Court Opinion

ID: 9588674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:36:48.479727+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:11.721422
License: Public Domain

Justice FRYE
dissenting as to sentence.
In upholding the death sentence in this case, the majority relies on State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1, 372 S.E. 2d 12 (1988), cert. granted, — U.S. —, 103 L. Ed. 2d 180 (1989), in which this Court rejected defendant’s contention that the trial court erred in in*152structing the jurors that they must be unanimous before they could find the existence of a mitigating circumstance. A significant question involved in this case is whether the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. —, 100 L. Ed. 2d 384 (1988), applies to the North Carolina death sentencing scheme. Accordingly, for the reasons stated in the Chief Justice’s dissenting opinions in State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1, 372 S.E. 2d 12, and in State v. Allen, 323 N.C. 208, 372 S.E. 2d 855 (1988), I continue to believe that the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. —, 100 L. Ed. 2d 384, is applicable to the North Carolina death sentencing procedure. I therefore dissent from that portion of the Court’s opinion which rejects defendant’s request for a new sentencing hearing.