Opinion ID: 1422653
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury's Understanding of Life Imprisonment

Text: Finally, Ivey argues that the court erred by preventing the defense from ensuring that the jury had a correct understanding of the term life imprisonment, where the solicitor introduced considerations of early release and misled the jury about Ivey's future dangerousness to society, while depicting life imprisonment as a luxury vacation. At oral argument, counsel for Ivey conceded that this argument is unpreserved. However, even if it were preserved, the argument does not succeed on the merits. Defense counsel wanted to ask prospective jurors the following question during voir dire: What is their conception, their notion, about what life imprisonment means? The trial court refused to allow the question. State v. Matthews, 296 S.C. 379, 373 S.E.2d 587 (1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1091, 109 S.Ct. 1559, 103 L.Ed.2d 861 (1989) is dispositive on this issue. In that case, we held the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in refusing to allow the defendant to ask prospective jurors on voir dire what a life sentence meant to them. Defendant had proposed the question to expose those potential jurors with misconceptions about the parole eligibility of a murderer sentenced to life imprisonment, Matthews held that the defendant had shown neither abuse nor prejudice and that the trial court's jury instructions had properly conveyed the meaning of life sentence: These terms of life imprisonment and the death penalty should be understood in their ordinary and plain meaning by you. Id. at 383, 373 S.E.2d at 590. The case stated that defendant was not entitled to probe potential jurors' misconceptions on this point of law. The question in the present case is nearly exactly the same as that which was asked in Matthews. In addition, the trial court in this case also charged the jury on the meaning of life imprisonment: I instruct you that when considering the two possible sentences, that is life imprisonment means life imprisonment, and death penalty means the death penalty. Ivey makes no attempt to distinguish Matthews.