Court Opinion

ID: 9667830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:56:05.219158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.139438
License: Public Domain

*929VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
In a death penalty case, a juror should not be encouraged to take lightly his responsibility in fixing death as a punishment. Our statute provides that the jury can only recommend the death penalty but that the actual sentencing is the responsibility of the Judge. Jurors should not be led to believe, however, that they should keep the option of the imposition of the death penalty open by recommending it because the Judge can reduce the sentence if he feels it is not warranted.
I believe the Commonwealth’s attorney, both in questions on voir dire and in final argument, gave the jurors reason to believe the responsibility would not rest upon them, but upon the trial judge, if appellant were executed.
In the voir dire examination of Francis White, the following question was asked:
Q. Okay. In Kentucky the jury does not set the penalty in a death penalty case. They recommend the penalty to the judge, Okay? I think maybe earlier you — you probably, if you remember, were told in jury orientation that in a criminal case the jury sets the penalty, like on a theft case, and that’s true. But in a death penalty case, the jury recommends to the Judge, so in effect if you’re the juror in this case you would be recommending a sentence to Judge Angeluc-ci; you understand?
A. Yes, I think.
In the concluding argument, the Commonwealth’s attorney stated:
In these instructions it’s very clear that your recommendation, your verdict, is a recommendation to Judge Angelucci in this case. You don’t set the sentence in this case; you recommend it.
References such as these by the Commonwealth’s attorney, it seems to me, are likely to cause a juror to recommend a death penalty, knowing the Judge might later reduce it, even though the same juror would not have imposed the death penalty had the matter been left entirely up to him.