Title: Ex Parte Key
Citation: 891 So. 2d 384
Docket Number: 1020677
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: March 5, 2004

891 So. 2d 384 (2004)
Ex parte Gary Frank KEY.
(In re Gary Frank Key
v.
State of Alabama).
1020677.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 5, 2004.
*385 Warren Freeman, Delta, for petitioner.
William H. Pryor, Jr., atty. gen.; Nathan A. Forrester, deputy atty. gen.; and Tracy Daniel, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.
LYONS, Justice.
Gary Frank Key was convicted in October 1999 of murder made capital because he shot and fatally wounded the victim, his ex-wife, while she was a passenger in a vehicle. § 13A-5-40(a)(17), Ala.Code 1975. The jury, by vote of 12-0, recommended that Key be sentenced to death. After conducting its own sentencing hearing, the trial court found that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and sentenced Key to death.
Key then appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed as to the conviction and remanded the case with directions to the trial court to correct deficiencies in its sentencing order. Key v. State, 891 So. 2d 353 (Ala.Crim.App.2002). On remand, the trial court stated that it found three statutory aggravating circumstances to exist. One of those aggravating circumstances was that the "capital offense was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel compared to other capital offenses." See § 13A-5-49(8), Ala.Code 1975. Based upon the amended sentencing order of the trial court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, on return to remand, affirmed Key's sentence. Key v. State, 891 So. 2d 353, 382 (Ala.Crim.App.2002). This Court granted certiorari review only as to the trial court's finding of the existence of the aggravating circumstance that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" when compared to other capital offenses.
The Court of Criminal Appeals stated the facts of this case as follows:
891 So. 2d  at 359-62 (citations to record and footnote omitted).
Key first argues that the trial court erred in its instruction to the jury on the aggravating circumstance that the offense *389 was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel."
Key argues in his brief to this Court that the instruction regarding that aggravating offense was vague and inadequate because the jury "was not given any comparison or comparative criteria from which to come to a lawful conclusion." More specifically, he contends that the trial court should have provided the jury with facts from other capital cases to compare to his case in evaluating whether the aggravating circumstance that the offense was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" existed. The lack of adequate instruction by the trial court, Key contends, falls short of the mandate of Ex parte Kyzer, 399 So. 2d 330 (Ala.1981), in which this Court held that a homicide must be "unnecessarily torturous" to the victim for the aggravating circumstance that the offense was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" to exist.
This Court has previously addressed the argument Key makes here. In Ex parte Bankhead, 585 So. 2d 112 (Ala.1991), this Court, relying on Kyzer, held that the trial court was not required to inform the jury of other capital offenses where the death penalty was based on a finding of the existence of the aggravating circumstance in § 13A-5-49(8). In Bankhead, this Court stated:
585 So. 2d  at 125. Because the trial court instructed the jury on the Kyzer standard, we hold that the failure of the trial court to provide comparative criteria of other capital offenses in its instruction to the jury did not amount to error.
Key also argues that the aggravating factor that the offense was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" should not have been applied to his case at all because, he says, the murder was not "unnecessarily torturous" to the victim, especially when compared to other capital offenses. See Kyzer.
The trial court considered the following facts in its amended sentencing order to support its finding that the aggravating circumstance in § 13A-5-49(8) existed in this case:
In reviewing whether a murder is "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel," this Court has consistently considered several factors.
One factor this Court has considered particularly indicative that a murder is "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" is the infliction of psychological torture. Psychological torture can be inflicted where the victim is in intense fear and is aware of, but helpless to prevent, impending death. Such torture "must have been present for an appreciable lapse of time, sufficient enough to cause prolonged or appreciable suffering." Norris v. State, 793 So. 2d 847, 861 (Ala.Crim.App.1999).
In Ex parte Rieber, 663 So. 2d 999 (Ala.1995), the defendant stalked a convenience-store clerk for several days before he walked into the store and shot her during a robbery. There was evidence that the clerk had been aware of his presence and that she was afraid of him. This Court held that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" given, among other things, that the murder was perpetrated under circumstances that caused fear and pain to the victim before death. The Court specifically stated that "evidence as to the fear experienced by the victim before death is a significant factor in determining the existence of the aggravating circumstance that the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel. Ex parte Whisenhant, 555 So. 2d 235, 243-44 (Ala.1989). . . ." 663 So. 2d  at 1003.
This case is very similar to Rieber in that both the store clerk in that case and the victim in this case were afraid of their attackers and feared for their lives before their death. Key had been convicted of stalking the victim, and during the car chase and while she was in the car in the ditch she was aware of Key's propensity for violence and his intent to kill her or to inflict great bodily injury on her. The victim was forced to suffer psychological torture from the moment she saw Key pulling his vehicle up next to Robbie Doyle's car, throughout the car chase, during the time she was trapped in the car with no means of escape, while Key repeatedly shot her, and up until she was anesthetized for surgery. While this Court cannot be certain of the exact amount of time that elapsed during the course of those events, the victim here suffered psychological torture for a greater period of time than did the victim in Rieber.
Thus, we hold that the evidence supports the finding that the victim suffered psychological torture for an appreciable period.
Another factor to be considered in determining whether the aggravating circumstance that the murder was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt is whether the victim experienced appreciable suffering after a swift assault that ultimately resulted in the victim's death. In order to prove this factor, the evidence *391 must also show that the victim was conscious after the initial assault and suffered for an appreciable length for time.
We addressed this factor in Ex parte Clark, 728 So. 2d 1126 (Ala.1998). In Clark, although the victim sustained five shots to the head and back, and a final sixth shot to the ear, the record did not indicate that the victim was conscious and aware after the initial shots were fired. This Court held that it could not expand the aggravating circumstance set out in § 13A-5-49(8) to include murders such as the one in Clark, where the record did not reflect that the victim had suffered after the initial assault.
In the present case, the evidence indicates that Key showed no remorse for his actions; even after the frightening car chase and repeated shooting of the victim, he left the victim to die, without seeking medical attention for her. Although the victim later received medical treatment, the medical expert in the case testified that the victim suffered "exquisite pain" and was forced to endure this pain along with a "profound sensation of drowning" the entire time she remained conscious. According to the medical expert, the victim "suffered a slow death." There was also testimony indicating that when the victim arrived at the hospital she was having trouble breathing and was in a great deal of pain. Furthermore, one of the paramedics who transported the victim from the scene testified that she was conscious until she was anesthetized for surgery.
This Court has stated that such execution-type slayings, evidencing a cold, calculated design to kill, fall into the category of murders that are "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." See Wright v. State, 494 So. 2d 726, 744 (Ala.Crim.App.1985), aff'd, 494 So. 2d 745 (Ala.1986) (trial court found that the two victims were murdered "`in order that they would not be witnesses'" and that they "`were each shot in the head, [and] slowly died in a pool of blood'"). Thus, the evidence supports the trial court's finding that the victim experienced appreciable suffering after a swift assault that resulted in her death.
While the fact that the victim was shot five times is atrocious, the fact that the victim endured psychological torture before she died and appreciable suffering after she was shot and before she died separates this crime from an ordinary murder. As the trial court stated in its sentencing order, "had the [victim] died or been forced into unconsciousness immediately and not been forced to endure the terroristic threats of the defendant, this circumstance would be more difficult to have found to exist." However, the particular facts of the case clearly establish beyond a reasonable doubt that this crime was "unnecessarily torturous" to the victim and that it was therefore "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." Also, as previously discussed, because the trial court instructed the jury on the Kyzer standard, the trial court correctly instructed the jury on this aggravating circumstance. Therefore, the Court of Criminal Appeals did not err in affirming Key's sentence on return to remand, and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
AFFIRMED.
HOUSTON, SEE, BROWN, HARWOOD, WOODALL, and STUART, JJ., concur.
JOHNSTONE, J., dissents.
JOHNSTONE, Justice (dissenting).
I concurred in the decision of this Court to deny certiorari review of any of the holdings by the Court of Criminal Appeals necessary to its affirmance of the defendant's *392 adjudication of guilt. I likewise concurred in the decision of this Court to grant certiorari review only on the issue of whether the trial court properly applied the § 13A-5-49(8), Ala.Code 1975, heinous-atrocious-cruel aggravating circumstance in order to sentence the defendant to death. On this one issue addressed by the main opinion, I respectfully dissent.
Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 427-28, 100 S. Ct. 1759, 64 L. Ed. 2d 398 (1980) (footnotes omitted, some alterations original, one new). The main opinion in the case now before us demonstrates the worsening failure of Alabama caselaw defining and applying the heinous-atrocious-cruel aggravating circumstance to meet the requirements of Godfrey. The definition and criteria for this aggravating circumstance, as identified and applied by the main opinion, will not foreclose the heinous-atrocious-cruel aggravating circumstance with any predictable consistency unless the murderer catches the victim instantly, kills the victim quickly, painlessly, and neatly, and gets the (dead) victim to the doctor promptly.
Articulating a definition and criteria for this aggravating circumstance that will consistently meet the requirements of Godfrey is admittedly difficult. The Alabama definition, "conscienceless or pitiless homicides which are unnecessarily torturous to the victim," Ex parte Kyzer, 399 So. 2d 330, 334 (Ala.1981), confronts the courts with the absurd task of articulating the proper way to commit a murder. In an effort to discriminate between the murders which support this aggravating circumstance and the murders which do not, the main opinion and our precedents, in effect, adopt the criteria of how mentally painful, how physically painful, how gory, and how long. While all of these criteria are matters of degree, the main opinion and our precedents do not, and as a practical, social, and political matter cannot, quantify the maximum degrees that still will not warrant a finding of this aggravating circumstance. Without such quantification, the courts can find or hold the facts of most murders to fulfill some or all of these criteria and thereby to warrant a finding of this aggravating circumstance. Therefore, each of these cases is being decided subjectively, contrary to Godfrey, supra, and usually adversely to the defendant, because of the horror, heartbreak, and outrage of nearly every murder.
This aspect of our "capital sentencing scheme" does not "provide a meaningful *393 basis for distinguishing the few cases in which the [death] penalty is imposed from the many cases in which it is not." Godfrey, supra, at 427-28, 100 S. Ct. 1759 (internal quotation marks and original brackets omitted). Indeed, for heinous-atrocious-cruel-claim cases in Alabama, the numbers are the other way around. Contrary to Godfrey, the main opinion and other Alabama caselaw do not "make rationally reviewable the process for imposing a sentence of death," id., on the basis of this aggravating circumstance.
I respectfully submit that the only way for the courts of this state consistently to meet the requirements of Godfrey will be for this Court to revise the judicial definition of this aggravating circumstance to include only murders accompanied by intentional torture. Because the murder in the case now before us does not meet this definition, I respectfully submit that this case should be reversed and remanded with instructions that the death sentence be vacated and that the defendant be resentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.