Court Opinion

ID: 9773238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:40:29.9372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:51.222601
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with Part I of the principal opinion.
I agree that Part II correctly expounds the authorities as they existed prior to State v. Feltrop, 803 S.W.2d 1 (Mo. banc 1991). Our courts consider the right to jury sentencing to be of value to defendants, in those cases in which the legislature has granted this right. If the jury is improperly instructed on the range of punishment, we cannot assume that the improper instruction had no effect on the sentence the jury returned, even though the actual sentence is within the statutory limits. It is reasonable to assume that the jury’s actual sentence may have been influenced by what it was told as to the maximum authorized punishment.
In Feltrop, a death sentence was affirmed even though the instruction on aggravating circumstances, which directed the jury as to the conditions precedent to a death sentence, was erroneous. The Court held, however, that the trial judge, and not the jury, was the final sentencer, and that the judge, in ruling a motion to mitigate the sentence, had the authority to make findings, explicit or implicit, which would fill in the lacunae of the instruction. The Court was unmoved by the possibility that a properly instructed jury might not have returned a death sentence.
My dissent in Feltrop commanded little support and I shall not repeat my arguments here. It seems logical that, if the Court could correct the Feltrop instructions in proceedings after trial, it could make similar corrections here by confirming or adjusting the jury’s recommendation in this case. But the principal opinion holds otherwise, and it is soundly grounded in the authorities.
I am disposed to suggest that Feltrop is a mutant decision which I hope will not be followed, and to concur in the principal opinion.