Opinion ID: 1697230
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The jury improperly considered the possibility of parole.

Text: ¶ 25. Smith submits three affidavits from jurors who state that they were concerned during the penalty deliberations that if they sentenced the defendants to life that they would get out on parole. He also submits a statement from the social work intern whose recitation of a fourth juror's statement as to parole eligibility is similar to that of the other three jurors. ¶ 26. Smith cites Williams v. State, 445 So.2d 798, 813 (Miss.1984) where this Court stated that [r]eference to the possibility of parole should the defendant not be sentenced to die are wholly out of place at the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. In Williams, the Court found reversible error in the prosecutor's repeated questioning of a defense expert about the expert's understanding that a life sentence usually meant thirty years in prison. The Court in Williams found that the discussion of parole was improper but found that the error was reversible only in that the trial court also erred in several other respects (discussion of the defendant's right not to testify and discussion of the defendant's right to appeal at different levels). In sum, the parole consideration error was only reversible in conjunction with the other errors in the Williams case. ¶ 27. Smith, however, argues that Williams requires relief for him. The Court in Williams did state that parole consideration at a death penalty trial was improper. However, the Court has declined to extend the prohibition about parole considerations beyond the prosecutor's closing arguments, the jury instructions, or witness testimony. In Wilcher v. State, 697 So.2d 1087 (Miss.1997), a question about parole eligibility arose during voir dire when a potential juror asked if life meant life with or without parole. This Court found no reversible error there. See also Wiley v. State, 691 So.2d 959 (Miss.1997) (Supreme Court distinguished holding in Williams and found that jury was properly instructed and that there was no error in the discussion of parole during voir dire). ¶ 28. The present allegation is not that the jury was improperly instructed about parole eligibility or that the court or a witness or an attorney made any improper statement about parole during the trial. The claim is that the jurors, while in the jury room, on their own, considered whether the Smiths would be eligible for parole. Apparently the jurors did, in fact, consider parole possibilities. During its deliberations, the jury sent out a note which is not part of the record. The judge described the question as: the jury sent a note to me to this effect, that they were aware of the fact that Clyde Smith had four life  was serving life without parole and their question was whether Jerome Smith would be eligible for parole ... The Court answered it in these words `Jerome Smith would be eligible to be considered for parole'. ¶ 29. This Court has not heretofore determined that a jury could not, on its own, decide that the severity of a crime required the finality of the death penalty. The Mississippi legislature did not amend Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-21 to allow a jury in a capital murder case to return a verdict of life without parole until 1994, and then only as to any case in which pre-trial, trial or re-sentencing proceedings take place after July 1, 1994. Prior to that date, at all times pertinent to Smith's crime (1992), trial and sentencing (1993), the only options were life imprisonment or death. Because it would be natural for the jury to consider the possible ramifications of a life sentence verdict, this case is distinguishable from Williams, which dealt with explicit discussion of parole during the penalty phase of the trial. That simply didn't happen here. The only allegation of impropriety is that the jurors, during their deliberations, discussed whether the Smiths might eventually be paroled if they were sentenced to life. In Wilcher and Wiley, the Court found that factually and legally correct statements as to parole eligibility during voir dire were not error. In the present case, we hold that the jurors were not prohibited from discussing among themselves whether parole was a possibility, since they were instructed correctly. There is no error here. ¶ 30. Additionally, during closing argument, Smith's attorney informed the jury that Smith was already serving a life sentence without parole. The attorney stated: This man, Clyde, Sunday, the day before this trial started was serving four life sentences without parole, and I can tell you regardless of what you heard on T.V. about how people serve a year and a half for raping somebody on the average, or whatever statistics they come up with, I can tell you and the law will tell you and this Court will tell you, he will never see the outside of a prison cell until he dies in prison. Now that's before we got here. That's the case and it's still the case, and a sentence of life from you won't affect it. It won't lessen it, it won't override it, it won't take the place of it. Those sentences are there and he will serve that time and he never will get out. There's the difference between these two people right there. He also argued at some length that life in prison without parole was the harsher punishment. It is clear that the defense chose to inform the jury about Smith's life sentences without parole. The jury knew that if Smith was sentenced to life he would never be paroled. Thus little stock should be put in the current affidavits that say that the jurors were concerned that Smith would be paroled one day. This sub-issue is without merit.