Opinion ID: 1202533
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: sufficiency of the aggravating circumstances evidence

Text: Defendant's fourteenth point on appeal is that the State had a duty to prove each of the aggravating circumstances alleged in Count I of the five informations beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. Defendant's claim is that he is entitled to unanimous verdicts on his first degree murder convictions and that the jury's use of general verdicts precludes this Court from insuring unanimity since the verdicts do not reveal which aggravating circumstance or circumstances were relied upon by the jury to convict him. He also contends that his murder convictions can be upheld only if the record contains sufficient evidence to support each alleged aggravating circumstance. He claims that because the evidence is insufficient to prove each of the circumstances underlying each of his first degree murder convictions, he is entitled to reversal of those convictions. Notwithstanding this Court's division over the unanimity rule, [165] the Court is unpersuaded by defendant's claims in this case. In State v. Tillman , [166] two members of the Court held that jury unanimity on the evaluating circumstances is not required so long as the evidence supports the conviction with the alternative circumstances aggravating the crime charged, [167] as is the case here. Furthermore, Associate Chief Justice Stewart noted in Tillman that in his view, the specific instructions given to the jury required it to act with the requisite unanimity [168] and any error was harmless because there was no real dispute that the defendant in fact committed the aggravating circumstances charged. [169] Here, the trial court gave the jury general unanimity instructions that parallel the instructions used in Tillman. Moreover, because of the posture of this case, the Court's division in Tillman need not be repeated here. The five informations alleged aggravated kidnapping as an aggravating circumstance for the first degree murder charges. Defendant was also charged in each of the informations with one count of aggravated kidnapping. The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on each of those charges. Clearly, then, the jury unanimously found that defendant killed each of his victims at least in the perpetration of an aggravated kidnapping. And a review of the evidence and all inferences which can be reasonably drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts [170] supports the conclusion that sufficient evidence exists in the record to support the five aggravated kidnapping circumstances charged. In light of the above, we conclude that defendant's point is without merit.