Court Opinion

ID: 9450966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:01:51.683842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:30.633717
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
I agree fully with the court’s opinion, and comment only on a matter not discussed therein. In first degree murder cases, a jury finding a verdict of guilty is given by statute three choices in the matter of penalty. It may impose the death penalty or life imprisonment, by unanimous vote. Or, if it is unable to agree as to penalty, it may report that fact to the trial judge, who is then to impose sentence. D.C.Code § 22-2404. Here the trial judge instructed the jury on sentencing as follows:
Now before leaving murder in the first degree I want to say to you that the punishment of murder in the first degree is death by electrocution unless the jury by unanimous vote recommends life imprisonment. Consequently, if you should find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree and you do not add any recommendation, it will be mandatory on the Court to sentence the defendant to capital punishment. However, if you add a unanimous recommendation to your verdict that the defendant be punished by life imprisonment, then it would be the duty of the Court to sentence the defendant to life imprisonment. Such a recommendation must be made by unanimous vote. If the jury is not unanimous on the question as to whether such a recommendation should be made, the jury must so inform the Court.
At the conclusion of the charge, the following transpired:
Mr. Sidman [Assistant United States Attorney]: * * * I may not have heard one part of Your Honor’s instructions, but may I inquire whether the Court advised the jury that in the event they are not unanimous as to punishment, that it then becomes the duty of the Court in the Court’s discretion—
The Court : I do not advise them that. I invariably don’t do that.
Mr. Sidman: I see.
The Court : For a very good reason. I had it in mind, but I omit that. I know one or two judges do otherwise, but it is not done in Courtroom No. 12.
*193There can be no “very good reason, and none is suggested, for a policy of ignoring a statutory mandate or misstating the law. But in the particular circumstances of this case, the effect was not prejudicial to the defense.