Opinion ID: 1268761
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Grave Risk to Others

Text: The third aggravating circumstance found by the trial judge was that [i]n the commission of the offense the defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person or persons in addition to the victim of the offense. A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(3). The trial judge based his finding of this aggravating circumstance on defendant's taking a deadly weapon into a public place where other persons were present and could have been struck by a bullet or could have been shot by defendant if they had interfered with the commission of the robbery. We recently reviewed our cases where we have upheld the finding of this aggravating circumstance and concluded that, in each case,  the murderous act itself put other people in a zone of danger. State v. McCall, 139 Ariz. 147, 160, 677 P.2d 920, 933 (1983), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 2670, 81 L.Ed.2d 375 (1984) (emphasis added). We do not find this case analogous to the cases cited in McCall. In each of those cases, as distinguished from the instant case, the defendant committed an act  firing random shots in a crowded bar or gymnasium or setting a house on fire knowing of occupants trapped inside  which only fortuitously failed to cause another person's death. Defendant in this case, however, shot only at the victim Charles Pray, who was the only person standing between defendant and what he wanted  the money in the cash register. The shooting thus was not random and indiscriminate, but purposeful. Although other persons were in the store at the time of the shooting, defendant's murderous act itself did not place them within the zone of danger. We also find that defendant's pointing his gun at Margaret Westcott and Ellen Foster in the parking lot and telling them to go did not pose a grave risk of death to either of them. This case is more analogous to State v. Jeffers, supra , where we found no aggravating circumstance in the defendant's pointing a gun at a third party merely to quiet her, than to our more recent decision in State v. Nash, supra , where we found aggravation in the defendant's shooting the victim once, then pointing the gun at a third party within five feet of him, and finally firing two more shots at the victim while the third party avoided injury by taking cover. Since we find that defendant's murderous act did not create a grave risk of death for persons other than the victim, we disapprove the trial court's finding of this aggravating circumstance and conclude that A.R.S. § 13-703(F)(3) is inapplicable to this case.