OPINION OF THE COURT
Ciparick, J.
Three years ago, in People v LaValle (3 NY3d 88 [2004]), we held that the jury deadlock instruction under CPL 400.27 violates our State Constitution. Because a deadlock instruction is both essential to a death penalty statute and necessary to conform with principles of due process, we were compelled to [138] invalidate the entire sentencing portion of the statute. We are now asked to decide whether an earlier attempt by a trial court to minimize the coercive effect of the flawed jury deadlock instruction warrants revisiting the issue of that instruction’s constitutionality as applied to the present defendant. We hold that under the doctrine of stare decisis, defendant’s death sentence must be vacated and the matter remitted to Supreme Court for resentencing.
I
In May 2000, defendant John Taylor and a coworker, Craig Godineaux, plotted to commit a robbery. Although Godineaux suggested robbing livery cabs, defendant convinced him that they should focus instead on fast-food restaurants as defendant was familiar with them, having previously worked at McDonald’s and Wendy’s. On the evening of Wednesday May 24, the two met near defendant’s home in Queens with a plan to rob a Wendy’s restaurant where defendant previously worked as an assistant manager. When the two met, defendant was carrying a roll of duct tape in a black plastic bag, a briefcase “to hold the money” and a loaded .380 semiautomatic handgun, which he had purchased on the street, in his “fanny pack” along with an extra ammunition clip.
Defendant and Godineaux arrived at Wendy’s at approximately 10:55 p.m., minutes before closing time. The two ordered food and ate separately. Defendant took a moment to speak with the store manager, Jean Auguste, a former coworker. While eating, defendant “leered” at the two remaining customers. At approximately 11:15 p.m., one of the employees let those customers out of the restaurant and relocked the door. Shortly thereafter, defendant entered the employee area behind the counter and descended the stairs to the basement. Defendant entered the manager’s office and pointed a gun at Auguste while demanding all of the money in the safe. Auguste took about $2,400 in bills and coins from the safe and put it in defendant’s briefcase and bag, along with that evening’s surveillance video. In response to Auguste’s pleas, defendant assured him that he would only duct-tape the employees so he could get away. Auguste then got on the intercom and stated “tell everybody to come downstairs, we are having a meeting, it is important.” Jaquoine Johnson heard the announcement and led everyone downstairs with Godineaux following. Once all of the employees had descended the stairs, Godineaux ripped a phone cord from a wall near the top of the stairs and joined the others.
[139] Along with Johnson and Auguste, there were five other employees in the store—Anita Smith, Patricio Castro, Jeremy Mele, Ramon Nazario and Ali Ibadat. Defendant ordered them all to lie face down on the floor with their hands behind their backs. In the interim, defendant obtained the key to the restaurant’s entrance from one of the employees. Meanwhile, Godineaux donned gloves, which he had brought with him, and with duct tape bound each of the employee’s hands and mouth.1 Auguste, who was having trouble breathing, managed to free his hands and remove the tape from his mouth. In response, Godineaux punched him in the face, yelled at him and retaped his hands and mouth.
Once all of the employees were bound, they were led to the nearby walk-in refrigerator and ordered to their knees. Godineaux then placed clear plastic bags, which defendant had retrieved from another room, over six of the employees’ heads, and defendant placed a bag over the remaining employee’s head. Johnson, who was able to see through his bag, saw defendant shoot Auguste in the head. After the shot, Smith started screaming “what happened.” When another shot was fired, the screaming ceased. Defendant passed the gun to Godineaux and said “finish them.” Godineaux, in turn, shot Nazario, Castro, Meli, Ibadat and Johnson—all in their heads and at close range. Following the shooting, defendant and Godineaux went upstairs, unlocked the door, exited the restaurant and relocked the door. Only Castro and Johnson survived.2 The other five employees [140] all died from gunshot wounds to the head.* *3 At some point after defendant and Godineaux left, Castro regained consciousness, got free and called 911 for help using the office fax machine telephone. Defendant and Godineaux eventually parted ways.
Defendant quickly became the focus of a police investigation of the shootings. He was identified, in separate photo arrays, by a person who saw him leaving Wendy’s that night and by one of the customers who was present in the restaurant when defendant had arrived.4 The police also learned that defendant was a former employee who had been fired from this Wendy’s location.5 Upon learning from news reports that the police had identified him as a suspect in the shootings, defendant went to his sister’s home in Suffolk County on the morning of May 26. However, the New York City Police Department had already contacted the Suffolk County police, who had agreed to arrange for surveillance of the home.
At around 4:00 p.m. that day, a 911 operator received a call from someone at the sister’s house stating that a child was injured while riding a bicycle. The officers, responding to that call, were intercepted and shown a picture of defendant. When the responding officers arrived, they arrested defendant while the medics were treating the child. The police found the loaded .380 handgun that defendant used at Wendy’s along with an extra clip in the “fanny pack” he was wearing. Inside his sister’s home, the police also found defendant’s suitcase which contained some of the clothing he wore during the shootings, the surveillance tape, approximately $1,500 in cash and one live .380 round.
Thereafter, three New York City police officers drove defendant to a detective squad in Queens. As defendant was placed in the car, he said “please get Craig. He’s at SC&R right now. He’s security just like me at 165th and Jamaica Avenue, you know, the coliseum.” The officers tried to calm defendant, but he [141] continued to blurt out comments about how his life was in jeopardy because he was the only one who saw Craig shoot everyone at Wendy’s. Defendant was then advised of his Miranda rights but he continued “rambling on” about Craig.6 The police continued to assure defendant that he would be heard in full when they arrived at the precinct, and after about 10 minutes he stopped talking.7
At the precinct, defendant was again read his Miranda rights in the interview room and at 6:15 p.m., then-Detective Elizabeth Curcio began to interview him. The interview lasted just over one hour. During this time defendant made an oral statement and agreed to execute a written statement if Curcio drafted it for him. Curcio drafted an 11-page statement over the course of the next three hours. The statement was signed by Curcio and defendant. According to defendant’s statements, Godineaux did not see the gun until he saw defendant with it in the basement. At that point, Godineaux grabbed the gun from defendant and shot Auguste while saying “[n]o witnesses” and screaming to defendant to give him the other clip. Defendant stated that he walked away and heard about nine shots.
At around midnight, defendant agreed to make a videotaped statement. While several assistant district attorneys questioned defendant during his video statement—which essentially mirrored his statements to Curcio—various detectives investigated the inconsistencies and gaps in defendant’s confession. Most glaring was defendant’s claim that Godineaux knew that there was an extra magazine with ammunition despite the fact that there was no indication that defendant ever mentioned it to him. In response to the questioning regarding this discrepancy, defendant admitted orally, and later in writing, that he shot Auguste and then gave Godineaux the gun and told him to “finish them.”
[142] Defendant was tried by a jury and convicted of 20 counts—six for first-degree murder under various theories including intentional felony murder, multiple-victim murder and command murder.8 After a sentencing phase trial during which defendant proffered his mitigating evidence, the jury returned a verdict in favor of death on three first-degree murder counts— count eight—as part of the same criminal transaction, defendant caused the deaths of more than one person (see Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [viii]); count fourteen—in the course of a robbery, defendant killed Jean Auguste (see Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]); and count fifteen—in the course of a robbery, defendant killed Anita Smith (see Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]).9 Defendant now appeals his conviction and sentence as of right under CPL 450.70 (1).
II
On March 20, 2002, prior to jury selection, defendant moved for an order declaring the deadlock jury instruction under CPL 400.27 (10) unconstitutional and nonseverable. Defendant argued that the provision “injects arbitrariness into the sentencing proceeding and unconstitutionally coerces jurors into giving up their conscientiously held sentencing determinations in order to return a verdict and avoid the possibility of parole after as few as twenty years.” Supreme Court, denying the motion in all respects, found that defendant was unable to surmount the statute’s strong presumption of constitutionality.
After Supreme Court determined that the deadlock provision was constitutional, defense counsel asked for a jury instruction that defendant would never be released from jail. At the end of the penalty phase, the defense again requested that the judge tell the jury that he was “going to give [defendant] 175 years [143] and there is no practical ] possibility of getting out of jail.” The judge responded:
“And, therefore, they might as well, if they can’t agree on death, give him life without parole.
“The statute, the statute requires me not to, does not require me to say what I’m going to say. It requires only for me to tell them 20 to 25 years to life as to sentence. That is all it requires. What I am doing is something more. . . .
“I decline to assure them and give them a guarantee today of what I will do in the future and you have your objection.”
On November 25, 2002, the court charged the jury, in part:
“Now, any decision by you to impose a sentence, whether of death or of life imprisonment without parole, would have to be unanimous. In other words, each juror would have to agree to it.
“I am required to tell you that the law provides that in the event the jury fails to reach unanimous agreement with respect to the sentence, then I must sentence the defendant myself.
“And the law provides that if I sentence the defendant, I must sentence him to life imprisonment, but I must also fix a point at which the defendant will become eligible for parole.
“Under the law I must fix that point between twenty and twenty-five years for each count. In other words, on each count I would sentence the defendant to life imprisonment and order that he not become eligible for parole until he has served the minimum term that I fix, a term of between twenty and twenty-five years for each count.
“I think it is fair to tell you, however, that the six [count] s of first degree murder, and the two counts of first degree attempted murder on which you have convicted the defendant, are precisely the type of crimes that almost always induce a judge to give the maximum sentence permissible.
“In this case I would have the authority to sentence [144] the defendant, not only to the maximum on each count, but also to make those sentences run consecutively. So, the maximum sentence I could give and would almost certainly impose in this case, would be a sentence of 175 years to life, which means that the defendant would become eligible for parole, but only after he had served 175 years in jail.”
Defendant now argues, in light of this Court’s declaration in People v LaValle (3 NY3d 88 [2004]) that CPL 400.27 (10)’s deadlock jury instruction is unconstitutional, his death sentence must be vacated. We agree that LaValle is controlling and mandates defendant’s resentencing.
Ill
The deadlock jury instruction of our death penalty statute, CPL 400.27 (10), provides in relevant part:
“In its charge, the court must instruct the jury that with respect to each count of murder in the first degree the jury should consider whether or not a sentence of death should be imposed and whether or not a sentence of life imprisonment without parole should be imposed, and that the jury must be unanimous with respect to either sentence. The court must also instruct the jury that in the event the jury fails to reach unanimous agreement with respect to the sentence, the court will sentence the defendant to a term of imprisonment with a minimum term of between twenty and twenty-five years and a maximum term of life.”
New York’s death penalty statute, in its present form, was enacted in 1995 (see L 1995, ch 1). The coerciveness and constitutionality of its anticipatory deadlock jury instruction was questioned from its inception. Supreme Court in People v Harris ruled that CPL 400.27 (10) was unconstitutional and refused to charge it at the sentencing trial (see 177 Misc 2d 160, 164 [Sup Ct, Kings County 1998]). On appeal to this Court, defendant argued that Supreme Court had erred by severing the unconstitutional part of the statute. He further argued that the court compounded that error by simply responding “No” to a question by the jury that asked: “If the jury does not come to a unanimous verdict . . . does the penalty become life imprisonment without the possibility of parole?” However, we did not reach the issue in Harris as Matter of Hynes v Tomei (92 NY2d [145]*145613 [1998], cert denied 527 US 1015 [1999]) required vacating defendant’s death sentence (see People v Harris, 98 NY2d 452, 496 [2002]).
The jury deadlock instruction was again challenged in People v Cahill (2 NY3d 14 [2003]), where the defendant argued that the instruction coerced jurors to vote for death because that was more palatable than the possibility that he would be paroled if they could not come to a unanimous agreement and had to leave sentencing in the hands of the judge. The defendant further argued that CPL 400.27 (10) could not be excised from the death penalty statute, because that would result in a sentencing scheme that was not foreseen by the Legislature—in essence, an impermissible form of judicial legislation. The majority did not reach the constitutional challenge because Cahill’s two first-degree murder convictions were against the weight of the evidence and legally insufficient to support a conviction, respectively. Thus, death should not have been an option.
Two Judges of the Court in a concurring opinion in Cahill opined that, because of the gravity of the argument and the Court’s constitutional obligation to review capital cases, we were required to address the coerciveness of CPL 400.27 (10)’s jury instruction and the impact it had on reliable sentencing (see Cahill, 2 NY3d at 76-77 [G.B. Smith, J., concurring]). Upon consideration of the deadlock issue, the concurring opinion ultimately concluded that the statute failed because “[i]t introduces a measure of uncertainty and unreliability into the deliberative process. Thus, there is a substantial risk that the jury verdict may not reflect the true conscience of the jury. As a constitutional matter, such a result cannot be countenanced in a capital case” (2 NY3d at 83 [G.B. Smith, J., concurring]).
Months later, the issue again came before the Court in LaValle where we were faced with an otherwise valid death-eligible conviction. Defendant in that case challenged CPL 400.27 (10), “both on its face and as applied,” on federal and state constitutional grounds (LaValle, 3 NY3d at 116). The majority opinion analyzed the deadlock jury instruction’s constitutional flaws. We first acknowledged that New York’s jury deadlock instruction was unique in that “[n]o other death penalty scheme in the country requires judges to instruct jurors that if they cannot unanimously agree between two choices, the judge will sentence defendant to a third, more lenient, choice” (id. at 117). We then explored the inherent coerciveness of placing the jury in that position. We looked to various studies, including a South [146] Carolina study of jurors who served in capital cases, which “ ‘confronted] that jurors’ deliberations emphasize dangerousness and that misguided fears of early release generate death sentences’ ” (id., quoting Eisenberg and Wells, Deadly Confusion: Juror Instructions in Capital Cases, 79 Cornell L Rev 1, 4 [Nov. 1993]). We further noted that whether or not the unseemly jury instruction tended to sway a juror to vote for life without parole rather than death, the “truth is that the deadlock provision is unconstitutional because of the risk that it might coerce jurors into giving up their conscientious beliefs in order to reach a verdict. This risk deprives defendants of the well-established right to a fair trial under our case law and the State Constitution” (LaValle, 3 NY3d at 120 n 15).
“By interjecting future dangerousness, the deadlock instruction gives rise to an unconstitutionally palpable risk that one or more jurors who cannot bear the thought that a defendant may walk the streets again . . . will join jurors favoring death in order to avoid the deadlock sentence . . . The choice of death results not through ‘a comparison of views, and by arguments among the jurors themselves,’ but through fear and coercion.” (Id. at 118.)
Thus, based on our own precedent, “a coerced verdict ‘ought not be allowed to stand in any case, and least of all, in one involving a human life’ ” (id. at 124, quoting People v Sheldon, 156 NY 268, 285 [1898]).
Nor were we convinced that the United States Supreme Court’s reasoning in Jones v United States (527 US 373 [1999]) mandated a different result. Although the Jones Court held that “the Eighth Amendment does not require that the jurors be instructed as to the consequences of their failure to agree” (527 US at 381), we held that our State Due Process Clause’s greater protection could not be reconciled with Jones as “death is qualitatively different and thus subject to a heightened standard of reliability” (LaValle, 3 NY3d at 127).10 This heightened standard could not be satisfied if there is a plausible possibility [147] that jurors would base their life or death determination upon the fear that the defendant would be eventually released from prison (see 3 NY3d at 128). Thus, because our Due Process Clause requires that an anticipatory deadlock instruction be given to the jury and because the existing instruction provided by the Legislature was coercive, we struck the death penalty sentencing statute (see id. at 128-131).
Furthermore, we were not persuaded that the jury deadlock provision could be severed as our Due Process Clause requires that jurors be informed of the consequences of their actions (see LaValle, 3 NY3d at 130). This is because the penalty of death is entirely too severe to allow a jury to vote on the imposition of such a sentence without knowledge of what would occur if it failed to reach unanimity (see id.). Finally, we explicitly stated that:
“We cannot, however, ourselves craft a new instruction, because to do so would usurp legislative prerogative. We have the power to eliminate an unconstitutional sentencing procedure, but we do not have the power to fill the void with a different procedure, particularly one that potentially imposes a greater sentence than the possible deadlock sentence that has been prescribed . . . We thus conclude that under the present statute, the death penalty may not be imposed. Cases in which death notices have been filed may go forward as noncapital first degree murder prosecutions” (id. at 131 [emphasis added]);* 11
IV
LaValle made perfectly clear that the death penalty sentencing statute crafted by the Legislature was unconstitutional. That judgment stemmed from LaValle’s core holdings that our Due Process Clause requires an anticipatory deadlock instruction be given and that the existing provision was unconstitution[148] ally coercive (see 3 NY3d at 120, 130). Since we could not craft a new instruction, we were constrained to say: “under the present statute, the death penalty may not be imposed” (id. at 131). Defendant, here, was thus sentenced to death under a facially unconstitutional statute.12
Our decision here is guided, first and foremost, by the principle of stare decisis.13 It is well settled that “[s]tare decisis is the preferred course because it promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process” (Payne v Tennessee, 501 US 808, 827 [1991]). “The doctrine also rests upon the principle that a court is an institution, not merely a collection of individuals, and that governing rules of law do not change merely because the personnel of the court changes” (People v Bing, 76 NY2d 331, 338 [1990]).
“Distinctions in the application and withholding of stare decisis require a nice delicacy and judicial self-restraint. At the root of the techniques must be a humbling assumption, often true, that no particular court as it is then constituted possesses a wisdom surpassing that of its predecessors. Without this assumption there is jurisprudential anarchy” (see People v Hobson, 39 NY2d 479, 488 [1976]).
Hence, both the legitimacy and the ability of the judiciary to function dictate that legal issues that have been addressed by a jurisdiction should not be revisited every time they arise.
Stare decisis is deeply rooted in the precept that we are bound by a rule of law—not the personalities that interpret the law. Thus, the closeness of a vote bears no weight as to a holding’s precedential value as a “controversy settled by a decision in which a majority concur should not be renewed without sound reasons” (Semanchuck v Fifth Ave. & 37th St. Corp., 290 NY 412, 420 [1943]). “[0]rdinarily the rule so established will be [149] adopted in all subsequent cases to which it is applicable, without any reconsideration of its correctness in point of law” (Henry Campbell Black, Law of Judicial Precedents, at 182 [1912]). The fact that reasonable minds may differ as to the result does not diminish the majority opinion’s legal force.
Stare decisis, of course, also recognizes that the lessons of time may lead to a different result. Thus, the strong presumption that the law is settled by a particular ruling may be rebutted, but only in exceptional cases. For instance, a holding that leads to an unworkable rule, or that creates more questions than it resolves, may ultimately be better served by a new rule (see e.g. Bing, 76 NY2d at 347 [“Inasmuch as these appeals fall squarely within (our precedent) and exceptions cannot be recognized, the question remains whether the rule has become so unworkable that it should be abandoned”]).14 However, our holding in LaValle—barely three years old—does not present such a rule. Instead, it spells out that death penalty cases can only go forward “as noncapital first degree murder prosecutions” until the Legislature enacts a noncoercive sentencing statute that properly informs the jury of the consequences of its actions (3 NY3d at 131).
Furthermore, although it is oft-stated that a court should “not . . . apply stare decisis as rigidly in constitutional as in nonconstitutional cases” (Glidden Co. v Zdanok, 370 US 530, 543 [1962]), such considerations are not warranted here. The rationale underlying the judiciary being more susceptible to revisiting precedent on constitutional issues is that the Legislature cannot change the constitution to correct an error found by a court. This is in stark contrast to the power the Legislature has to correct a statute and make its meaning clear, if it believes a court’s interpretation was wrong. We are not presented with such a situation here as our constitutional ruling on CPL 400.27 (10) does not render the statute immune from legislative correction. Indeed, the needed correction may be as simple as enacting a sentencing statute that provides for life without parole if the jury cannot unanimously agree on death. [150] Thus, as we did in LaValle, we will continue to respect the Legislature’s province.
V
Perhaps mindful of the burden it faces in overturning such recent precedent, the People tweak their argument by conceding that LaValle was correctly decided as an as-applied constitutional challenge but that anything further was either plain error or dictum.15 In support of this position, the People and the dissent misinterpret our constitutional jurisprudence by invoking People v Stuart (100 NY2d 412 [2003]) in an attempt to undermine LaValle’s holding. As Stuart has no application here, we reject that argument.16
In addressing an as-applied and facial challenge to an anti-stalking statute on void-for-vagueness grounds, we explained in Stuart that:
“Because facial challenges to statutes are generally disfavored and legislative enactments carry a strong presumption of constitutionality, a court’s task when presented with both a facial and as-applied argument is first to decide whether the assailed statute is impermissibly vague as applied to the defendant. If it is not and the statute provides the defendant with adequate notice and the police with clear criteria, that is the end of the matter . . .
“It follows, therefore, that if a defendant makes an as-applied vagueness challenge and the court repudiates it, the facial validity of the statute is confirmed” (100 NY2d at 422 [citations omitted]).
In support of this principle, we cited to several void-for-vagueness cases that shared this analysis (see Ulster Home Care v Vacco, 96 NY2d 505, 510 [2001] [“Plaintiffs should have been required to show that the regulation was unconstitutional as applied to them. When a person’s conduct falls within the proscriptions of a regulation, £a vagueness challenge must be addressed to the facts before the court’ ” (citations omitted)]; [151] People v Nelson, 69 NY2d 302, 308 [1987] [“It has often been said, however, that, except in rare circumstances not relevant here, a vagueness challenge must be addressed to the facts before the court . . . Thus, if the actions of the defendants are plainly within the ambit of the statute, the court will not strain to imagine marginal situations in which the application of the statute is not so clear”]; Hoffman Estates v Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 US 489, 495 [1982] [“A plaintiff who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others. A court should therefore examine the complainant’s conduct before analyzing other hypothetical applications of the law”]).
Here, however, we are faced neither with a void-for-vagueness challenge nor with a constitutional challenge that is subject to the same confluence of concerns. When reviewing a void-for-vagueness challenge of a statute, a court must weigh the need for adequate notice against society’s need for order and effective law enforcement (see generally Stuart, 100 NY2d at 420-421; People v Shack, 86 NY2d 529, 538-539 [1995]). Thus, when a person of ordinary intelligence should know that the conduct at issue is prohibited by a statute, and there are reasonable standards for enforcement, that person should not benefit from any superfluous discrepancy that is not applicable in that instance. This is in stark contrast with LaValle, where we were faced with a completely different set of concerns addressed to a defendant’s right to a fair trial and the critical task of safeguarding fairness in death sentencing.
The concerns in LaValle focused on whether defendant was deprived of due process and his right to a fair trial in a capital proceeding by the coercive forces that were found to be masked in the language of CPL 400.27 (10). We deemed it necessary, regardless of a showing of actual prejudice, “to strike down the deadlock instruction in CPL 400.27 (10) because it creates the substantial risk of coercing jurors into sentencing a defendant to death in violation of our Due Process Clause” (LaValle, 3 NY3d at 128; see also id. at 120 n 15 [“(T)he deadlock provision is unconstitutional because of the risk that it might coerce jurors into giving up their conscientious beliefs in order to reach a verdict. This risk deprives defendants of the well-established [152] right to a fair trial under our case law and the State Constitution”]).17
We find fault in the dissent’s view that United States v Salerno (481 US 739 [1987]) dictated a different result in LaValle—a contention never even raised in that case. Salerno’s proposition that to be successful “[a] facial challenge . . . must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid” does not sit well with our state due process protections afforded to capital proceedings under these circumstances (Salerno, 481 US at 745).18 In a capital appeal, the unacceptability of error and the need to protect liberties become glaringly apparent and call for heightened review (see Harris, 98 NY2d at 474 [“By its very nature a capital case requires the most meticulous and thoughtful attention. A mistake discovered years later may not be correctable”]). As such, neither Salerno nor Stuart adequately addresses a challenge that the capital sentencing procedure is inherently coercive and undermines proper consideration of mitigating and aggravating factors.19 Thus, it was not error for us to review the facial challenge of CPL 400.27 (10) in LaValle. Nor is there any sound reason in law for us to now rewrite history and recategorize our holding as dictum, as the People and dissent urge.20
[153] Moreover, we cannot agree with the dissent that, under the guise of dictum, “self-correction” is mandated or even warranted (see dissenting op at 165), because doing so would condone a trial court’s remaking of an unconstitutional statute into a new statute not subject to the legislative process. Surely, it was within our role to otherwise prevent the enforcement of an unconstitutional death penalty statute, as we did in LaValle, until the Legislature chooses to respond. To deem the courts bereft of such a power would undermine our system of checks and balances between our two coequal branches of government.
The People argue, further, that we erred in LaValle by not severing or repairing the flawed statute. As previously discussed, the idea of a jury instruction that fails to properly inform the jury of the consequences of its actions is offensive to our notion of due process (see LaValle, 3 NY3d at 128 [“the absence of an instruction would lead to death sentences that are based on speculation, as the Legislature apparently feared when it decided to prescribe the instruction”]). Thus, given our holding and our responsibility of safeguarding those rights afforded under our State Constitution, we were duty-bound to invalidate the sentencing statute (id. at 130 [“(R)ecognizing the gravity of capital punishment and the concomitant need for greater certainty in the outcome of capital jury sentences, we hold that providing no deadlock instruction in the course of capital sentencing violates our Due Process Clause. Our conclusion is buttressed by the clear legislative intent that there be a jury instruction on the consequences of a deadlock”]). Conscious of our limited role, we refused to “usurp legislative prerogative” and craft a new statute (id. at 131 [“We have the power to eliminate an unconstitutional sentencing procedure, but we do not have the power to fill the void with a different procedure, particularly one that potentially imposes a greater sentence than the possible deadlock sentence that has been prescribed”]).
Furthermore, comparing LaValle with Matter of Hynes, where severability was proper, offers an insightful contrast. In Matter of Hynes we severed an unconstitutional portion of the death penalty statute that penalized those who exercised their right to trial (see 92 NY2d at 628-629). Under the existing statute, a [154] death-noticed defendant was permitted to plead guilty to first-degree murder and avoid the possibility of a death sentence. Thus, death could only be imposed on those who insisted on their innocence (see id. at 620). We determined that the offending part of the statute could be severed as it did not affect the conduct during the trial or penalty phase and that it still permitted plea bargaining (see id. at 628, 630 [“Thus, while a defendant may not plead guilty to first degree murder while a notice of intent to seek the death penalty is pending, plea bargaining to lesser offenses even when a notice of intent is pending, or to first degree murder in the absence of a notice of intent, remains unaffected”]).21 In LaValle, on the other hand, the invalid portion of the statute was inextricably interwoven with the sentencing procedure and necessary to effectuate the Legislature’s intent. As correctly recognized in the concurring opinion, any attempt to sever the offending portion of the statute would result in a “misshapen fragment of the original” drafted by a court’s impermissible use of a legislative pen (concurring op at 158).
Finally, we reject the People’s invitation to rewrite the deadlock instruction. This is because, under the proposed scheme, we would be obliged to materially rework the death penalty statute in a manner contrary to our role. In order to function, as proposed by the People and the dissent, a trial court would be required to inform the jury in advance the sentence it would likely impose in the event of a deadlock.22 To do so under the present statute would require the court to act without the benefit of a presentencing report in violation of CPL 380.30 and 390.20. Additionally, the new framework would be repugnant to the Legislature’s intent as the court would have to conduct some sort of actuarial analysis and health assessment to determine a defendant’s expected longevity as well [155] as a thorough examination of the existence of convictions that may require consecutive sentencing.23 We would ultimately be left with capital punishment only for the aged, frail and those convicted of crimes eligible for consecutive sentencing—an entirely new capital punishment statute (cf. McMinn v Town of Oyster Bay, 66 NY2d 544, 552-553 [1985, Kaye, J., concurring] [“(A) party may challenge the validity of a statute on its face by asserting the rights of others if individual applications cannot be meaningfully separated from one another” (citation omitted)]; Association of Surrogates & Supreme Ct. Reporters Within City of N.Y. v State of New York, 79 NY2d 39 [1992] [An unconstitutional statute should not be severed if its only application would be for a small subset of the original class]).24
VI
Like LaValle, our holding here is grounded in the irrevokable nature of capital punishment as well as “the concomitant need for greater certainty in the outcome of capital jury sentences” (3 NY3d at 130). We do not agree that the Court erred in LaValle, or that our holdings were dicta, and thus we are ultimately left exactly where we were three years ago: the death penalty sentencing statute is unconstitutional on its face and it is not within our power to save the statute. LaValle is thus entitled to full precedential value. The Legislature, mindful of our State’s due process protections, may reenact a sentencing statute that is free of coercion and cognizant of a jury’s need to know the consequences of its choice.
Accordingly, the judgment of Supreme Court should be modified by vacating the sentence of death and remitting to that [156] court for resentencing in accordance with CPL 470.30 (5) (c) and Penal Law §§ 60.06 and 70.00 and, as so modified, affirmed.25