Majority opinion at 3. Thus, the legislature's classification need only be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. Children under six are always vulnerable to the offender. Peace officers and firemen are rendered vulnerable to a criminal offender when they are acting in the lawful discharge of their official duty and the offender has knowledge of their status, and therefore feels threatened by them. Different classes of victims have particular vulnerabilities unique to that class.
Children are uniquely vulnerable solely by virtue of their status as children.
This vulnerability serves as a legitimate basis for the classification of the murder of a child under six a capital offense, without any showing of knowledge of the child's age on the part of the defendant. Appellant suggests that without a knowledge requirement, the child-capital murder provision does not require proof of an aggravating element. The victim's status as a child under the age of six raises what would otherwise be murder to a capital murder. With these comments, I join the majority's opinion. The only other type of capital murder that is dependent upon the victim's status as the aggravating element is murder of a peace officer or fireman.