Court Opinion

ID: 9625586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:45:14.850016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:11.370925
License: Public Domain

*62Justice BRADY
concurring.
I agree with the majority that defendant’s sentence of death should be reversed and that his case should be remanded to the trial court for a new sentencing proceeding. I write separately to emphasize that this Court has, in the present case, been confronted with and remedied what I believe to be a serious error in a capital proceeding. This Court guards fair play and the integrity of our justice system, even amid a furor of criticism regarding purported problems with our system of capital punishment. Our decision today reflects that our judicial system is capable of correcting itself and will, in fact, do so. Even so, it is my belief that criticism regarding capital punishment, including calls for a death penalty moratorium, should not be directed to the judiciary. Rather, those discussions should be directed to the legislature, the branch of government that this Court has consistently maintained is charged with the responsibility and is better equipped to explore changes in our laws based upon evolving social norms.
Nonetheless, inadvertent mistakes requiring this Court to reverse a defendant’s death sentence should rarely occur. In this case, all relevant parties literally “dropped the ball.” The trial judge neither gave the requested instructions to the jury panel nor allowed the parties an opportunity to object. The State was clearly not attentive to the contents of the instructions when they were presented in open court, and the defense attorney did not, as he ideally should have, contemporaneously object to the instructions. These critical omissions are unacceptable given the gravity of the setting, the dwindling resources available to our judiciary, and the expanding caseload of the judiciary. See Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake, Jr., 2003 State of the Judiciary to the North Carolina General Assembly at 2 (delivered in print to the North Carolina General Assembly, Raleigh, N.C., 7 April 2003) (noting that our judicial system is “very severely[] underfunded”).
This case clearly demonstrates how avoidable mistakes place a substantial strain on our judicial resources. When this case is remanded to the superior court, the parties will select, and the trial court will empanel, a new jury. This process takes weeks to accomplish as the jury panel must be “death qualified.” This second sentencing phase will require the court to conduct, in essence, an entirely new capital trial. Furthermore, there are a limited number of competent and experienced attorneys who are willing to accept the responsibility of these complex cases. Should the jury recommend *63and the court impose a sentence of life without parole, the Court of Appeals will then review the propriety of defendant’s sentencing procedure. In the alternative, should a capital sentence be imposed, this Court must conduct an exhaustive review of defendant’s sentence for a second time. Defendant’s retrial has the collateral consequence of imposing further stress and trauma on the victim’s family and friends, as well as those of the defendant.
As in every human endeavor, error is sometimes unavoidable, and our system of appeals will continue to provide relief to defendants in the appropriate cases. However, I take this opportunity to encourage trial judges, the State, and defense attorneys to practice self-imposed quality control by becoming more diligent in avoiding costly and unnecessary mistakes at the trial court level.