When will a jury not award the death penalty after a jury has convicted a defendant of first-degree murder?

In light of defendant's thorough and thoughtful briefing on the subject, however, we make one observation. The choice defendant hypothesizes is far afield from requiring a jury to choose between convicting a defendant of a capital crime or convicting him of nothing at all. (Cf. Beck v. Alabama (1980) 447 U.S. 625, 627 [death sentence may not be imposed " 'after a jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense, when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included non-capital offense, and when the evidence would have supported such a verdict' "].) We presume that jurors follow instructions. There is far less reason to doubt that they will do so when the alternative is a mistrial rather than an acquittal let alone to believe that they will violate their duty to follow the instructions by convicting of first degree murder rather than by entering a compromise acquittal on that greater charge and agreeing to convict only of second degree murder. The risk of erroneous conviction is particularly diminished because jurors remain free to discuss second degree murder before reaching a verdict on first degree murder; they can acquit of first degree murder with confidence that the defendant will still be convicted of a serious offense.