The Jury had a Question...
WHAT IS A "MITIGATING FACTOR"?
The
Judge in response to the Jury's question told the Jury to re-read their instructions, the same instructions that
confused them in the first place.
The Jury could not have chose a verdict of "Guilty" for First Degree Murder if there was a mitigating factor, that factor being that if Denny "at the time he performed the act that
caused Tony's death, acted under a sudden and intense
passion resulting from serious provocation by Tony" .
They then came back with a "Guilty of First Degree Murder" verdict.
Here is a sample of the Jury Instructions that the Jury was given.
Charge: First Degree Murder
To sustain the charge of first degree murder, the State must prove the following propositions:
First Proposition: That the defendant performed the acts which caused the death of the individual; and
Second Proposition: That
when the defendant did so, he intended to kill or do great bodily harm
to the individual. he knew such acts would cause death to the
individual, he knew that such acts created a strong probability of death
or great bodily harm to the individual.
If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that any one
of these propositions has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt,
your deliberations on the first degree charge should end and you should
return a verdict of not guilty of first degree murder.
If
you find from your consideration of all the evidence that each one of
these propositions has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, then you
should go on with your deliberations to decide whether a "mitigating factor" has been proved so that the defendant is guilty of a lesser offense of second degree murder instead of first degree murder.
The defendant has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that a "mitigating factor"
is present so that he is guilty of the lesser offense of second degree
murder instead of first degree murder. By this I mean that you must be
persuaded, considering all the evidence in this case, that it is more
probably true than not true that the following mitigating factor
is present: that the defendant, at the time he performed the acts that
caused the death of the deceased acted under a sudden and intense
passion resulting from serious provocation by the deceased.
If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that the defendant has proved by a preponderance of the evidence that a mitigating factor
is present so that he is guilty of the lesser offense of second degree
murder instead of first degree murder, you should find the defendant
guilty of second degree murder.
If you find that any of
the propositions regarding second degree murder have not been proved
beyond a reasonable doubt, your deliberations on second degree should
end, and your deliberations should go on to decide whether the defendant
is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. If you determine from your
deliberations that the defendant is not guilty of involuntary
manslaughter, you should return a verdict of "not guilty".
