Court Opinion

ID: 9819045
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 06:18:06.992579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:38:28.991262
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, dissenting: Unlike the majority, I do not believe that the trial judge was required to conduct a new sentencing hearing after this court reversed one of the defendant’s convictions for first degree murder and the State decided not to retry the defendant on that count. Accordingly, I dissent. In the defendant’s prior appeal, this court determined that the defendant’s conviction on count I, for first degree murder, required reversal because of error in the jury instructions used at trial. We remanded the cause to the circuit court, providing the State with the options of either retrying the defendant on count I or seeking imposition of a sentence on the remaining first degree murder count, count II. Our opinion did not specify whether or not a new sentencing hearing would be required if the State did not seek a new trial on the reversed conviction. I believe that the trial judge acted properly in sentencing the defendant on count II without holding a new sentencing hearing, after the State decided not to retry the defendant on count I. The defendant had previously waived a jury for capital sentencing purposes, and the same judge had presided at the defendant’s sentencing hearing. On remand, the judge concluded that the death sentence should again be imposed, notwithstanding the reversal of the defendant’s other conviction for first degree murder. In his brief, the defendant allows that this court, if it believed that the death sentence was not affected by the reversal of the conviction on count I, could have simply amended the mittimus to reflect that the death sentence was being imposed on count II. Nothing in our earlier decision, remanding the cause to the circuit court, precluded the trial judge from also determining that a new hearing was unnecessary in the circumstances shown here. For these reasons, I do not believe that the trial judge was required to hold a new sentencing hearing in this case, and I would therefore address the remaining issues raised by the defendant in the present appeal. JUSTICE HEIPLE joins in this dissent.