Opinion ID: 2149729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Review of Defendant's Death Sentence

Text: In this case, the trial court sentenced defendant to death notwithstanding the jury's recommendation against death. In a comprehensive sentencing order with appendix setting forth Reasons for Imposition of Death Penalty, [9] the trial court first found that the State had proved beyond a reasonable doubt the charged aggravating circumstances of murdering two or more persons [10] and that the victims were less than twelve years of age. [11] Of this there was no question and defendant admitted as much in closing argument. The trial court also recognized the following mitigating circumstances: (i) that the jury recommended that the death penalty not be imposed in this case; (ii) that defendant had no significant history of prior criminal conduct; [12] (iii) that defendant was under a mental and/or emotional disturbance, arguably extreme, when he committed the murders because of a confrontation with Betty Waggoner over his intention to remove his children from her home; [13] (iv) that defendant's father was an alcoholic who physically abused his mother during defendant's adolescent and juvenile years; (v) that the weapon used by the defendant was first introduced by Betty Waggoner who attempted to stab or cut defendant with it; and (vi) that defendant had been incarcerated for three years and nine months (including one year and ten months on death row) without any significant write-ups, during which time he had made some efforts at self-improvement. The trial court, indicating that it had carefully weighed and evaluated both the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, then found that the aggravating circumstances overwhelmingly outweighed the mitigating circumstances and sentenced defendant to death. [14] We conclude that the trial court properly followed the requirements of our death penalty statute. We also conclude that the trial court's sentencing statement demonstrates due consideration of the jury recommendation. We now proceed to our independent reconsideration of the jury recommendation against death to decide whether the death penalty is appropriate here. As discussed above, we conduct this inquiry by asking whether all the facts available in the record point so clearly to the imposition of the death penalty that the jury's recommendation is unreasonable. Certainly in the face of the multiple stabbings of a teenage woman and two very young children, that burden is very high. Yet after careful study of the facts related to defendant's mental condition, which point away from the imposition of the death penalty, and after considering the mitigating circumstances found by the trial court, it does not appear to us that all the facts in the record point so clearly to the imposition of the death penalty that the jury's recommendation was unreasonable. At trial, the defense presented the testimony of Dr. Jack Arbit, [15] who had doctorate in clinical psychology, and who maintained a private practice in the Chicago area while also occupying positions on the faculties of the Northwestern University and Loyola-Chicago University medical schools. [16] Dr. Arbit testified that during a two hour examination of defendant in September of 1989, he administered a battery of intelligence and psychological tests and clinically evaluated defendant. According to this testimony, defendant had had two brief previous contacts with mental health professionals, had a history of serious alcohol and drug abuse, and had been the subject of a violent homosexual attack. Defendant achieved a full-scale IQ score of 72 which Dr. Arbit characterized as border-line mental defective ... at about the third or fourth percentile. With respect to two tests administered to determine whether there was impairment of brain function, Dr. Arbit found evidence of impairment that he observed was consistent with defendant's alcohol and drug abuse history. With respect to two personality tests, Dr. Arbit found defendant to have very poor emotional control and very poor self concept, marked by characteristics that are usually outgrown during childhood. It was Dr. Arbit's opinion that defendant's ability to maintain control of feelings of aggression, rage, hostility, was significantly and markedly impaired ... by the history of drug abuse that affected his brain and by the fact that his rage ... had reached the point where there was just no way he could turn it off. Dr. Arbit also discussed the role of the brain cortex in controlling human behavior and the way in which chronic alcoholism can impair its function. It was Dr. Arbit's opinion that the control quality of defendant's brain cortex was impaired. Dr. Arbit testified that defendant was suffering from major depressive disorder with dysthemia, a recognized mental illness under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. This disease, Dr. Arbit testified, would be enough to make a person unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct at the time of such conduct. Finally, it was Dr. Arbit's opinion that therapy could be useful to defendant. This testimony was offered in an effort to establish an insanity defense, but Dr. Arbit offered no opinion on defendant's sanity. Two court-appointed psychiatrists testified that in their opinion defendant was sane at the time of the killings, [17] and the defendant essentially abandoned the insanity defense in closing argument. However, defendant stressed Dr. Arbit's testimony during closing arguments both at the guilt phase, contending that he should be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter but mentally ill on all counts, and again at the penalty phase, urging that the jury recommend against the death penalty. Given the comprehensive and persuasive testimony of Dr. Arbit about defendant's history (his childhood, alcoholism, and drug abuse), his limited intelligence, his mental impairment and illness, taken together with the mitigating circumstances recognized by the trial court, it does not appear to us that all the facts available in the record point so clearly to the imposition of the death penalty that the jury's recommendation was unreasonable. We therefore set aside the penalty of death.