Opinion ID: 453004
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Implications for Prosecutorial Argument

Text: 116 The previous discussion of issues appropriately considered by the Georgia sentencing jury is necessarily general. However, it provides a guideline for determining the scope of proper prosecutorial argument. With regard to the sentencing jury's first task, it would be improper for a prosecutor to urge the jury to find a statutory aggravating circumstance on any basis other than the relevant facts introduced in evidence and the proper inferences therefrom. 40 Concerning the exercise of discretion after an aggravating circumstance has been found, arguments outside the realm of recognized sentencing concerns--e.g., we noted that the individual circumstances of the crime and defendant, future dangerousness, rehabilitation and penological justifications for the death penalty are within the realm of recognized sentencing concerns--run the risk of being improper because they urge death for possibly irrelevant reasons. Of course, not all improper arguments will rise to the level of fundamental unfairness. Similarly, an argument based on one of these core concerns may, under certain conditions, be improper in its mode of presentation to the jury. 41 The general standards are helpful, however, as a means of focusing counsel on the true task before the sentencing jury. That task is broad enough that much safe ground for argument is available. 117 We now examine Whisnant's argument during Brooks' sentencing in light of these guidelines. 118