Court Opinion

ID: 9861750
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:26:57.131036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:55.631916
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In this capital-murder case, Braynard Purnell received a death sentence because the murder he committed occurred in the course of a robbery. The central question, as recognized by the Court, is whether a death sentence can be imposed on that ground when the jury failed to determine whether defendant was guilty of the substantive crime of felony murder. I agree with the Court that a death sentence imposed under such circumstances is “constitutionally defective,” ante at 523, 601 A.2d at 177, and that the defendant’s conviction for capital murder and his death sentence must be reversed. However, I disagree with the Court’s decision to leave intact defendant’s conviction for non-capital murder. I believe that a capital prosecution that relies ultimately on the existence of felony murder as a basis for the death sentence but withholds from the jury the determination of the defendant’s criminal guilt for that substantive crime is fundamentally flawed, and, in this ease, warrants reversal of the defendant’s murder conviction. I dissent from the Court’s refusal to take that step.
The Court also notes other issues on the appeal that it has considered and “disposed of without further discussion,” ante at 546, 601 A.2d at 188, or found moot in light of its resolution of the felony-murder issue and vacation of the death sentence. Ante at 534, 601 A.2d at 182. In my view some of those issues bear weightily on the validity not only of defendant’s death sentence but of his murder conviction as well, and merit further treatment. Additionally, I reiterate my continuing belief that *548the capital-murder statute remains unconstitutional as enacted, interpreted, and applied. E.g., State v. Marshall, 123 N.J. 1, 214, 586 A.2d 85 (Handler, J., dissenting).
I
The State’s theory of the capital-murder case against defendant was that he killed Lawrence Talley while robbing him of cocaine. Indeed, the State was unwavering in that position. Prior to trial, the State served defendant with a notice of aggravating factors. In addition to specifying a prior murder conviction as an aggravating factor, the State indicated that it intended to seek the death penalty for the murder based on aggravating factor N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c(4)(g), specifically, that “[t]he offense was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of, or attempt, or flight after committing or attempting to commit ... robbery____” The prosecutor in his opening statement at the guilt phase of the trial told the jury that defendant had gone into his backyard with Talley in order “to obtain cocaine from” him. The prosecutor noted that “apparently the defendant did not have quite enough money for what Lawrence Talley wanted to charge him for this cocaine” and that “it seemed this defendant was going to get this cocaine no matter what.” The prosecutor also told the jury: “He [Talley] didn’t have any quantity of cocaine on his body. I submit it was removed from him by the defendant and used later on that night. He [the victim] didn’t have any cash on him. They just found a quarter underneath his body____” During his guilt-phase summation, the prosecutor stated that Talley had been carrying approximately two “sixteenths” of cocaine on the evening of August 26, about the same amount that defendant took to Marie Simmons’s home later that night, and emphasized that “[t]wo sixteenths of an ounce of cocaine is not something you pull out of the air, ladies and gentlemen.” That position was reiterated in the penalty phase of the trial. The prosecutor told the jury that he would let it decide “whether this defendant took Lawrence Talley’s drugs when he killed *549him,” but that in his opinion the evidence supporting both aggravating factors was “absolutely crystal clear.” Consistent with the State’s position, the trial court gave the jury sentencing instructions for determining the occurrence of robbery in support of the c(4)(g) factor. The trial court stressed: “you've heard the elements of what robbery is and the State has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was committed while Purnell was engaged in the commission of or attempting to commit robbery as I have defined it.”
Thus, although the State’s theory was that defendant had killed Talley in the course of a robbery, and it relied on that factor in obtaining a death sentence, defendant was never indicted for robbery, and the jury was never given the opportunity to determine whether defendant was criminally guilty of either robbery or felony murder based on robbery. According to the trial court’s explanation to the jury, “the law does not prevent the State from alleging robbery as an aggravating factor just because they did not include it as a Count in the Indictment.” The Court, in my view, correctly rejects the trial court’s position.
The Court very aptly points out that the State’s failure to indict defendant for the predicate felony here does not obviate the trial court’s obligation to submit the felony murder to the jury for a determination of substantive guilt during the guilt phase of the trial. Ante at 532-533, 534, 601 A.2d at 182, 187. See State v. Dixon, 125 N.J. 223, 593 A.2d 266 (1991) (acknowledging the duty of trial courts to charge the jury “concerning any version of the offense ‘clearly indicated’ by the evidence” (quoting State v. Grunow, 102 N.J. 133, 148, 506 A.2d 708 (1986)). That duty is imperative when the lesser-included, or alternative, offense is a form of non-capital murder, such as felony murder. The failure to charge such non-capital offenses “would seem inevitably to enhance the risk of an unwarranted conviction. Such a risk cannot be tolerated in a case in which the defendant’s life is at stake.” Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 637, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2389, 65 L.Ed.2d 392, 402 (1980). In *550this context, the Court also properly rejects the State’s additional argument that there was no reversible error because another form of non-capital murder, serious-bodily-injury murder, was submitted to the jury and the jury still convicted defendant of capital murder. The submission of a different form of non-capital murder, which the jury rejected, did not obviate the need to submit felony murder in this case. Where no one witnessed the homicide, so that the exact circumstances of the homicide remain unclear, the jury should be presented with the complete range of non-capital crimes supported by the evidence in order to enable it to make a fair determination of defendant’s guilt. State v. Hunt, 115 N.J. 330, 407, 558 A.2d 1259 (1989) (Handler, J., dissenting) (the jury should not be “deprived of the full spectrum of choices on which to base its weighty determination of criminal liability, denying the defendant the opportunity to secure a conviction on a less serious offense”).
The failure to require the jury in the guilt phase of the trial to consider defendant’s substantive guilt of the crime constituting felony murder created another profound flaw in this case. Because the jury, when sentencing defendant, had not been given the antecedent opportunity to consider the substantive crime within the traditional framework for determining criminal guilt or innocence, it could determine the defendant’s guilt for the underlying felony only at the same time that it determined his sentence. That, I submit, is contrary to the teachings of Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 309-10, 92 S.Ct. 2726, 2762-63, 33 L.Ed.2d 346, 390 (1972) (Stewart, J., concurring); id. at 310-12, 92 S.Ct. at 2762-64, 33 L.Ed.2d at 390-91 (White, J., concurring) and Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 189-92, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 2932-34, 49 L.Ed.2d 859, 883-85 (1976).
Assessing guilt and assessing punishment require two very distinct types of thinking by the jury. The determination of the commission of a crime that constitutes a guilty verdict is the ultimate decision of the jury. In contrast, the determination of the commission of a crime that is only a sentencing factor is not *551the ultimate decision that the jury must make — that decision is whether the defendant lives or dies. In the capital sentencing context, when the jury determines that the defendant has committed an “offense,” that determination is only one factor among many to be simultaneously decided and weighed in fixing an ultimate sentence. Hence, the jury’s finding of the c(4)(g) aggravating factor based on the commission of an offense cannot be regarded as qualitatively equivalent to a final verdict that the defendant is criminally guilty of that offense.
The failure to have the jury render a verdict on felony murder generated another form of unfairness to defendant. By that failure the trial court exposed to the death penalty a defendant whose candidacy for the death sentence had not been previously determined with all of the constitutional protections that must surround that process. Because the prosecution was permitted to prove the felony in the sentencing phase rather than the guilt phase, it was able to bolster its proof of the robbery with evidence not normally admissible to prove criminal guilt, such as character evidence, evidence of a prior murder, and, most importantly, the fact that the jury had just convicted defendant of intentional murder.
One might argue that the State must prove more in order to establish a felony as a sentencing factor than to prove the felony as an element of the substantive crime of felony murder, in that capital murder requires proof of intent to kill and felony murder does not. Technical or formal requirements of proof aside, the jury that is called on to find a felony only as a sentencing factor does so after it already has concluded that the defendant has committed an intentional murder and is death eligible. Such a finding, by itself, is bound to make the jury more inclined to believe that the defendant committed a felony. See State v. Simon, 79 N.J. 191, 201, 398 A.2d 861 (1979) (jury that is first permitted to determine a factor relating to guilt may be prone to determine that defendant is guilty of substantive crimes). Consequently, a capital defendant unquestionably has greater procedural protection if the jury must determine *552whether he or she is guilty of the felony as a substantive crime before it commences capital sentencing deliberations.
No defect is more grave in a capital-murder prosecution than one that merges and blurs the jury’s determination of criminal guilt with its imposition of the death sentence. A procedure that calls on the jury to determine as a part of a single decisional process both that the defendant is criminally guilty and that he or she deserves to die is unprincipled and unconstitutional. That potential inheres generally in our current capital-murder statute because, I believe,
the jury’s consideration of aggravating factors serves both to specify which defendants are in the class [of murderers who are death-eligible] and, in the same process, to decide their punishment. The aggravating factors act as specifications of the class; they form, in effect, elements of the offense defendants must have committed to come within the class.
‡*******
Aggravating circumstances are used in determining who among the class of all murderers is death-eligible. In this sense, these factors define the elements of capital murder. The factfinding necessary to determine if the murder is capital murder occurs in the sentencing rather than the guilt phase; moreover, the identical factfinding is necessary to determine if the murder is to be punishable by death. Thus, in the same process that the jury considers aggravating factors to determine if the murder is capital murder, it also must use the aggravating factors to determine if the sentence is death.
[State v. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 393, 402, 524 A.2d 188 (Handler, J., dissenting) (citation omitted).]
If the point — that the guilt and sentencing determinations are not sufficiently separated under our capital-murder methodology — is otherwise fairly debatable, as the majority opinion in Ramseur suggested, id. at 192-95, 398 A.2d 861, it is hardly debatable in this case. Here, the only determinations of guilt with respect to the commission of a felony and felony murder were made as elements of the decision to impose the death sentence.
An additional aspect of prejudice arises whenever the trial court allows the State to splinter the jury’s determination of criminal activity, as it does when the jury in a capital case considers the occurrences of different crimes independently in *553the guilt and penalty phases of the trial. Such a practice denies the defendant the opportunity to have the jury evaluate the overall level of his or her culpability stemming from all related acts taken together. A jury verdict of criminal guilt is supposed to express an ultimate judgment of culpability that encompasses the consideration of the evidence, the determination of basic facts, and the application of legal principles that define the substantive crime and guide the jury in its special responsibility for determining criminal guilt. E.g., State v. Ingenito, 87 N.J. 204, 432 A.2d 912 (1981). We have recognized that the jury’s criminal verdict may be an expression of conscience, e.g., id. at 212, 432 A.2d 912; see State v. Dunne, 124 N.J. 303, 319, 590 A.2d 1144 (1991), through which the jury may exercise lenity and find a defendant innocent in spite of evidence that establishes criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. E.g., State v. Ingenito, supra, 87 N.J. at 212, 432 A.2d 912.
Criminal sentencing involves as profound a responsibility and expression of conscience as determination of criminal guilt or innocence. Indeed, the jury’s sentencing responsibility in a capital-murder case is even more awesome than its responsibility for determining criminal guilt. That does not mean, however, that the defendant can be deprived of the right to be tried for all of his or her criminal acts at once. Each kind of judgment by the jury reflects a final judgment that is something more than the sum of its constituent parts. State v. Simon, supra, 79 N.J. at 203, 398 A.2d 861.
Courts appreciate that neither of these two types of jury determinations can be explained solely by reference to the separate factors that bring the jury to its ultimate conclusion. These determinations can transcend their separate elements. Thus, with respect to criminal verdicts, courts do not insist on rigid or logical consistency among verdicts having common elements. E.g., State v. Ingenito, supra, 87 N.J. at 212, 432 A.2d 912. Nor do courts permit a jury’s verdict in one proceeding to be substituted or adopted for use in another. Id. at 217, 432 A.2d 912. Because courts can never be sure how a jury *554may transform a decisional factor into an ultimate determination of guilt, courts do not excuse a jury from making an independent finding with respect to each essential element that is a part of its verdict even when that element is undisputed. E.g., State v. Collier, 90 N.J. 117, 447 A.2d 168 (1982). Most especially, in a capital case the jury reconsiders all of the evidence from a fresh vantage point when deciding on a sentence, and may disregard the prior factual determinations reached during the guilt phase of the trial. See State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 72, 524 A.2d 130 (1987) (when a capital defendant receives a new trial for the purposes of sentencing, “neither side is assured, at the new trial, of the ‘benefits’ gained in the original trial.”). The jury may not satisfy its obligation to determine whether defendant has committed a felony as an element of an aggravating factor for capital-sentencing purposes simply by adopting its antecedent determination of criminal guilt.
In this case, the trial court implicitly acknowledged that the finding of the commission of an offense as a sentencing factor is not the same kind of ultimate determination as that of criminal guilt, and indeed, by its instructions, may have trivialized the jury’s decisional responsibility with respect to determining whether defendant committed a robbery as a sentencing factor, viz:
[Y]ou have to know a little about what robbery is so you can determine from all the evidence that you heard during the entire trial, the guilt phase and now, whether or not that aggravating factor has been proven by the State beyond a reasonable doubt. (Emphasis added)
The failure to indict or otherwise charge defendant for the underlying predicate felony of c(4)(g) constitutes a form of undercharging. In the context of a capital prosecution, undercharging allows the defendant to be punished for a crime without a formalized jury determination of his or her guilt for that crime. Indeed, the failure to indict or charge the predicate felony deprives the defendant of the opportunity to secure an acquittal of that crime. See People v. Mitchell, 64 A.D.2d 119, *555408 N.Y.S.2d 513, 518 (1978) (defendant’s conviction for felony murder reversed because jury, while finding defendant guilty of felony murder, had acquitted him of the underlying felony); see also State v. Dixon, supra, 125 N.J. at 264, 593 A.2d 266 (defendant acquitted of robbery could not be subjected to the c(4)(g) aggravating factor based on robbery).
While concluding in this case that defendant should have been charged with felony murder, the Court, nevertheless, suggests in dictum that under other circumstances offenses that are both substantive crimes and elements of an aggravating factor need not be the subject of an indictment or charged or submitted to the jury for a determination of criminal liability. It observes:
Obviously, our Legislature did not intend, nor does constitutional principle require, that every aggravating factor under N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3c that renders a murder death-eligible be the subject of an indictment and a guilt-phase verdict. For example, although factors c(4)(f), killing to escape detection, and factor c(4)(h), killing a police officer, can constitute separate criminal offenses, neither principles of constitutional law nor of fundamental fairness require that the factors be tried as separate indictable offenses in the guilt phase. If proper notice were given, the sentencing-phase jury could make its unanimous finding of such a factor without a prior guilty verdict and without unfairness in the trial.
[Ante at 533, 601 A.2d at 182.]
The Court expresses concern about possible unfairness to a defendant that might result if the predicate offense or felony were required to be charged as a substantive crime. That concern was also mentioned in State v. Dixon, supra, 125 N.J. at 264, 593 A.2d 266. There the predicate felony and felony murder, specifically, robbery and felony murder in the course of robbery, were in fact charged, and the jury acquitted the defendant of those charges. During deliberations, the jury had asked whether they could find the defendant guilty of felony murder based on a felony other than robbery. The trial court had responded that robbery is “the only felony that you address your attentions to.” The Court rejected the defendant’s argument on appeal that when there is some evidence of a sexual attack on the victim, the trial court in the guilt phase of the *556trial should charge felony murder predicated on attempted sexual penetration, even when the defendant has not requested such a charge. Id. at 256, 506 A.2d 708. The Court explained:
[T]he trouble with the analysis in a case like this, in which defendant did not request such a charge, is that it puts the court in an impossible position. Defendant was not charged with sexual penetration or attempted sexual penetration. What if the jury had convicted defendant of intentional murder and then had premised a sentence of death on an attempted sexual penetration, viewed as an aggravating factor? We could well envision that if the court on its own motion had submitted this felony to the jury and the jury had not only found attempted sexual penetration but predicated a death sentence on it, what a troublesome issue it would be to review on appeal.

[Ibid.]

I submit that the hypothetical posed by the Court in Dixon and repeated in this case cannot arise. If the State has not previously specified the particular offense in its notice of aggravating factors as a predicate felony, it may not rely on that offense to support a death penalty regardless of the evidentiary support underlying the offense. The defendant has a constitutionally-founded right to be served in advance of trial with a notice of aggravating factors and to challenge those factors. See State v. Matulewicz, 115 N.J. 191, 195-96, 557 A.2d 1001 (1989) ; State v. McCrary, 97 N.J. 132, 478 A.2d 339 (1984). The defendant’s entitlement as a matter of constitutional due process and fundamental fairness to a charge on a non-capital form of murder cannot be conditioned on his or her relinquishment or waiver of the right to be served with a notice of aggravating factors that governs whether the death sentence may be sought and that determines and limits the scope of the sentencing-phase of the trial.
It is not a mere coincidence that in all of New Jersey’s previous capital-murder cases in which the State submitted the c(4)(g) factor, the defendant had been indicted for and convicted of the underlying felony. See State v. Moore, 122 N.J. 420, 585 A.2d 864 (1991); State v. McDougald, 120 N.J. 523, 577 A.2d 419 (1990); State v. Hightower, 120 N.J. 378, 577 A.2d 99 (1990) ; State v. Pennington, 119 N.J. 547, 575 A.2d 816 (1990); State v. Gerald, 113 N.J. 40, 549 A.2d 792 (1988); State v. Bey *557II, 112 N.J. 123, 548 A.2d 887 (1988); State v. Bey I, 112 N.J. 45, 548 A.2d 846 (1988). These decisions reflect the understanding that if evidence is sufficient to support the aggravating factor c(4)(g), it must be sufficient to support and warrant an indictment for the substantive felony that constitutes the basis for that aggravating factor.
As earlier noted, the Court determined that the consequence of the failure to charge defendant with felony murder in the guilt phase of the trial is that defendant’s death sentence must be vacated and his conviction for capital murder reversed. Ante at 532-533, 601 A.2d at 181-182. I would set aside the conviction for non-capital murder as well.
The Court explains that “[bjecause we have vacated the death sentence ... there is, in the present posture of the case, no other prejudicial effect prior to a capital retrial.” Ante at 543, 601 A.2d at 187. Only “[i]f the State seeks a sentence of death” must the murder conviction be vacated and the murder count retried. Ibid. It finds some support for this uncertain disposition in State v. Dixon, where it said: “Because the sentence for felony murder is the same as the sentence for knowing or purposeful murder where the death penalty is not imposed, there is no prejudice to defendant in the circumstances of this case”. 125 N.J. at 256, 506 A.2d 708.
Underlying the Court’s disposition appears to be some notion or construct of contingent future prejudice. The Court assumes that if, in the future, defendant is not exposed to the death sentence, it does not matter whether he is guilty of felony murder or some other form of non-capital murder because the penalties are the same. It is simply wrong, however, to conclude that because the sentences for non-capital murder and felony murder are the same, the convictions for those respective murders are the same. Homicides are not fungible. Though the sentence for felony murder is the same as the sentence for intentional murder, the offenses are defined differently and the stigma attached to the former is smaller. The *558defendant is constitutionally entitled to have the jury consider all possible forms of homicide rationally supportable by the evidence in order to determine which kind of homicide he or she has committed. State v. Rose, 112 N.J. 454, 552, 548 A.2d 1058 (1988) (Handler, J., dissenting). In this case the options should include not only intentional murder but all forms of manslaughter, including passion/provocation manslaughter, see discussion, infra at 534-536, 601 A.2d at 182-183, as well as non-capital murder, including felony murder. In the absence of a charge for felony murder there can be no confidence in the soundness of the jury’s determination of criminal guilt.
In sum, the significant concern in this case is that the jury’s determination that defendant committed a robbery as an “offense” for sentencing purposes may not have been as fairly-informed and soundly-based as would have been a jury’s verdict that defendant was guilty of the substantive crime of robbery. I am thus persuaded that the serious defects inherent in the failure to have the jury determine substantive guilt of robbery and felony murder prior to its initiating deliberations on the death sentence require vacation of defendant’s non-capital murder conviction, as well as his conviction for capital murder and his death sentence.
II
Although the trial court charged the jury with the lesser-included offenses of aggravated manslaughter and reckless manslaughter, it did not charge passion/provocation manslaughter. Defendant argues that passion/provocation manslaughter should have been charged. I agree.
The evidence presented supports a charge of passion/provocation manslaughter. There was no indication that defendant had any intention to kill the victim prior to the unravelling of the drug transaction. According to the prosecution, defendant had only $114 to purchase a “16th” of cocaine, while the victim wanted $120, even though the market value in the street was *559only $80-85 for that amount of cocaine; as the two men proceeded toward defendant’s house, they were heard having a “loud conversation” or a “loud argument”; at approximately 9:00 p.m., defendant’s daughter, Dia Shaw, telephoned the police to report that “two guys are jumping my dad,” and at trial, she testified that she saw her father grappling with another man; Marie Simmons testified that when defendant arrived at her house later that evening, she noticed “a scar on his arm, a cut that was oozing blood”; James Berry, who was also at Ms. Simmons’s house that night, testified that defendant had a “bruise right underneath his eye”; Charlotte Talley testified that when she saw defendant on Sunday, August 28, 1989, he had “this big black and blue mark on his face,” and a mark on his arm; Investigator Ronald Morgan testified that on August 28th, he observed an open “puncture wound, a round-type wound” on Mr. Purnell’s upper arm by his bicep.
The Court views “that evidence skeptically,” ante at 541, 601 A.2d at 186, but concludes that even considered “in the light most positive to defendant, that evidence does not clearly indicate the appropriateness of a passion/provocation charge.” Id. at 542, 601 A.2d at 186.
In my view, the record provides adequate evidence to suggest that the victim started the fight or the parties engaged in mutual combat. The evidence of defendant’s wound was developed and relied on by the State itself. Since the record does not reveal precisely when or how the wound was sustained, its very existence provides a rational basis for a jury to conclude that the killing constituted a passion/provocation homicide. It surpasses the level of evidence that this Court found to be sufficient in State v. Mauricio, 117 N.J. 402, 568 A.2d 879 (1990). In Mauricio, the victim was seen attacking the defendant twenty minutes prior the incident that ended in the victim’s death. Id. at 414, 568 A.2d 879. In this case, unlike Mauricio, witnesses saw persons attacking the defendant at the start of the same encounter that ended in the victim’s death. Particularly in a capital-murder prosecution, such evidence must be *560viewed to the' end that the jury is given a complete choice of possible types of homicide to assure that its factual determinations based on the evidence and its application of the law are as comprehensive, complete, and fair as possible. Although the majority seems to accept this principle with respect to the crime of felony murder, it ignores it with respect to the crime of passion/provocation manslaughter.
Ill
Defendant urges as plain error that the trial court applied a legally incorrect standard for excusing death-scrupled jurors. Pointing to the voir dire of four particular jurors, he argues that the court qualified only those jurors who “unequivocally indicated that [they] would impose the death penalty” and excluded without meaningful follow-up questioning those who had expressed doubts about their ability to impose death. According to defendant, those jurors might well have been death qualified, albeit more reluctant to impose the death penalty than the jurors eventually chosen. The Court dismisses those contentions. Ante at 534-535, 601 A.2d at 182-183.
This Court has stressed repeatedly that the use of open-ended questions is an “important ingredient” in the process of juror death-qualification. Williams II, 113 N.J. 393, 413, 550 A.2d 1172 (1988). Here, however, death-qualification assumed a pattern typical of recent cases: an initial open-ended question on a juror’s thoughts on the death penalty followed by a series of leading, closed-ended questions seemingly calculated to elicit a “correct” response. See State v. Biegenwald, 126 N.J. 1, 39, 594 A.2d 172 (1991) (Biegenwald IV) (“The court’s initial open-ended question and variations on the ‘it depends’ response were too often followed by closed-ended, suggestive questions that, not surprisingly, elicited the obvious ‘correct’ response.”); State v. Dixon, supra, 125 N.J. at 271, 593 A.2d 266 (Handler, J., dissenting and concurring).
*561At the beginning of each day of jury selection, the trial court oriented the jury on New Jersey’s death-penalty statute, providing examples of aggravating factors and describing the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors. Prospective jurors then completed written questionnaires that solicited information on jurors’ family, employment, familiarity and experience with courts and the criminal justice system, knowledge of the case or any participants therein, ability to be impartial in a variety of situations, and ability to follow the law. During individual voir dire, the court probed into troublesome responses (or non-responses) on the questionnaire. It then asked several closed-ended questions respecting a juror’s ability to impose the death penalty. Many of these included purely hypothetical situations based on statutory aggravating factors such as a prior murder, a murder of a police officer, or a murder for hire, as well as a case involving drugs. The court also asked jurors about their ability to be impartial in light of a notorious incident in which the former Camden County Prosecutor resigned after having fabricated a story of a criminal assault on himself. Those questions were precisely the sort of leading, closed-ended questions we have disapproved in our prior cases.
The voir dire also reveals an overemphasis on jurors’ ability to follow a mechanical weighing process, to the neglect of other reasoning skills that capital sentencing requires. The trial court typically asked jurors whether they could impose the death penalty if they found the existence of an aggravating factor and concluded that it outweighed all mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. On receiving an affirmative response, the court then referred to hypothetical aggravating factors to see if a particular aggravating factor would change the process used by the juror to determine what penalty would be imposed {i.e., whether the juror would still weigh the factors or would automatically vote one way or another). The court typically referred to the three hypothetical aggravating factors — a prior murder conviction, murder for hire, and mur*562der of a policeman — to see whether any would affect the juror’s decision-making process.
Significantly, the court did not question jurors about the so-called “felony murder” aggravating factor that actually was present in this case. Had it done so, it might have found other jurors who could not engage in the weighing process fairly. See State v. Biegenwald IV, supra, 126 N.J. at 32, 594 A.2d 172 (“voir dire should include questioning about evidence of aggravating factors that will be presented during the sentencing proceeding and that may with reasonable likelihood have such an effect on a prospective juror as to render him or her ‘substantially impaired’ under the Adams-Witt standard.”).
Only one of the three hypothetical aggravating factors was present in this case, namely, a prior murder conviction. The court, however, did not ask jurors to consider the effect of the prior-murder-conviction aggravating factor alone. Hence, court and counsel could not winnow out jurors who could not fairly weigh that aggravating factor. We indicated in Biegenwald IV that when that factor is present in a capital-murder prosecution, it must be addressed in the juror death-qualification process. 126 N.J. at 31, 594 A.2d 172. That requirement could, in turn, impel the impanelling of two juries if necessary. Id. at 43-44, 594 A.2d 172. We did not suggest, nor could we approve, a voir dire in which the existence and significance of that aggravating factor could be glossed over or obscured.
IV
At the close of the guilt phase, the trial court instructed the jury with respect to the presumption of innocence and burden of proof. It told the jury that “[wjhile it is your duty to give the defendant the benefit of every reasonable doubt, you’re not to search for doubt. You are to search for the truth.” The court added: “your sole interest is to ascertain the truth from all the evidence that’s in the case that you’ve heard.” The court also advised the jury that “a reasonable doubt is not a *563doubt which is merely fanciful or speculative that one with a skeptical mind might produce.” It further instructed the jury that “a doubt which ignores a reasonable interpretation of the evidence ... is not a reasonable doubt.” These instructions were improper, for they implied that the jury could convict the defendant if the State’s theory was reasonable and more likely true than not. Although it used the phrase “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the court defined that phrase so as to render it indistinguishable from a mere preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.
Concededly, as this Court has often stated, “ ‘portions of a charge alleged to be erroneous cannot be dealt with in isolation’ ” and “the charge should be examined as a whole to determine its overall effect.” State v. Marshall, supra, 123 N.J. at 135, 586 A.2d 85 (quoting State v. Wilbely, 63 N.J. 420, 422, 307 A.2d 608 (1973)). Thus in Marshall, this Court held that the trial court’s exhortation to the jurors that their verdict should “declare the truth,” given at the end of otherwise correct instructions, was not reversible error. Id. 123 N.J. at 136, 586 A.2d 85. Similarly, in State v. Hunt, supra, 115 N.J. at 372, 558 A.2d 1259, the defendant contended that the trial court had diluted the State’s burden of proof by instructing the jury that it had a duty to determine “where the truth rests.” This Court rejected the defendant’s argument, noting that the defendant had failed to object below, and that the trial court had provided detailed instructions to the jury on the State’s burden to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, “[ljooking at the charge in its entirety, there was no error.” Id. at 373, 558 A.2d 1259. In State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 41, 524 A.2d 130 (1987), the trial court told the jury that the concept of reasonable doubt “is very basic and really very simple.” This Court admonished trial courts not to “understate[]” or “trivialize the awesome duty of the jury to determine whether the defendant’s guilt was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Ibid, (quoting Commonwealth v. Ferreira, 373 Mass. 116, 364 N.E.2d 1264, 1272 (1977)). The Court held, *564however, that when “[r]ead in context[,] the challenged portion does not constitute error.” Id. at 43, 524 A.2d 130. It noted that the trial court had defined reasonable doubt correctly and had made other comments, ensuring that the jury was fully and accurately apprised of the State’s burden of proof. See also State v. Clausell, 121 N.J. 298, 332-35, 580 A.2d 221 (1990) (court’s charge on reasonable doubt, when read in its entirety, was more than adequate).
Here, as noted, portions of the charge both improperly defined a reasonable doubt as “[a] doubt which ignores a reasonable interpretation of the evidence,” and, at the same time, exhorted the jury to “search for the truth.” Moreover, other aspects of the charge accentuated the admonition that “truth” could be a critical determinant of guilt. Thus, the court told the jury that “[y]ou and you alone decide which of the facts that you’ve heard are correct” and that “[t]he credit and belief for the defense must be determined by you and you alone.” (Emphasis added).
As a general proposition such instructions may be constitutionally permissible if given as part of a lengthy charge that is reasonably accurate and complete when viewed as a whole. See Marshall, supra, 123 N.J. at 136, 586 A.2d 85. In a capital case, however, we cannot afford to be so indulgent. The strictures of fundamental fairness command more exacting and punctilious scrutiny of jury instructions to discern the potential to confuse. In the context of a capital-murder prosecution, it is essential that the trial court’s instructions be reviewed meticulously to determine whether any statement, singly or with others, was incorrect and sufficient to create a risk of misleading the jury on a fundamental aspect of its responsibilities. Here there were mistaken communications and they did carry that risk.
V
For the foregoing reasons, I concur in part and dissent in part from the judgment of the Court.
*565For affirmance in part and reversal in part — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 6,
Concurring in part and dissenting in part — Justice HANDLER — 1.