Court Opinion

ID: 9707723
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:19:32.153156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:41:50.763194
License: Public Domain

*483LONG, J.,
Dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the jury instruction given in this case was fundamentally flawed insofar as it stated that:
To the extent reasonably possible you should, by reason, attempt to reach agreement on the question whether a particular mitigating factor does or does not exist.
That language that urges consensus on mitigating factors is plainly wrong and, as the majority has properly concluded, should be eliminated from the charge and should not be used by trial judges in death penalty cases. I part company from my colleagues in connection with their concomitant conclusion that the improper and misleading instruction did not enure to defendant’s detriment.
In reaching its determination, the majority holds, as it did in State v. Loftin, 146 N.J. 295, 680 A.2d 677 (1996), and State v. Cooper, 151 N.J. 326, 700 A.2d 306 (1997), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1084, 120 S.Ct. 809, 145 L.Ed.2d 681 (2000), that the jurors in this case were not confused regarding their ability to be non-unanimous in the finding of the mitigating factors. In support, the majority references the judge’s repeated instruction that unanimity is not required. In my view, that begs the question. Defendant’s claim is not that he was prejudiced by a jury charge that expressed a unanimity requirement, but by an instruction that indicated to jurors that agreement regarding mitigating factors was “preferred.”
Indeed, agreement is not preferred, and no such preference should be conveyed to the jury. The deliberative process in a death penalty case requires an individual finding on the mitigating factors and an individual weighing of those mitigating factors against the aggravating factors. State v. Bey (II), 112 N.J. 123, 161, 548 A.2d 887 (1988). When the process is understood as an individualized one, in which a single juror can make the difference between life and death, the danger of a “preference for consensus” instruction is obvious. Merely advising the jury that unanimity is *484not required, does nothing to negate the vice of the preference charge.
Importantly, the jury’s vote of twelve to zero (12-0) on two of the factors and six to six (6-6) on the other two factors underscores the possibility, not present in Lofbin or Cooper, that the jurors did, in fact, feel compelled to try to agree. Of the thirty-one mitigating factors in Lofbin, seven were found by only one juror and five by only two jurors. Similarly, in Cooper, one or two jurors were not deterred from voting against their peers on the mitigating factors; four mitigating factors were found by two jurors and two by three jurors. When compared with Lofbin and Cooper, the significance of the votes in this case is not that there were two non-unanimous votes, as the majority concludes, but that the votes were either unanimous or evenly split, suggesting the real possibility that the jurors were under pressure to agree. The monolithic and bilithic votes in this case thus do not give me the confidence that the Court had in Lofbin and Cooper that individual jurors understood that agreement is no more favored than isolation where mitigating factors are concerned.
The enhanced reliability required for a death sentence mandates that there “be little chance that the jury as a whole, or even an individual juror, is confused about the process.” State v. Koskovich, 168 N.J. 448, 526, 776 A.2d 144 (2001). Here, it is likely that the jurors were improperly influenced toward consensus on mitigating factors and understood such consensus to be preferred over a non-unanimous verdict. That, in turn, may have dissuaded a single juror from standing alone in finding a particular mitigating factor. At the very least, a juror would be less likely to do so under the instruction as given. That is not a tolerable outcome. Therefore, I dissent.
For affirmance—Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LaVECCHIA, ZAZZALI, ALBIN, WALLACE and RIVERA-SOTO—6.
For reversal—Justice LONG—1.