Opinion ID: 118309
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court instructed the jury:

Text: [Y]ou the jury, by unanimous vote, shall recommend whether the defendant should be sentenced to death, sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release, or sentenced to some other lesser sentence. . . . . . . . . If you recommend that some other lesser sentence be imposed, the court is required to impose a sentence that is authorized by the law. In deciding what recommendation to make, you are not to be concerned with the question of what sentence the defendant might receive in the event you determine not to recommend a death sentence or a sentence of life without the possibility of release. That is a matter for the court to decide in the event you conclude that a sentence of death or life without the possibility of release should not be recommended. . . . . . In order to bring back a verdict recommending the punishment of death or life without the possibility of release, all twelve of you must unanimously vote in favor of such specific penalty. App. 43-45. Those instructions misinformed the jury in two intertwined respects: First, they wrongly identified a lesser sentence option; [14] second, the instructions were open to the reading that, absent juror unanimity on death or life without release, the District Court could impose a lesser sentence. The Fifth Circuit, and the United States in its submission to this Court, acknowledged the charge error. See 132 F. 3d, at 248; ante, at 387, n. 8. Section 1201, which defines the crime, governs. It calls for death or life imprisonment, nothing less, and neither parole nor good-time credits could reduce the life sentence. See Brief for United States 13-14, n. 2 ([W]e agree with petitioner that the only sentences that could have been imposed are death and life without release (because the kidnapping statute, 18 U. S. C. [§ ]1201, authorizes only death and life imprisonment, and neither parole nor good-time credits could reduce the life sentence).). The third option listed in the FDPA provision, some other lesser sentence, § 3593(e), is available only when the substantive statute does not confine the sentence to life or death. The Fifth Circuit found the error not so obvious, clear, readily apparent, or conspicuous. 132 F. 3d, at 248. I disagree and would rank the District Court's misconstruction plain error, [15] because the FDPA unquestionably is a procedural statute that does not alter substantive prescriptions. [16] No serious doubt should have existed on that score. [17] The flawed charge did not simply include a nonexistent option. It could have been understood to convey that, absent juror unanimity, some lesser sentence might be imposed by the court. That message came from instructions that the jury must be unanimous to bring back a verdict recommending the punishment of death or life without the possibility of release, App. 45, that some other lesser sentence was possible, id., at 44, and that the jury should not be concerned with the . . . sentence the defendant might receive in the event [it] determine[d] not to recommend a death sentence or a sentence of life without the possibility of release, ibid. Jones's proposed instructionsthat he would be sentenced to life without possibility of release if the jury did not agree on death, see supra, at 409, and nn. 9, 10should have made it apparent that he sought to close the door the flawed charge left open. [18] There is, at least, a reasonable likelihood that the flawed charge tainted the jury deliberations. See Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 380 (1990) (where [t]he claim is that the instruction is . . . subject to an erroneous interpretation, the proper inquiry . . . is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury has applied the challenged instruction erroneously). As recently noted, a jury may be swayed toward death if it believes the defendant otherwise may serve less than life in prison. See Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U. S. 154, 163 (1994) (plurality opinion) ([I]t is entirely reasonable for a sentencing jury to view a defendant who is eligible for parole as a greater threat to society than a defendant who is not.). Jurors may have been persuaded to switch from life to death to ward off what no juror wanted, i. e., any chance of a lesser sentence by the judge. [19] The Court, in common with the Fifth Circuit and the Solicitor General, insists it was just as likely that jurors not supporting death could have persuaded death-prone jurors to give way and vote for a life sentence. See ante, at 394; 132 F. 3d, at 246; Brief for United States 22. I would demur (say so what) to that position. It should suffice that the potential to confuse existed, i. e., that the instructions could have tilted the jury toward death. The instructions introduce[d] a level of uncertainty and unreliability into the factfinding process that cannot be tolerated in a capital case. Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625, 643 (1980). Capital sentencing should not be . . . a game of `chicken,' in which life or death turns on the . . . happenstance of whether the particular `life' jurors or `death' jurors in each case will be the first to give in, in order to avoid a perceived third sentencing outcome unacceptable to either set of jurors. Reply Brief 7-8, n. 11.