holding the prosecution’s remarks "did not lessen the jury's sense of responsibility as the ultimate arbiter of the sentence to be imposed”
How later courts described this case
- holding the prosecution’s remarks "did not lessen the jury's sense of responsibility as the ultimate arbiter of the sentence to be imposed”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*41 ZAPPALA, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment.
In Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, 521 Pa. 188 , 555 A.2d 846 (1989), we went to some lengths to demonstrate that the prosecutor’s remarks were reasonable response to defense counsel’s arguments. I find no similar circumstance here. In Abu-Jamal we further found that the prosecutor’s argument, as a whole and in context, did not create a risk that the jury would abdicate to the reviewing courts its responsibility to determine sentence. Here, the prosecutor’s argument was tainted throughout, even incorrectly suggesting to the jury that a life sentence carried the possibility of parole. Nevertheless, because the jury ultimately found two aggravating circumstances, which were incontestable matters of fact, and no mitigating circumstances, the sentence of death was required under 42 Pa.C.S. § 9711(c)(iv), and cannot be said to be a product of the prosecutor’s improper remarks. See Commonwealth v. Crawley, 514 Pa. 539, 559-60 , 526 A.2d 334, 344-45 (1987).