Price v. North Carolina

1994-06-30

Headline: Court vacates judgment and sends a death-penalty case back for reconsideration in light of Simmons, potentially forcing new review of a sentence where jurors were told unanimity was required to count mitigating evidence.

Holding: The Court granted review, vacated the North Carolina judgment, and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of Simmons v. South Carolina.

Real World Impact:

State court must re-evaluate the death sentence under Simmons and may order resentencing.
New sentencing jurors would not receive the prior unanimity instruction on mitigation.
If no resentencing occurs, the Supreme Court may revisit harmlessness of the earlier error.

Topics: death penalty, sentencing procedures, juror instructions, mitigating evidence

Summary

Background

Ricky Lee Price, who had been sentenced to death by a North Carolina jury, challenged his sentence after the State’s highest court reviewed whether jurors had been allowed to consider mitigating evidence. The Supreme Court granted review, vacated the North Carolina judgment, and sent the case back to that court for further consideration in light of the Court’s recent decision in Simmons v. South Carolina. This is one of several times the case has returned to state court for reconsideration in light of new constitutional rulings.

Reasoning

The narrow action by the Court directs the state court to reexamine Price’s sentence under Simmons. Justice Blackmun, writing separately, explains a related problem: the jury had been told it could count a mitigating circumstance only if every juror agreed, an instruction later found unconstitutional in McKoy. The North Carolina court relied on a post-trial juror poll to call that error harmless. Blackmun says the poll was ambiguous and cannot reliably show the unconstitutional instruction did not affect the jury’s decision.

Real world impact

On remand, the state court must decide whether Simmons requires a new sentencing hearing. If new sentencing is ordered, jurors will not receive the now-disallowed unanimity instruction, and the sentencing process could change materially. If no new hearing is ordered, the Supreme Court may again have to consider whether the earlier unanimity instruction was harmless.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Blackmun’s concurrence highlights the unresolved McKoy error and argues the state court’s poll does not prove the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.