Court Opinion

ID: 9568985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:09:17.088474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:50.442308
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion approves a sentencing charge in which the jury was not told to consider mitigating circumstances. Our statute provides that"... the judge... shall include in his instructions to the jury for it to consider, any mitigating circumstances . . .” Code Ann. § 27-3534.1 (b). The majority opinion never mentions this requirement of our law.
As the majority opinion notes, in recent months this court has reversed sentences of death in six cases for errors in the jury charge on the sentencing phase. The *484incoming tide of death penalty cases has worn away the court’s resolve, first expressed less than a year ago in Fleming v. State, 240 Ga. 142 (240 SE2d 37) (1977), and Hawes v. State, 240 Ga. 327 (240 SE2d 833) (1978). In Fleming, supra, 240 Ga. at 146-147, we said that our system for imposing the death penalty requires the jury to consider two issues: first, aggravating circumstances, and second, after finding an aggravating circumstance ". . . the jury must then consider the mitigating and aggravating circumstances relevant to the defendant and determine whether the death penalty is appropriate . . .” In Hawes, supra, 240 Ga. 334, we held that it was error for the trial court to fail"... to inform the jury that they were authorized to consider mitigating circumstances when there were mitigating circumstances authorized by law and warranted by the evidence. . .”
The majority opinion retreats from these clear statements of law rendered within the year. The majority now say that it is sufficient if a reasonable juror considering the charge as a whole would know that he should consider all the facts and circumstances of the case, and even though he might find one or more aggravating circumstances to exist, would know that he might recommend life imprisonment. In doing so the majority ignore the statutory requirement that the judge instruct the jury to consider any mitigating circumstances. Because the trial court did not follow the mandate of our law and instruct the jury to consider any mitigating circumstances, I must dissent from the imposition of the death penalty in this case.
I am authorized to state that Justice Marshall joins in this dissent.