| Chapter
8
Covering
Criminal Courts
By Maurice
Possley
Jury Deliberations
If the case has been heard by a jury, the jurors retire to deliberate in secret.
They may be sequestered overnight or over a weekend. They may be allowed to go
home. (The jury in the Exxon Valdez civil trial deliberated for three weeks before
reaching a verdict.)
If the jurors cannot reach a unanimous agreement, a judge may
declare the jury “hung” and order a mistrial. In that
event, the prosecution is allowed to retry the case again at a
later time. (Most jurisdictions require that jury verdicts in felony
criminal cases be unanimous. However, there are a few states that
allow 10-2 verdicts for conviction.)
When a verdict has been reached, it is announced in open court.
Defense lawyers usually request that the jurors be polled—a
process in which each juror is asked individually to verbally affirm
that the verdict that was announced was, in fact, their verdict.
A reporter is advised to obtain copies of the verdict forms from
the prosecution prior to the announcement of the verdict. These
verdict forms show exactly the charges that the jurors vote upon.
When a jury renders a split decision—convicting on some counts,
but acquitting on others—knowing what the jurors rejected
may be important for a reporter to be able to explain. In 2004,
for example, a jury in the case of former New Jersey Nets basketball
star Jayson Williams acquitted him of three of the most serious
charges in the fatal shooting of a chauffeur at his estate. A mistrial
was declared on a fourth charge because the jury was deadlocked.
He was convicted of four charges that he covered up his involvement
in the shooting. He was acquitted of aggravated manslaughter, which
carried a maximum 30 year prison term, and two weapons charges,
one of which carried a 10 year term. A mistrial was declared on
a charge of reckless manslaughter, which carries a maximum 10 year
term. The cover up charges carried a combined 13 years.
Juror Interviews
Jurors are never to be approached by the media until after they have been discharged
at the conclusion of a case. To attempt to contact a juror during the case
is considered jury tampering, which is a felony criminal offense punishable
by several years in prison. In major cases, media often try to interview
the jurors to find out why they decided they way they did. Judges may try
to discourage this by emphasizing to the jurors that they do not have to
talk to reporters or anyone else. Still, jurors sometimes hold press conferences
because they are aware of the intense interest in the case and seek to avoid
being tracked down at their homes.
It is important to research the statutes and understand the maximum
and minimum sentences that can be imposed. Usually at sentencing,
defense lawyers argue previously filed motions to set aside the
verdict. This motion is a legal argument and rarely is successful
because essentially it is an argument to the trial judge that he
or she made incorrect rulings on evidence during the trial. Despite
its infrequent success, this is a crucial motion because it is
the last opportunity for the defense to preserve issues for appeal.
Failure to object at this juncture frequently means the objection
is forever waived and cannot be argued to an appellate court. An
exception to this occurs when a defendant can argue that the waiver
of the objection demonstrated incompetence of counsel.
Sentencing
After rulings on post-trial motions, a sentencing hearing will be held. It
may be simple or complex, short or lengthy. Prosecutors may call witnesses,
for example, to testify about other crimes committed in the past or to conduct
in jail while awaiting trial, and defense lawyers may call witnesses to plead
for leniency. In some states, such as Texas, juries are allowed to set the
punishment within a certain range – say, 15 years to life.
In a series of decisions in 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court
dramatically changed how criminal defendants are sentenced in federal
and state courts, calling into question thousands of sentences
across the country and re-opening how the prosecutors investigate,
charge, and negotiate with accused criminals. In January 2005,
the justices, in a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer,
said that the federal sentencing guidelines, which have provided
judges with formulas to calculate sentences since 1987, were not
mandatory and that judges were not required to follow them. A year
earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled the same way with regards
to state courts. At the heart of the decisions is the Sixth Amendment
requirement that all questions of fact must be decided by a jury.
Under the sentencing guidelines, judges were able to impose harsher
penalties or longer prison terms if the judges believed that the
evidence showed that the defendant had committed other crimes in
addition to the crime the jury decided. This issue will likely
cause great confusion for some time as lower courts try to make
sense of the Supreme Court's pronouncements.
The decision on federal guidelines struck down as unconstitutional
a provision that had made them mandatory. The decision appears
to mean that judges will have significantly more discretion in
how they sentence defendants--an outcome the guidelines were designed
to curtail. Some believe Congress will likely go back into the
sentencing arena to take that discretion away. Breyer acknowledged
that “ours, of course, is not the last word: The ball now
lies in Congress' court.”
Death Penalty Cases
In death penalty cases, the trial is often broken into the guilt stage, the
eligibility stage, and the punishment stage. After a finding of guilt, the
fact-finder—whether a judge or jury—hears evidence and decides
whether a defendant is meets the criteria to be eligible for the ultimate
penalty. These aggravating circumstances – the cruelty of the crime,
indifference of the defendant, whether the defendant has killed before, the
age of the victim – must be weighed against the mitigating circumstances – for
example, the defendant’s contrition, IQ or mental state, or if the
defendant was abused as a child -- in determining punishment.
Flawed jury instructions or charges and ineffective assistance
of counsel are the two of the most frequent reasons why the appellate
courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, reverse death sentences.
After a determination of guilt, the judge or jury decides whether
a death sentence should be imposed. While many states consider
a jury’s decision regarding life or death a recommendation,
there are two states—Florida and Alabama—where a judge
can override a jury’s recommendation of a life sentence and
impose a death sentence.
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