Opinion ID: 1988657
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Jury Override Standard.

Text: Both the jury and the judge participate in a capital sentencing decision. Each is instructed to review the aggravating and mitigating factors, to evaluate their relative importance, and to decide whether the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors. The judge must give the jury's determination great weight, but the judge may override the jury's recommendation in appropriate cases. Where the jury recommends death, the trial judge may reject that recommendation and impose a life sentence. [14] Where the jury recommends a life sentence, however, the override threshold is extremely high. Under the Tedder standard, as interpreted numerous times by the Florida Supreme Court: [W]hen there is a reasonable basis in the record to support a jury's recommendation of life, an override is improper.... When there are valid mitigating factors discernible from the record upon which the jury could have based its recommendation an override may not be warranted. [15] Florida cases in which overrides were upheld involved especially cruel and heinous murders by defendants who presented no mitigating circumstances or only very marginal ones. [16] Thus, we start with the unarguable proposition that the trial judge may override the jury's recommendation of life without parole only if the facts supporting the death sentence are so clear and convincing that no reasonable person could differ. The Delaware death penalty procedure requires a record of the exact vote of the jury and that the advice will be given great weight [17] because it is the conscience of the community. [18] If the jury verdict is to be cast aside simply because the trial judge disagrees with it, one wonders about the purpose and value of the jury's advisory verdict. Nevertheless, the Delaware General Assembly, in its 2003 amendment to the death penalty statute, elected to vest discretion in the trial judge to give the jury's recommendation such consideration as deemed appropriate. [19] The State does not contend on this appeal, however, that the 2003 statute applies to Garden. [20] Here, we are required to apply not the 2003 statute, but the 1991 statute, which we have construed as incorporating the Tedder standard. [21] If reasonable minds can differ in weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors, it necessarily follows that the trial judge may not override the jury's verdict because, by definition, it cannot be said that no reasonable juror could have determined to recommend a sentence of life without parole, rather than death. In its decision after remand, the trial court reevaluated the reasonableness of its own decision and concluded, with justification, that there is record support for the imposition of a death sentence. But the Tedder standard is not directed at the trial court's reasoning. Rather, it requires that the court evaluate the jury's decision and determine whether there is any evidence to sustain the jury's conclusion. [22] When the facts are analyzed from this perspective, the jury's recommendation to spare Garden's life must be upheld.