Court Opinion

ID: 9650313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:29:17.391329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:19.875661
License: Public Domain

POLLOCK, J.,
concurring and dissenting.
Until today, accurate jury instructions were essential to the jury’s determination whether the defendant was subject to the death penalty. Consistent with that principle, the Court has held that trial courts should inform guilt-phase juries of the sentence to which a defendant would be subject if the jury should find the defendant guilty of non-capital homicide. State v. Mejia, 141 N.J. 475, 485, 662 A.2d 308 (1995); State v. Brown, 138 N.J. 481, 517, 651 A.2d 19 (1994). In addition, the Court has held that trial courts should instruct juries to consider non-capital forms of murder simultaneously with capital murder. Mejia, supra, 141 N.J. at 483-85, 662 A.2d 308; State v. Coyle, 119 N.J. 194, 221-24, 574 A.2d 951 (1990). Finally, the Court has held that trial courts should instruct juries that a non-unanimous verdict, in which the jurors cannot agree on the form of murder committed by the defendant, is acceptable. Mejia, supra, 141 N.J. at 486-87, 662 A.2d 308; Brown, supra, 138 N.J. at 511, 520, 651 A.2d 19. Absent such instructions, the Court has not hesitated in the past *414to reverse death-penalty convictions. The majority acknowledges that Mejia and Brown, both of which were rendered in the last three years, would obligate it to overturn defendant’s death sentence. Instead of following those precedents, however, the majority overrules them. So abrupt a reversal of precedent is remarkable, all the more so because it leads to an irreversible result, the death penalty.
I continue to believe that accurate instructions are essential for the jury to discharge its duty as the conscience of the community in death-penalty cases. State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123, 126, 648 A.2d 887 (1988) (Bey II) (noting instructions are “crucial in a capital case because of the jury’s responsibility to decide whether a defendant shall live or die”); see also State v. Martin, 119 N.J. 2, 15, 573 A.2d 1359 (1990) (noting “[a] charge is a road map to guide the jury, and without an appropriate charge a jury can take a wrong turn in its deliberations”). Substantially for the reasons set forth in Point I of Justice Handler’s dissent, I would reverse the imposition of the death penalty.
O’HERN, J., joins in this opinion.