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State v. Fortin2/3/2004
ted to the jury the ultimate finding of the aggravating factor that exposed the defendant to the penalty of death. The Court reasoned that " apital defendants, no less than non-capital defendants,... are entitled to a jury determination of any fact on which the legislature conditions an increase in their maximum punishment." Id. at 589, 122 S.Ct. at 2432, 153 L.Ed. 2d at 564. The Court rejected Arizona's argument that, because the statute at issue specified "death or life imprisonment" as the only sentencing options, Ring's death sentence was within the range of punishment authorized by the jury verdict. The Court noted:
[Arizona's] argument overlooks Apprendi's instruction that "the relevant inquiry is one not of form, but of effect." In effect, "the required finding [of an aggravated circumstance] expose [Ring] to a greater punishment than that authorized by the jury's guilty verdict." The Arizona first degree murder statute "authorizes a maximum penalty of death only in a formal sense" for it explicitly cross-references the statutory provision requiring the finding of an aggravating circumstance before imposition of the death penalty. If Arizona prevailed on its opening argument, Apprendi would be reduced to a "meaningless and formalistic" rule of statutory drafting.
[Id. at 604, 122 S.Ct. at 2440-41, 153 L.Ed. 2d at 573-74 (citations omitted).]
Where "enumerated aggravating factors operate as 'the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense,' the Sixth Amendment requires that they be found by a jury." Id. at 609, 122 S.Ct. at 2443, 153 L.Ed. 2d at 577 (citations omitted).
Ring thus fundamentally altered the constitutional significance of aggravating factors that expose a defendant to the death penalty. In the context of deciding when the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy protection applied to a penalty phase hearing in a capital case, the Supreme Court in Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania reasserted the principles established in Ring: [Ring] held that aggravating circumstances that make a defendant eligible for the death penalty "operate as 'the functional equivalent of an element of a greater offense.'" That is to say, for purposes of the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee, the underlying offense of "murder" is a distinct, lesser included offense of "murder plus one or more aggravating circumstances": Whereas the former exposes a defendant to a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, the latter increases the maximum permissible sentence to death. Accordingly, we held that the Sixth Amendment requires that a jury, and not a judge, find the existence of any aggravating circumstances, and that they be found, not by a mere preponderance of the evidence, but beyond a reasonable doubt. [537 U.S. 101, 111, 123 S.Ct. 732, 739, 154 L.Ed. 2d 588, 598-99 (2003) (plurality opinion) (internal citations omitted).]
See also Sattazahn, supra, 537 U.S. at 126 n.6, 123 S.Ct. at 747 n.6, 154 L.Ed. 2d at 608 n.6 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (noting that "capital sentencing proceedings involving proof of one or more aggravating factors are to be treated as trials of separate offenses, not mere sentencing proceedings").
Unlike Arizona, New Jersey always has required that capital "triggers" and aggravating factors go to the jury and that the facts in issue be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. On more than one occasion, this Court has acknowledged that, in important ways, aggravating factors are functionally indistinguishable from the elements of a crime. State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13, 59 (1987) (Biegenwald II) (noting "the functional similarity of aggravating factors and the weighing process itself to the traditional proof of 'elements of an offense'"
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