State v. Benton

We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly held that the jury’s verdict of “guilty with leniency” rendered the verdict illegal and to consider whether, if it did, the “plain error” rule applied to avoid waiver of the issue of the verdict’s legality.1 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the verdict was not illegal, and we thus do not need to address the issue of plain error. Because we conclude that the verdict was not illegal, we must reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The appellee, Calvin Benton, was tried for armed robbery. On three occasions during the trial,2 the trial court instructed the jury that its sole function was to determine Benton’s guilt or innocence; that it was not to concern itself “in any way” with the sentence Benton would receive if the jury found him guilty; and that, if the jury found Benton guilty, it was exclusively the duty of the court to determine his sentence. The jury became deadlocked while it was deliberating, and the trial court gave the jury an Allen charge. After an unknown period of time after the Allen charge, the jurors sent a note to the judge asking if they could ask for leniency with a guilty verdict. The court did not answer the question, but sent back a note asking if the jury had a verdict. The jury answered that it did. However, before the trial court accepted the verdict, it reminded the jurors that the court had charged the jurors on three occasions that their concern was solely with the guilt or innocence of Benton, and it told them again that that was their sole concern. The jury returned a verdict of “guilty with leniency.” Benton did not object to the verdict, and the trial court announced that the verdict is “guilty.” The jury was then polled, with all jurors affirmatively stating that this was their verdict in the jury room and at the time of the polling.

Benton appealed to the Court of Appeals, and did not enumerate the legality of the verdict as error. The Court of Appeals, however, reversed on the ground that the verdict was illegal due to the language regarding leniency, that the illegality of the verdict constituted plain error, and that the trial court should have returned the jury for further deliberations with directions to follow the court’s instructions.3 We subsequently granted the State’s petition for certiorari.