Opinion ID: 2369836
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Gerald Issue. Does the jury's verdict establish death eligibility?

Text: Although we have often visited this issue, there has been a persistent misapprehension that in the process we are second-guessing juries about the jury's findings of intent. The public obviously does not understand what we are doing. Even lawyers who comment on our opinions seem to confuse the question of the court's role with that of the jury. Hence, we repeat again the basics. We regret carrying pre-Code terminology forward into the discussion, but there may be no other way to get the interested readers to understand the issue. Under pre-Code law, no person could be sentenced to death without a jury finding of first-degree murder. At common law, prior to the adoption of the Code of Criminal Justice, there were two forms of murder: first-degree murder and second-degree murder. Only the former subjected a defendant to the death sentence. First-degree murder was characterized by the concept of deliberate and premeditated murder. Second-degree murder constituted essentially all other murders and was characterized by the presence of malice aforethought, which could be inferred by a jury from the actor's infliction of serious bodily injury on a victim. When the new Code of Criminal Justice was enacted, there was no need to distinguish between first- and second-degree murder. The sentence for each was the same. L. 1979, c. 178 (thirty years' imprisonment). The Code included both forms of murder in its general definition of murder. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3 (criminal homicide constitutes murder when the actor purposely or knowingly causes death or serious bodily injury resulting in death). As we explained, however, in State v. Gerald, supra, 113 N.J. 40, 549 A. 2d 792, when the death penalty was superimposed on the Code of Criminal Justice in 1982, no specific reference was made to which of the two forms of murder would be death eligible. However, the legislative history of the Act and constitutional concerns convinced the Court that it was only the intentional killing that was to be subject to death eligibility. As the sponsor of the bill stated, using the familiar forms known to common-law lawyers in New Jersey, a defendant faces death-penalty proceedings only after having been found guilty unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt of first degree murder, willful, premeditated murder. Capital Punishment Act: Hearings on S. 112 Before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 1 (1982), quoted in State v. Gerald, supra, 113 N.J. at 90, 549 A. 2d 792. Any other interpretation would present a possible constitutional problem. Hence, we ruled that part of a capital trial must be the determination by a jury whether defendant had committed what the Code now refers to as knowing or purposeful murder (capital/first-degree murder). If required by the evidence, a jury must consider in the alternative whether defendant purposefully or knowingly caused death, or purposefully or knowingly caused serious bodily injury that resulted in death (SBI/second-degree murder), only the former rendering the defendant death eligible. Id. at 69, 549 A. 2d 792. The misunderstanding that has arisen over our application of the Gerald doctrine stems from confusing the question of apparent guilt with the question of how guilt is to be decided. The question that has been asked about our review of capital cases is how it can be that one who had repeatedly stabbed a victim, State v. Jackson, 118 N.J. 484, 572 A. 2d 607 (1990), or one who had bludgeoned a victim, State v. Harvey, 121 N.J. 407, 581 A. 2d 483 (1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 1336, 113 L.Ed. 2d 268 (1991), or even one who had shot a victim, State v. Pennington, 119 N.J. 547, 575 A. 2d 816 (1990) and State v. Clausell, 121 N.J. 298, 580 A. 2d 221 (1990), can be thought not to have intended the death of the victim. The question answers itself. But the problem is not with the question; the problem is with who gets to answer the question. Under our system of justice only a jury that knows the difference between the two forms of murder and the question that it must decide may answer that question. As appellate judges, our job is to ask: did the jury, with proper instructions, answer the question that establishes death eligibility? It seems plain to us in this case that the jury did not. We intend no criticism of court or counsel when we note that in this case the jury was specifically instructed that it could find defendant guilty of murder if it found that he intended to inflict on the victim serious bodily injuries that resulted in death. The court instructed the jury that criminal homicide constitutes murder when the actor knowingly causes death or serious bodily injury resulting in death. After defining knowingly, the court explained: In other words, if, for example, a person shot the victim only with a purpose to cause serious bodily harm but death does, in fact, occur, you may find that the accused knew that what he did would, as a matter of practical certainty, result in death. Then he is guilty of murder as if he shot the victim with a conscious object of killing. This charge plainly embraced SBI or what used to be called second-degree murder. Although legal charges are at the core of a fair trial, one could consider attempting to rehabilitate the verdict were it not that the SBI/second-degree charge played a prominent part in the State's prosecution. For although a strong case can be made that points unerringly to an intent to kill based on the deliberate submersion of the victim's body, in his closing remarks to the jury, the prosecutor, quite understandably, directed the jury's attention to the earlier stabbing as the basis for murder. Recall that in his confession defendant said that he did not know if Tanya were alive or dead. Thus, the prosecutor said to the jury: Obviously, ladies and gentlemen, people don't go around saying I'm going to commit a knowing murder. They don't do that. Instead what do they do? They commit the murder. And you can infer from the acts of the individual himself circumstantially what it was that that individual intended to do. So that you can deduce or you can figure out from the way someone kills somebody that they intended to or that they knew that when they did it it would cause serious bodily injury resulting in death or death itself. The State thus presented the jury with at least two plausible bases for the conviction, the intentional infliction of serious bodily injury resulting in death (SBI/second-degree) or the intentional killing by drowning (capital/first-degree). The court's charge to the jury did not inform it that only the latter form of murder was death eligible. When a jury verdict can rest on one of two available bases, no court can presume which basis it is. Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 613, 66 S.Ct. 402, 405, 90 L.Ed. 350, 355 (1946). The error was not harmless because there was evidence in this case that could have sustained an SBI/second-degree murder verdict. We do not suggest that such a verdict was likely, but merely that if the jury returned that verdict, the court could not reject it. Insistence on that fundamental requirement of jury findings in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt may appear to some to be too great a price to pay by a society beset by rising crime. But there is an enduring value to the principle that only juries can decide our guilt or innocence. If people had to choose the liberties they would give up, we think that the right to have a jury determine their guilt would be among the last surrendered. It is that right that we are enforcing. We are not second-guessing juries. Juries, properly instructed, not judges, decide whether the murder is capital or non-capital. This jury was not instructed that it had to make that distinct determination. There can be no substitute for that jury verdict.