Opinion ID: 1749058
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Point Two: Aggravating Circumstances and Double Jeopardy

Text: Anderson claims that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to dismiss and to quash the information. Anderson contends he was not, nor could he have been, convicted of aggravated murder in the first degree in his first trial because the State did not include the aggravating circumstances in the information. Thus, he argues, the State was prohibited from seeking the death penalty on retrial, and the penalty phase of his trial could not be retried because that action would result in double jeopardy. Anderson admits that section 565.020, RSMo 2000, [3] establishes a single offense of first degree murder, but he argues that the combined effect of sections 565.020, 565.030.4, RSMo Supp.2008, and 565.032.2, along with United States Supreme Court and Missouri case law [4] is to create two kinds of first degree murder: unaggravated first degree murder, which does not require proof of statutory aggravating circumstances and carries a maximum sentence of life without parole, and aggravated first degree murder, which requires the additional finding of at least one statutory aggravator and carries a maximum sentence of death. This Court rejected the same argument in State v. Gill, 167 S.W.3d 184, 193-94 (Mo. banc 2005). Nevertheless, Anderson argues that Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), overrules this Court's decisions holding that Missouri's statutory scheme recognizes a single offense of murder with a maximum sentence of death and the required presence of aggravating facts or circumstances in no way increases this maximum penalty. Gill, 167 S.W.3d at 194 (citing Cole, 71 S.W.3d at 171). This argument was also rejected in Gill; this Court stated,  Blakely is inapposite because in that case, as in Apprendi and Ring , the trial judge increased the defendant's sentence without the required finding of fact by the jury. Id. Here, as in Gill, the jury made all factual findings leading to Anderson's conviction and sentence; therefore, this argument fails. Missouri law is well-settled that there is only one crime of murder in the first degree, and the State is not required to plead aggravating circumstances in the information or indictment so long as the defendant has pretrial notice of the alleged aggravating factors. Id.; State v. Glass, 136 S.W.3d 496, 513 (Mo. banc 2004); State v. Edwards, 116 S.W.3d 511, 543 (Mo. banc 2003). Anderson was charged with first degree murder and received notice of the aggravating circumstances the State intended to prove at the penalty phase of trial when the State filed its Notice of Aggravating Circumstances. The jury in Anderson's first trial found each of the aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court did not err in overruling Anderson's motion to dismiss or his motion to quash the information. Finally, Anderson contends that the retrial subjected him to double jeopardy. This argument rests on the false premise that Missouri law recognizes two forms of first degree murder. An acquittal based on findings sufficient to establish a legal entitlement to life imprisonment at the trial-like sentencing phase is required to give double jeopardy protections. Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 537 U.S. 101, 107, 123 S.Ct. 732, 154 L.Ed.2d 588 (2003). [T]he relevant inquiry for double-jeopardy purposes was not whether the defendant received a life sentence the first time around, but rather whether a first life sentence was an `acquittal' based on findings sufficient to establish legal entitlement to the life sentence i.e., findings that the government failed to prove one or more aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 108, 123 S.Ct. 732. Here, there was no acquittal. The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt each of the three statutory aggravators submitted to it. Anderson, 79 S.W.3d at 429. Therefore, double jeopardy protections did not attach.