State v. Davis

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

O’HERN, Justice.

In State v. Biegenwald, 106 N.J. 13 (1987), and State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123 (1987), we determined the constitutionality of New Jersey’s capital punishment act, N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3, and established standards for its application. In this case, tried before those decisions, the jury charge failed to comply with the Biegenwald requirement that to impose the death penalty the jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the *346statutory aggravating factors of N.J.S.A. 2C:ll-3 outweigh the mitigating factors. The charge here would have…