Court Opinion

ID: 9570265
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:21:48.494177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:18.648128
License: Public Domain

Justice Meyer
dissenting.
I do not agree that the failure to give a peremptory instruction on the statutory mitigating circumstance that defendant suffered a mental or emotional disturbance at the time of the murder, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(f)(2) (1988), which circumstance the jury actually found, constitutes reversible error requiring a new sentencing proceeding.
It is my position that the majority’s reliance on State v. Gay, 334 N.C. 467, 492-94, 434 S.E.2d 840, 855 (1993), is misplaced. Though I voted for the opinion in Gay, I have since concluded that Gay was wrongly decided. Moreover, in this case, we are faced with a statutory mitigating circumstance not a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance, as was the issue in Gay.
*411It is quite clear that we employed the wrong standard of review in Gay. In Gay, this Court held that it was error to fail to give a peremptory instruction on a nonstatutory mitigating circumstance. We said in Gay.
In regard to the nonstatutory mitigating circumstances which were found by one or more jurors, we have no way of knowing whether or not they were unanimously found. If one was not unanimously found, it is possible that more jurors, or all the jurors, would have found the circumstance to exist and to have mitigating value had a peremptory instruction been given.
Id. at 494, 434 S.E.2d at 855. This Court then held that the defendant was entitled to a new sentencing hearing because the Court was “unable to find the error [failure to give a peremptory instruction on uncontroverted nonstatutory mitigating circumstances] harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.
While we have held that it is error to fail to give peremptory instructions where the evidence of mitigating circumstances is uncontroverted, the error is not one of constitutional magnitude warranting the “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” standard.
The United States Supreme Court has stated:
“Lockett and its progeny stand only for the proposition that a State may not cut off in an absolute manner the presentation of mitigating evidence, either by statute or judicial instruction, or by limiting the inquiries to which it is relevant so severely that the evidence could never be part of the sentencing decision at all.”
Johnson v. Texas,-U.S.-,-, 125 L. Ed. 2d 290, 302 (quoting with approval some language from Kennedy, J.’s concurring in judgment opinion in McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 456, 108 L. Ed. 2d 369, 389 (1990)), reh’g denied, — U.S. —, 125 L. Ed. 2d 767 (1993). Whether a mitigating circumstance is charged upon peremptorily is not an issue of constitutional dimension because failure to give a peremptory instruction does not preclude in any manner the presentation of mitigating evidence or limit the jury’s consideration of such evidence. Where, as here, and as in Gay with regard to several nonstatutory circumstances, the jury considered and actually found the mitigating circumstance in question, it is clear that Lockett and its progeny have not been violated and that no error of constitutional dimension has occurred.
*412Since the failure to give a peremptory instruction is not an issue of constitutional dimension, the appropriate standard for determining whether the trial court’s error was prejudicial is whether there is a “reasonable possibility that, had the error in question not been committed, a different result would have been reached at the trial.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) (1988). Further, “[t]he burden of showing such prejudice under this subsection is upon the defendant.” Id. Applying this standard to the case sub judice, defendant has failed to demonstrate that he was prejudiced by the trial court’s refusal to give a peremptory instruction on the statutory mitigating circumstance at issue.
In sum, I believe that State v. Gay was wrongly decided, that the majority’s reliance on State v. Gay in this case is thus misplaced, and that the majority erroneously applies a “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to an error that is not of constitutional dimension. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.