People v. Dailey

Opinion

MASTERSON, J.

Sometimes even the most egregious mistake made at trial can be rectified on appeal. Sometimes it cannot. The mistake here was the failure to provide spaces on the verdict forms to specify the degree of the murders of which a jury found appellants guilty. Although the consequences of this mistake may reduce by decades the sentences imposed for appellants’ brutal crimes, we are powerless to correct it.

Background

Appellants Ray Arthur Dailey and Albert Alexander, along with other accomplices, engaged in a crime spree over a 24-hour period in December 1991 in which they…