recommendation would require the court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. The issue presented is whether the jurors in a capital sentence hearing must be informed of the consequence of their votes in the event they are unable to agree unanimously on a recommendation. The constitutional prohibition against cruel, unusual or excessive punishment mandates that where discretion is afforded a sentencing body on a matter so grave as the determination of whether a human life should be taken or spared, that discretion must be suitably directed and limited so as to minimize the risk of wholly arbitrary and capricious action. Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976). See also, Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 33 L.Ed.2d 346 (1972). The death penalty may not be imposed under sentencing procedures that create a substantial risk that it will be inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Gregg v. Georgia, supra, 428 U.S. at 153, 96 S.Ct. at 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d at 859. Moreover, in a case in which the penalty is determined by the jury rather than by the judge, the jurors, in order to perform their function as a rational link between contemporary values and the penal system, Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 at 519 n. 15, 88 S.Ct. 1770, at 1775 n. 15, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968), must be fully informed of the consequences of their verdicts, including the penalties involved. State v. Washington, 367 So.2d 4 (La.1978); State v. Milby, 345 So.2d 18 (La. 1977); see State v. Prater, 337 So.2d 1107, 1109, 1110 (La.1976) (Tate, J., concurring) (Calogero, J., dissenting). In the present case the jurors were not fully informed of the consequences of their votes and the penalties which could result in each eventuality. They were not told that, by their failure to decide unanimously, they would in fact decide that the court must impose a sentence of life imprisonment without benefit of probation, parole or suspension of sentence. Instead, the members of the sentencing body were left free to speculate as to what the outcome would be in the event there was not unanimity. Under these circumstances, individual jurors could rationally surmise that in the event of disagreement a new sentencing hearing, and perhaps a new trial, before another jury would be required. Such a false impression reasonably may have swayed a juror to join the majority, rather than hold to his honest convictions, in order to avoid forcing the parties, witnesses and court officials to undergo additional proceedings. Consequently, by allowing the jurors to remain ignorant of the true consequence of their failure to decide unanimously upon a recommendation, the trial court failed to suitably direct and limit the jury's discretion so as to minimize the risk of arbitrary and capricious action. The death penalty was imposed under sentencing procedures that created a substantial risk that it would be inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The penalty of death is qualitatively different from a sentence of imprisonment. Death, in its finality, differs more from life imprisonment than a 100-year prison term differs from one of only a year or two. Because of that qualitative difference, there is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 98 S.Ct. 2954, 57 L.Ed.2d 973 (1978); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U.S. 349, 362, 97 S.Ct. 1197, 1206, 51 L.Ed.2d 393 (1977) (White, J., concurring); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 96 S.Ct. 2978, 49 L.Ed.2d 944 (1976). The effect of the error here involved was in all likelihood prejudicial. If only one of the twelve jurors was swayed by the failure to inform him fully of the consequence of his sentence recommendation, then, in the absence of that error, the death penalty would not have been imposed.