Opinion ID: 787515
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: McKoy

Text: 28 The Supreme Court revisited Mills two years later in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 435, 110 S.Ct. 1227, 108 L.Ed.2d 369 (1990), and held that the unanimity requirement in North Carolina's capital sentencing scheme—which prevent[ed] the jury from considering, in deciding whether to impose the death penalty, any mitigating factor that the jury does not unanimously find—was unconstitutional because it prevented the sentencer from considering all mitigating evidence. McKoy repeated the rule in Mills that a death sentence cannot stand if the jury instructions and verdict form created a substantial probability that reasonable jurors thought they were precluded from considering mitigating evidence unless the jury unanimously agreed on the existence of that particular circumstance. Id. at 438, 110 S.Ct. 1227 (citing Mills, 486 U.S. at 384, 108 S.Ct. 1860). The Court also noted that Mills reasoned that allowing a holdout juror to preclude other jurors from considering mitigating evidence violated the principle that a sentencer may not be prevented from giving effect to all mitigating evidence. Id. (citing Mills, 486 U.S. at 375, 108 S.Ct. 1860). 29 The North Carolina Supreme Court attempted to distinguish Mills by concluding that—whereas Maryland's sentencing scheme required the jury to impose the death penalty if it found i) aggravating circumstances and no mitigating circumstances or ii) aggravating circumstances that outweighed any mitigating circumstances—the North Carolina procedure allowed the jury to recommend a sentence of life imprisonment even without a finding of mitigating circumstances. Id. (discussing the decision of the North Carolina Supreme Court). The United States Supreme Court, however, concluded that the purported distinction did not place the statute outside of the scope of Mills. The fact remained that the jury, even if it recommended a sentence of life imprisonment, was required to make its decision based only on circumstances it unanimously found. Id. at 439, 110 S.Ct. 1227. The unanimity requirement thus allows one holdout juror to prevent the others from giving effect to evidence that they believe calls for a `sentence less than death.' Id. (quoting Eddings, 455 U.S. at 110, 102 S.Ct. 869). In addition, even if all twelve jurors agreed that some mitigating circumstances were present, they could not give effect to that evidence without unanimity as to the same circumstance, precisely the violation found in Mills. Id. The Court noted that [o]ur decision in Mills was not limited to cases in which the jury is required to impose the death penalty if it finds that aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating circumstances or that no mitigating circumstances exist at all. Id. at 439-40, 110 S.Ct. 1227 (emphasis in text). Rather, we held that it would be the `height of arbitrariness to allow or require the imposition of the death penalty' where 1 juror was able to prevent the other 11 from giving effect to mitigating evidence. Id. at 440, 110 S.Ct. 1227 (quoting Mills, 486 U.S. at 374, 108 S.Ct. 1860) (emphasis in text).