State v. Huff , 325 N.C. 1 ( 1989 )

Chief Justice EXUM

concurring.

I concur with the majority’s treatment of all issues in the guilt and sentencing phases of this trial.

If in the sentencing phase the Court were addressing for the first time the mitigating circumstance unanimity instruction issue, I would agree with defendant’s position that these instructions violate the Eighth Amendment to the federal constitution as that amendment was interpreted in Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. —, 100 L.Ed. 2d 384 (1988), for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinions in State v. McKoy, 323 N.C. 1, 372 S.E. 2d 12 (1988), cert. granted, — U.S. —, 103 L.Ed. 2d 180 (1989), and State v. Allen, 323 N.C. 208, 372 S.E. 2d 855 (1988). The majority’s position on this issue is, as a result of the Court’s decisions in McKoy and Allen, the law of this state to which I am now bound. For this reason I concur with the majority’s treatment of this issue.