Opinion ID: 2459828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Proffered verdict form

Text: Kemp asserts that the trial court erred in refusing his proffered instruction, a modification of AMCI 2d Form 3, which states as follows: You are instructed that in consideration of mitigating circumstances each juror is to make his or her own weighing of aggravating circumstances with the mitigating circumstances that he or she has personally found, and is not restricted to those unanimously found by the jury. The trial court denied appellant's proffer, and instructed the jury with AMCI2d Form 3, which includes the following: (b) (___) The aggravating circumstances outweigh beyond a reasonable doubt any mitigating circumstances found by any juror to exist. Relying on Mills v. Maryland, supra , appellant asserts that Form Three is violative of the Eighth Amendment because it is phrased in such a way so as to inform each juror that he or she could not consider evidence of a mitigating circumstance unless all other jurors unanimously agreed that the evidence supported the finding of the mitigating circumstance. We recently rejected this argument in Bowen v. State, supra : This same argument was made in Pickens v. State, 301 Ark. 244, 783 S.W.2d 341 (1990), on the basis of a Maryland case. We decided the argument lacked merit. We wrote: Our Form 2, which accompanies AMCI 1509, expressly allows the jury to list mitigating circumstances which were found by some, though not all, of its members. Form 3 then allows the jury to determine if the aggravating circumstances outweigh any mitigating circumstances. Nothing in the forms indicates to the jury that a mitigating circumstance must be found unanimously before it may be considered in the weighing process. The potential for misunderstanding is not present in the Arkansas forms as it is in the Maryland forms. 322 Ark. 483 at 511, 911 S.W.2d 555. In his reply brief, appellant maintains that this court's decision in Willett v. State, 322 Ark. 613, 911 S.W.2d 937 (1995), further demonstrates that his proposed instruction should have been granted. However, in Willett , the jurors completed AMCI2d Form 2 in a contradictory manner, finding unanimously that three circumstances were mitigators in one section of the form, while indicating in another section that they had unanimously agreed that the same three circumstances were not mitigating circumstances. No such contradiction exists in this case.