Opinion ID: 2546826
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Death Sentences & Aggravating Factors

Text: Decay continues by alleging that it was unlawful for the State to charge the killings of the victims as separate counts of capital murder and to treat each homicide as aggravated by the other because it constituted multiple punishments for the same offense. The State avers that Decay's due-process and double-jeopardy rights were not violated by allowing the State to follow the capital statutory scheme and present evidence of one killing as an aggravating circumstance for the other and vice versa. The State urges that the death of one person surely cannot be viewed as the duplicate of a separate individual's death. In order to impose a sentence of death for capital murder, the jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that at least one aggravating circumstance exists. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-603 (Supp.2009); see also State v. Fudge, 361 Ark. 412, 206 S.W.3d 850 (2005). Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-4-604(4) (Repl.2006) instructs that a permissible aggravating circumstance is when the person in the commission of the capital murder knowingly created a great risk of death to a person other than the victim or caused the death of more than one (1) person in the same criminal episode. The aggravating circumstance that the State presented to the jury in the capital murder of victim Kevin Jones was that Decay caused the death of an additional person, Kendall Rice. The aggravating circumstance that the State presented to the jury in the capital murder of victim Kendall Rice was that Decay caused the death of an additional person, Kevin Jones. As noted, Decay argues that the use of each homicide as an aggravating circumstance of the other is a violation of the requirement that a capital scheme must narrow the number and class of persons at risk of execution and violated his due-process and double-jeopardy rights. This argument was specifically rejected by the Eighth Circuit in Cox v. Norris, 133 F.3d 565 (8th Cir.1997). A capital-punishment scheme must genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder. See id. (citing Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.1989)). This requirement may be satisfied in two wayseither a state legislature may explicitly restrict the definition of capital murder, or a jury may perform the narrowing function during the penalty phase by ascertaining whether any aggravating circumstances exist. See id. When Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-10-101(a)(4), the statute for capital murder, which requires that a person cause the death of another with a premeditated and deliberate purpose, is compared to section 5-10-102, the statute for first-degree murder, which requires only a purpose of causing the death of another person or that a person knowingly causes the death of a person fourteen (14) years of age or younger, it is clear that the capital scheme in Arkansas does genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and justifies the imposition of a more severe sentence on a defendant compared to others found guilty of murder. Additionally, the class is not only narrowed by the application of aggravating circumstances by the jury pursuant to section 5-4-604, but also the requirement of section 5-4-603 that the jury find that the aggravating circumstance or circumstances outweigh any mitigating factors and justify a sentence of death beyond a reasonable doubt. See Cox, supra ; see also Perry, supra . While Decay further argues that the use of each homicide as an aggravating circumstance constituted multiple punishments for the same offense, that argument was rejected by the Eighth Circuit in Perry, supra , because of the United States Supreme Court's holding in Lowenfield v. Phelps, 484 U.S. 231, 108 S.Ct. 546, 98 L.Ed.2d 568 (1988). The Supreme Court held that although the aggravating circumstance used was also an element of the underlying felony for which the defendant was convicted, the state's legislature had narrowed the class of defendants eligible for the death penalty sufficiently to pass constitutional muster by defining which homicides would be considered first-degree murder. Therefore, the duplication of an element of a capital offense by one or more aggravating circumstances does not render the Arkansas death-penalty scheme unconstitutional. See Cox v. Norris, 133 F.3d 565 (8th Cir.1997); Wainwright v. Lockhart, 80 F.3d 1226 (8th Cir.1996), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 968, 117 S.Ct. 395, 136 L.Ed.2d 310 (1996); Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.1989).