Opinion ID: 2390272
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: failure to object to trial court's response to question by jury concerning life imprisonment

Text: During the jury's deliberation at the penalty phase, a question arose whether the jury could recommend a sentence of life with a guarantee of no parole. The trial court's response was . . . no, absolutely not. N.T., Volume V, p. 45. Appellant argues that trial counsel was ineffective in not objecting to this answer, because the trial court's explanation mislead the jury into believing that if they handed down a life sentence there would be a possibility of parole. Appellant claims that this erroneous charge focused the jury's deliberations away from weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and introduced an arbitrary factor into the deliberative processes. Again, in his zealousness to manufacture an error, Appellant has taken a phrase out of context and read into it his own meaning. The explanation of the trial judge to the jury's question was as follows: The answer is that simply, no absolutely not. Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, you talk about recommendation. I don't know exactly what you mean, but I assume you remember what I told you before, that you as a jury at this point are not making a recommendation of death or life imprisonment. I hope you understand that. You folks are actually fixing the sentence, and not the Court. It is not the recommendation. Whether you mark on there death, that's the sentence and there is nothing this Court can do about it. The Court has nothing to do on it. If you mark life imprisonment, there is nothing this Court can do about it or wants to do about it, because that decision is entirely up to you as members of the jury. So, I hope you understand that it is not a recommendation, it is a sentence that will bind all of us here to whatever you fix and it's going to have to be very simply death or life imprisonment. And the question of parole is absolutely irrelevant. I hope you understand that. As can be seen, the trial court was concerned that the jury may have misunderstood that they were setting the sentence and not making a recommendation. We think he adequately explained that the jury sets the sentence and whatever it may be will be carried out without interference from any other source. To underscore this, he repeated that the court would not tamper with their verdict and that the question of parole is irrelevant. Read in context, we find nothing improper with this explanation and reject Appellant's tortured reading of three words.