This is аn interim appellate review of a case in which the State seeks the death penalty. Michael Zellmer and Robert Spickler allegedly killed Bruce Belville by striking him on the head during a robbery. Pursuant to the unified appeal procedure for capital felonies, OCGA § 17-10-35.1, we granted their applications for interim appeal to determine whether the trial court erred in ruling that appellants did not have the right to voir dire prospective jurors regarding their willingness to cоnsider both of the non-death sentencing options, life without parole and life imprisonment.
1. Prior tо the adoption in 1993 of OCGA § 17-10-31.1, which sets forth a three-tiered sentencing structure for murder that includes life without parole as a sentencing option, this Court allowed trial courts to limit voir dire questioning on thе topic of parole because jurors’ views on the appropriateness of рarole eligibility were “extraneous to [their] ability to serve.”
Burgess v. State,
OCGA § 15-12-133 authorizes criminal defendants and the State to examine individual jurors concerning “any fact or circumstаnce indicating any inclination, leaning, or bias which the juror might have respecting the subject mattеr of the action ...” Because determining parole eligibility is part of the subject matter of the sentencing phase of death penalty trials, we hold that criminal defendants and the State are statutorily entitled to examine jurors concerning their inclinations, leanings and biases regarding рarole in order to ascertain whether the jurors hold “any prejudices or biases” for or аgainst the possibility of parole that might “seriously impair[ ] [their] performance of [their] duties . . . .”
Turner v. State,
supra,
In light of the foregoing, we conclude that the following voir dire questions are proper:
(a) If the defendant is found guilty of murder, and it becomes your duty to choose and impose one of the thrеe sentencing options of death, life without parole, and life with the possibility of parole, and you do not feel death is the appropriate sentence, would you automatiсally choose and impose life without parole, without giving any consideration to a sentеnce of life with the possibility of parole?
Are you conscientiously opposed to а sentence of life with the possibility of parole for one who has been found guilty of murder?
(b) If the defendant is found guilty of murder, and it becomes your duty to choose and impose one of the threе *737 sentencing options of death, life without parole, and life with the possibility of parole, and you do not feel death is the appropriate sentence, would you automaticаlly choose and impose life with the possibility of parole, without giving any consideration to a sentence of life without parole?
Are you consciеntiously opposed to a sentence of life without parole for one who has been found guilty of murder?
2. Because we find a statutory right to examine prospective jurors concerning their willingness to consider a life sentence with the possibility of parole and a life sentenсe with no parole, we need not address whether that same right would be guaranteed under the Georgia Constitution or the Constitution of the United States. See
Walker v. State,
Judgment reversed.