State v. Purnell

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

*523O’HERN, J.

The central question in this capital appeal is whether a jury may impose a sentence of death on the basis that the murder was committed in the course of a felony without being permitted to consider, in the guilt-innocence phase of the capital trial, the non-capital verdict of felony murder. We find such a procedure to be constitutionally defective. The right to trial by jury includes the right to have the jury consider “all of the possible offenses that might reasonably be found” from the facts of a case. State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 271…