Opinion ID: 1936097
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 35

Heading: whether the circuit court erred in refusing to inform jurors on the statutorily mandated manner of jackson's execution

Text: Jackson next asserts that the circuit court, in refusing jury instruction D-S-2, denied him the opportunity to inform the jury that if sentenced to death, he would be executed by lethal injection. He mistakenly relies on Caldwell v. State, 443 So.2d 806, 814 (Miss. 1983), where we stated merely that there was no error where, during the sentencing phase of the trial, the prosecutor and the judge truthfully and accurately stated that the sentence of death would be automatically reviewed by a higher court. Caldwell, 443 So.2d at 814. Nothing in the language of Caldwell suggests that the jury must be informed of each and every automatic component of a capital murder case through jury instructions or any other means. To the contrary, the method of execution is of no concern to the jury. In Williams v. State, 445 So.2d 798 (Miss. 1984), where the Court found that references to the possibility that the defendant not be sentenced to death are wholly out of place in the sentencing phase of a capital murder case, it was stated, [i]t is no more proper for the jury to concern itself with the wisdom of that legislative determination than it is for the jury to consider the Legislature's judgment that death in the gas chamber be an authorized punishment for capital murder. Id. at 813. Accordingly, we find no merit to this assignment of error.