Court Opinion

ID: 9625904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:54:54.746291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:34.773292
License: Public Domain

FINNEY, Chief Justice:
I respectfully dissent, and would reverse and remand for a new sentencing proceeding.
Under the 1996 amendments to S.C.Code Ann. § 16-3-20, all capital defendants face one of three sentences:
(1) death; or
(2) life in prison until death; or
(3) unconditional release after service of a minimum term of thirty years, with no possibility of parole.1
*310Appellant contends that since he was parole ineligible as a matter of state law, the jury was entitled to be charged this fact when they inquired. I agree.
The majority deems the holding in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154, 114 S.Ct. 2187, 129 L.Ed.2d 133 (1994), inapplicable because appellant’s sentencing options were not limited to death or life without possibility of parole, and cites a number of cases in support of this proposition. In all the cited cases except one, however, the defendant’s sentencing possibilities included one in which he would be parole eligible. The only case in which the defendant did not face a potential parolable sentence was United States v. Flores, 63 F.3d 1342 (5th Cir.1995). Flores involves a federal conviction, and parole has been abolished in the federal system. It is inapposite to the present South Carolina sentencing scheme, as are all the other cases cited. While I concede that Simmons does not directly control this case2, the overriding principle to be drawn from that decision is that due process is violated when a jury’s speculative misunderstanding about a capital defendant’s parole eligibility is allowed to go uncorrected. Here, the jury’s inquiry prompted a misleading response which suggested parole was a possibility. In my opinion, due process mandates reversal.
*311Further, if the decision whether to inform .juries which inquire about parole eligibility is simply one of policy, as the majority suggests in Part I C, then why not adopt a policy which gives the jurors the simply truth: no parole. The majority acknowledges, as it must,3 that parole considerations “could” affect a jury’s sentencing decision,4 but then deems it “irrelevant” and denigrates its importance as “[a] bit of information that might possibly influence the individual juror’s voting behavior.” The specter of parole haunts every capital sentencing proceeding in this State, and I cannot understand why, given the simplicity of our new sentencing scheme in which no capital defendant is ever parole eligible, we would make a policy decision prohibiting the dissemination of the truth.
Of course, I would not stop with a charge that the defendant was not parole eligible, for that is only half the truth. I would tell the jury that if no aggravating circumstance is found, the defendant faces a minimum of thirty years without possibility of early release, but that if aggravating circumstances are found,.then the alternatives are death or life in prison until death.
For these reasons, and with instructions that henceforth juries which inquire shall be charged the truth about sentencing, I would reverse and remand for a new sentencing proceeding in this matter.

. In this opinion and in State v. Starnes, 340 S.C. 312, 531 S.E.2d 907 (2000), the Court has avoided directly deciding the parole eligibility *310status of a capital defendant who receives a term of years sentence. In my opinion, we must decide this question today in order to address the jury charge issues raised by appellant. The murder statute is clear as to certain defendants: "No person sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment for thirty years pursuant to this section is eligible for parole ... or any other credits which would reduce the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment for thirty years required by this section.” § 16-3-20(A) (Supp.1999). Since the murder statute is silent as to the parole eligibility of defendants receiving a sentence in excess of the mandatory minimum, the general rule controls. Under § 16—1—10(d) (Supp.1999), murder is exempt from the classification system, and under § 24-13-100 (Supp.1999), persons convicted of exempt offenses are ineligible for parole. Thus, although a capital defendant may receive a sentence of a term of years, he is ineligible for parole whatever the duration of that term.

. We are not concerned with whether a Simmons charge was warranted at the initial charge to the jury since future dangerousness was not an issue, but rather with the procedure to be followed when a capital jury inquires about parole.

. Given the regularity with which capital juries inquire about parole, we cannot deny its role in sentencing.

. See Bowers, Vandiver & Dugan, A New Look at Public Opinion On Capital Punishment: What Citizens and Legislators Prefer, 22 Am.J.Crim.L. 77 (1994).