Title: State v. Richard Feaster

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). STEIN, J., writing for a majority of the Court. The Supreme Court affirmed Feaster's murder conviction and death sentence in 1998. This appeal addresses Feaster's request for proportionality review of his death sentence. Two weeks before the murder, Feaster borrowed a sawed-off shotgun and ammunition from his friend, Daniel Kaighn. Feaster returned the shotgun to Kaighn that same night, and it was placed in the back of a car owned by a female friend of Feaster's and Kaighn's, Tina Shiplee. On October 6, 1993, Feaster and a friend, Michael Mills, were at a bar with some friends, including Shiplee. Shiplee approached Feaster and requested that he remove the gun from her car before leaving that night. Feaster agreed to do so. Shiplee's unlocked car was in the parking lot of the bar. When Shiplee left the bar later that night, the gun was no longer in the car. Feaster and Mills borrowed someone else's car and left the bar at 8:00 p.m., returning about an hour later. On that night, Keith Donaghy was the only attendant working at the Family Texaco in Deptford Township. Sometime between 8:20 and 8:25 p.m., Donaghy's body was discovered lying on the floor of the station office. He had been shot in the head. $191.32 had been taken from one of his pockets. When Feaster returned to the bar, he appeared to have been using drugs. Shiplee overheard Feaster say to Mills and Michael Sadlowski, another acquaintance, that he could not believe he killed the guy and didn't get any money. Later that night, while watching TV with friends, the news of the murder of Donaghy was aired. Sadlowski reported that Feaster said, I can't believe I did this shit. Later, while being driven home, Feaster told Sadlowski that he blew the dude's head off, and screwed up tonight. He also cried, stating that his brains went all over the place and repeated, I can't believe I did this shit. On October 31, 1993, Ronald Pine, another gas station attendant, was murdered. Tina Shiplee suspected that Feaster had committed the murder and, fearing that he might kill again, contacted a lawyer who contacted the police. Shiplee gave a statement implicating Feaster in the murders. Feaster was subsequently charged with both murders. The indictments were severed, and no mention was made of the Pine murder at Feaster's trial. Donaghy died from a single shotgun wound to the head. There was no evidence of a struggle, and money had been removed only from one of Donaghy's pockets _ the one that was in plain view as he lay dead on the ground. The State cited this evidence to support its argument that Feaster intended to kill and rob the attendant before he reached the gas station. State witnesses at trial included members of Feaster's circle of friends who testified about the various statements made by Feaster concerning the murder. In addition, Kevin Wrigley, who shared a holding cell with Feaster, testified that he heard Feaster describe how he shot someone in the head at point-blank range in order to see what it felt like to kill someone before he entered the Marines. Wrigley also testified that he heard Feaster say he stole a couple hundred dollars from the scene and threw the murder weapon away. No physical evidence directly linked Feaster to the murder. Feaster did not testify at trial. The defense strategy was to challenge the credibility of the State's witnesses and raise the possibility that Michael Mills was the triggerman. Mills had met with police before trial and made a statement, but because he committed suicide in June 1994, his statement was not admitted at trial. The jury found Feaster guilty as charged on March 15, 1996. At the ensuing penalty phase, the sole aggravating factor alleged by the State was that the murder occurred while Feaster was engaged in the commission of a robbery. Feaster raised ten mitigating factors, including that he suffered from an organic brain condition caused by one or more head traumas, and that he was raised in a household with an alcoholic father who also was emotionally and physically abusive. Several defense experts testified that Feaster suffered from a brain injury that affected his ability to control impulses. Feaster was also described as having a very low intelligence level. The jury found the aggravating factor. Different jurors also found some of the mitigating factors. The jury concluded unanimously, however, that the aggravating factor outweighed beyond a reasonable doubt any mitigating factor or factors, resulting in a sentence of death. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, State v. Feaster, 156 N.J. 1 (1998), and reserved on Feaster's request for proportionality review. HELD: Feaster's death sentence is not disproportionate. 1. Proportionality review encompasses two distinct approaches. The first, frequency analysis, involves mathematical and statistical calculations to compare defendant's case to other cases with similar fact patterns to ascertain the rate of death sentencing in those similar cases. Next, the Court engages in precedent-seeking review, where all relevant factors in factually similar cases are compared to determine whether defendant's death sentence appears disproportionate. Currently, frequency analysis consists solely of the salient-factors test. That test measures the relative frequency of a defendant's sentence by determining the frequency at which factually similar cases result in a death sentence. (Pp. 11-13) 2. The salient-factors test uses the AOC's database in which the universe of cases is subdivided into categories and subcategories, ranked in descending order of blameworthiness, and derived from the statutory aggravating factors. The AOC has divided the robber-murder category, category F, into three subcategories. Feaster has been assigned to subcategory F-2, which comprises murders committed in the course of the robbery of a business. For defendants who commit murder while in the course of robbing a business, the percentage of cases proceeding to a penalty phase is higher than the overall average for death-eligible cases. In addition, the rate of death-sentencing for those defendants exceeds the rate in the full universe of cases. The Court therefore concludes that application of the salient-factors test to Feaster does not demonstrate that his death sentence is disproportionate. (Pp. 13-17) 3. Precedent-seeking review entails a traditional, case-by-case analysis comparing all relevant factors in factually similar cases to determine whether a death sentence appears to be disproportionate. The Court analyzes factors within a framework of culpability that consists of the defendant's moral blameworthiness, the degree of victimization and the defendant's character. (Pp. 17-19) 4. Feaster's moral blameworthiness is average to high. Although there appears to have been little premeditation and Feaster was young at the time of the murder, he exhibited complete callousness and lack of remorse toward his victim and was aware of his victim's helplessness and vulnerability. The extent of the victimization in this case is average to low. It appears that Feaster shot his victim before he had a chance to realize what was happening and that his death was instantaneous. Overall, the Court concludes that Feaster's culpability is substantial. (Pp. 19-24) 5. The life sentences imposed on many of the capital defendants in Feaster's comparison group can be reconciled with Feaster's death sentence because of the mitigating evidence accepted by the jury in those cases showing extreme mental or emotional disturbance or diminished capacity. The Court is persuaded that Feaster's death sentence is not aberrational and is reconcilable with the cases where defendants were not sentenced to death or where the State prosecuted non-capitally. Those cases that are not easily reconcilable are few in number and do not diminish the Court's conclusion that Feaster's death sentence is not disproportionate. (Pp. 24-45) The death sentence imposed on Feaster is AFFIRMED. JUSTICE LONG, dissenting, is of the view that no proportionality review, including that used by this Court, can sufficiently ensure that the death penalty is applied rationally and consistently. Further, she believes that even if the Court's methodology is accepted and applied to Feaster, his death sentence is disproportionate. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES O'HERN, COLEMAN, and LaVECCHIA join in JUSTICE STEIN's opinion. JUSTICE LONG has filed a separate, dissenting opinion. JUSTICE VERNIERO did not participate. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 42 September Term 1998 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RICHARD FEASTER, Defendant-Appellant. Argued March 27, 2000-- Decided August 2, 2000 On proportionality review of a death sentence imposed in the Superior Court, Law Division, Gloucester County. Debra A. Owens, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent (John J. Farmer, Jr., Attorney General of New Jersey, attorney). The opinion of the Court was delivered by STEIN, J. On March 15, 1996, defendant Richard Feaster was convicted by a Gloucester County jury of the purposeful-or-knowing murder by his own conduct and the felony-murder of Keith Donaghy. The jury also convicted him on related charges of conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. On the capital murder conviction, defendant was sentenced to death. On the non-capital convictions, defendant's conspiracy convictions merged into the related substantive offenses and the felony-murder conviction was merged into the conviction for purposeful-or-knowing murder. Defendant's conviction for possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose was merged into the robbery murder convictions. The court sentenced defendant to a consecutive twenty-year term of imprisonment with ten years of parole ineligibility for the robbery conviction and a five-year term of imprisonment for the conviction of possession of a sawed-off shotgun, to be served concurrently. This Court affirmed defendant's conviction for capital murder and his death sentence. State v. Feaster, 156 N.J. 1, 93 (1998). We also affirmed his convictions and sentences on the other charges. Ibid. Defendant requested proportionality review for his death sentence pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3e. Feaster, supra, 156 N.J. at 93. We granted that request and now find no disproportionality in defendant's sentence of death. F-2 Incl. D 27.8% (5/18) 15.2% (5/33) 54.5" (18/33) F-2 Excl. D 23.5% (4/17) 12.5% (4/32) 53.1" (17/32) All Ds 29.5% (52/176) 11.4% (52/455) 38.7% (176/455) All Ds but D 29.1% (51/175) 11.2% (51/454) 38.5% (175/454) Applying the salient-factors test to the general F category results in a death-sentencing rate for penalty-trial cases (including defendant) of 29.3" (12/41), and the death-sentencing rate for all death-eligible cases is 8.4" (12/143). The following table summarizes the result of the salient-factors test as applied to category F death-penalty cases: F Incl. D 29.3% (12/41) 08.4% (12/143) 28.7% (41/143) F Excl. D. 27.5% (11/40) 07.7% (11/142) 28.2% (40/142) All Ds 29.5% (52/176) 11.4% (52/455) 38.7% (176/455) All Ds but D 29.1% (51/175) 11.2% (51/454) 38.5% (175/454) The preceding tables demonstrate that for those defendants who commit murder while in the course of committing a robbery of a business, the percentage of death-eligible cases that proceeded to a penalty phase is higher than the overall average for death-eligible cases. Thus, it is not aberrational for the death penalty to be sought in such a case. Moreover, the tables indicate that five of eighteen defendants (including defendant), or four of seventeen defendants (excluding defendant), where the defendant has committed murder while in the course of committing a robbery of a business, is sentenced to death in those cases that proceed to a penalty trial. The rate of death-sentencing for those defendants exceeds the death sentencing rate in the full universe of death-eligible cases. We conclude that application of the salient-factors test to defendant Feaster does not demonstrate that his death sentence is disproportionate. A. Penalty Trial Cases STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RICHARD FEASTER, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________ LONG, J., dissenting. The federal and state constitutions instruct that the death penalty must not be applied in an arbitrary, inconsistent, or discriminatory manner. Because no proportionality review, including ours, can sufficiently ensure that the death penalty is applied rationally and consistently, I dissent and would vacate Richard Feaster's death sentence. The outcome of penalty phase decisions may also be explained in part by the common grant of mercy by our state's juries. However, it appears that mercy is not apportioned rationally or based on factors similar to those examined by the Court for precedent-seeking review.See footnote 66 See California v. Brown, 479 U.S. 538, 561-62, 107 S. Ct. 837, 849 50, 93 L. Ed. 2d 934, 952-53 (1987) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) ( While the sentencer's decision to accord life to a defendant at times might be a rational or moral one, it also may arise from the defendant's appeal to the sentencer's sympathy or mercy, human qualities that are undeniably emotional in nature. ). Mercy can depend on a multitude of factors: a defendant's good looks, the enthusiasm and support of his family members, the jury's identification with his background, or the status of the victim (an essayist of note once observed that our society is more outraged at crimes perpetrated against college girls than those against cocktail waitresses). Such factors are infinite, personal, and often inexplicable. See Saffle v. Parks, 494 U.S. 484, 493, 110 S. Ct. 1257, 1262-1263, 108 L. Ed. 2d 415, 427-28 (1990) (rejecting instruction permitting jury to consider sympathy because it would allow[] the fate of a defendant to turn on the vagaries of particular jurors' emotional sensitivities ). Proportionality review is at once an essential element of the appellate process and, as presently constituted, inadequate to the task. It simply fails to meet the constitutional mandate of providing meaningful appellate procedures to ensure against an arbitrary and capricious death penalty system. A. Salient-Factors Test To begin, I note the anomalous fact that Feaster's own case is included in the salient-factors test's statistics. It is incomprehensible to me that in determining whether a particular death sentence is in conformity with a sentencing pattern, the pattern includes the case under review. In such a scenario, a death sentence confirms its own propriety. Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 263 (Handler, J., dissenting). Equally troubling is the fact that one of the death-sentenced F 2 cases included in Feaster's category is that of Robert Morton, whose case we also decided today. In that case the Court upheld Morton's death sentence finding it not disproportionate.See footnote 77 There is a tautological problem with upholding the validity of Feaster's sentence based on the assumed validity of Morton's sentence and simultaneously upholding the validity of Morton's sentence based on the assumed validity of Feaster's sentence. As problematic is the fact that, of the four other cases in the F-2 subcategory that resulted in a death sentence, none has yet been affirmed after proportionality review. The two sentences imposed on Jacinto Hightower have since been vacated because they resulted from constitutionally deficient trials. Ronald Long's death sentence has also been overturned and he has since pled guilty to non-capital murder. Morton's death sentence has been deemed not disproportionate only today. B. Comparative Culpability Test 1. Defendant's Culpability Concluding from the salient-factors test that, at the very least, the vast majority of F-2 cases result in life sentences, precedent-seeking analysis should inform us whether Feaster was singled out unfairly for the death penalty, or whether he was truly among the most culpable of the F-2 defendants. A searching comparison of F-2 cases demonstrates that Feaster is far from the most culpable of the F-2 defendants. His case more closely resembles the large majority of cases that resulted in life sentences and his death sentence should accordingly be vacated. The precedent seeking analysis in the Court's opinion, as in all prior proportionality review opinions, is a subjective moral evaluation of Richard Feaster as opposed to the comparative analysis that is promised. The bulk of the precedent-seeking analysis is devoted to recounting defendant's crime and setting forth comparison case summaries. Scant attention is paid to the actual comparison of objective factors in each case. That analysis is exactly the kind of traditional, offense-oriented proportionality review that we have directly rejected. See, e.g., Marshall II, supra, 130 N.J. at 129 30. Without reference to comparison cases, the Court characterizes Feaster's level of moral blameworthiness as average to high by weighing his youth and lack of premeditation against the victim's vulnerability, lack of justification or excuse, and complete callousness. Ante at ___ (slip op. at 19-22). The factors supporting the Court's average to high rating are illusory because they are factors present in nearly all death-eligible cases. The description of a completely callous crime committed against a vulnerable victim without justification or excuse can be applied to nearly every case in the death-eligible universe and certainly to all the cases in Feaster's comparison group. Calling a defendant a cold and calculating murderer may be fitting, but the descriptor is useless insofar as it is applicable to every person who commits a death-eligible crime. As such, it has no place in proportionality review. Harvey III, supra, 159 N.J. at 319. The Court's discussion of victimization and character suffer from similar problems of subjective, standardless evaluation. Ante at ___ (slip op. at 22-24). Its determinations that victimization was average to low in Feaster's case and that Feaster's character demonstrated average to high culpability, ante at ___ (slip op. at 22-23), are based solely on visceral reactions that imply nothing about Feaster's relative death-worthiness. The Court's discussion of the degree of victimization, in fact, directly contravenes our opinion in Loftin II. 157 N.J. at 338. There, we analyzed a very similar execution style shooting, but rather than labeling it as average to low victimization, we stated that [i]n comparison to other murder cases we have examined, this was not a particularly violent or brutal killing. Ibid. The Court also fails to explain how Feaster's lack of cooperation with authorities and allegedly callous comments to the jailhouse snitchSee footnote 88 are so negatively probative in light of mitigating circumstances such as his minimal criminal record, capacity for rehabilitation, and the testimony that he cried and expressed remorse and disbelief when driving home on the night of the murder. Even more disturbing is the fact that in Loftin II, we characterized the facts of Feaster's case in a good light relative to moral blameworthiness to demonstrate that Loftin was more culpable than Feaster. See Loftin II, supra, 157 N.J. at 340-41. In that opinion, we said that Feaster presented uncontroverted evidence that he suffers from a mental disease or defect, namely encephalopathy, an injury to the left frontal lobe region making him more violence prone. Id. at 340. We also recognized in Loftin II that Feaster was relatively young at the time of the offense and still leading the life of a juvenile (e.g., living with his parents and lacking employment). Id. at 341. We highlighted the facts that Feaster's parents were both alcoholics and that his father was abusive. That we can spotlight those facts in one case to portray Feaster as having relatively low culpability, and virtually ignore them in Feaster's own case demonstrates the hopelessly unstructured and unreliable nature of our precedent-seeking review. 2. Comparative Culpability Only eighteen of the thirty-three cases in Feaster's F-2 subcategory proceeded to the penalty phase. In those eighteen penalty trials, the jury sentenced three people other than Feaster to death: Morton (affirmed today), Hightower (two death sentences vacated), and Long (death sentence overturned, entered guilty plea to non-capital murder). Our duty in this portion of proportionality review is to ensure that the defendant has not been 'singled out unfairly for capital punishment.' Cooper II, supra, 159 N.J. at 88 (quoting Martini II, supra, 139 N.J. at 47); accord Chew II, supra, 159 N.J. at 210. For the purpose of precedent-seeking review, therefore, we determine whether the comparison life-sentenced cases render Feaster's death sentence disproportionate. It is important to note that that process is not a justifying one. It does not, in any way, attempt to deflect from the notion of murder as evil or imply that the death of the victim is anything other than horrific. Its focus is only to place a defendant's terrible crime on a continuum of other terrible crimes. That said, Feaster's case is notable for its relatively low victimization. The only aggravating factor in Feaster's case was that the murder was committed in the course of a robbery, and that factor is present in every F-2 case. Thus, it does not, in any way, distinguish Feaster as more culpable than any other F-2 defendant. Feaster is somewhat unusual, however, in that he fired a single shot and did not cause prolonged suffering to either the victim or any non-decedent victims. Donaghy died instantly, and there is no evidence that he was ever threatened, forced to take any action at gunpoint, or injured in any way other than the shooting itself. Again, to distinguish Feaster on the basis of relatively low aggravation is not meant to diminish the horrible impact of the crime on the victim, but to place Feaster on a scale of culpability relative to other murderers. NO. A-42 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RICHARD FEASTER, Defendant-Appellant. DECIDED