Opinion ID: 2401946
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Motion to Set Aside Jury Verdict

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his Motion to Set Aside the death sentences. Appellant asserts that the jury's death verdict should have been set aside because the aggravating and mitigating circumstances were not announced from the jury box and, therefore, the individual jurors were not provided the opportunity to be polled as to their findings. This assertion, however, is without merit. Following the announcement of the two death sentence verdicts by the jury foreperson, the jurors were individually polled as to their agreement with the verdicts. Thereafter, the court excused the jury and proceeded to read into the record, from the sentence verdict slips, the particular aggravating and mitigating circumstances found by the jury. At this point, defense counsel moved to set aside the verdicts. In response, the following exchange occurred: THE COURT: Well, they were polled as to the sentence, number one. And number two, those findings are recorded. They are actually written down. The jury is still here. If you wish, I can bring them out and make sure that they all agree with the verdict slips as written. I have no problem doing that. Do you wish me to do that? MR. SCOTT [defense counsel]: No, Your Honor. (N.T., July 9, 2002, pages 26-27). As quoted above, the trial court offered to resolve Appellant's claim of error by polling the jurors in open court as to their findings. Despite this offer, Appellant expressly refused. Therefore, Appellant is barred from seeking redress for an alleged claim of error that he patently refused to rectify before the trial court. Regardless, the Commonwealth's death penalty statute contains no requirement that aggravating and mitigating circumstances must be announced orally from the jury box and that jurors must be individually polled regarding their findings. See generally 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711. Here, the trial court dismissed the jury and read their collective findings into the record from the verdict slips. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in failing to take the redundant step of orally polling the jurors from the jury box as to their findings.