Opinion ID: 1279670
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: sufficiency of evidence of the aggravating factors

Text: The United States Supreme Court has imposed several constitutional mandates upon the states in regard to death penalty statutes. A number of these are directly relevant in this case. As the Court stated in Godfrey v. Georgia, 446 U.S. 420, 427-28, 64 L.Ed.2d 398, 100 S.Ct. 1759 (1980): 1. A state's death penalty law must provide a meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which the penalty is imposed from the majority of cases in which it is not. 2. A state has a constitutional responsibility to tailor and apply its death penalty law in a manner that avoids the arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty. 3. A state must channel the sentencer's discretion by clear and objective standards which provide specific and detailed guidance and which make the process rationally reviewable. Accordingly, the statutory aggravating factors play a paramount role in the constitutionality of Washington's death penalty scheme. These factors serve the required function of restricting the class of persons who are subject to the death sentence. The requirement that the State prove at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt ensures that the jury's discretion is guided and regularized, thus fulfilling the mandates of the Eighth Amendment. See State v. Bartholomew, 98 Wn.2d 173, 192, 654 P.2d 1170 (1982), vacated and remanded, 463 U.S. 1203, defendant's cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1212 (1983); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280, 303, 49 L.Ed.2d 944, 96 S. Ct 2978 (1976). In a case where the evidence is insufficient to prove any statutory aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is not a proper candidate for death penalty consideration by a jury. The imposition of the death penalty in such a case becomes arbitrary and capricious, since the jury's decision to impose death will then necessarily be based upon factors other than those few narrow factors carefully chosen as proper by the Legislature. The imposition of death under such circumstances is wholly incompatible with the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. See Godfrey v. Georgia, supra . In the case at hand, the majority finds the evidence sufficient under the test enunciated in State v. Green, 94 Wn.2d 216, 616 P.2d 628 (1980): Whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. [6] To arrive at its decision, the majority draws a number of conclusions from the evidence, which it asserts are reasonable inferences. These inferences, however, are totally speculative. Clearly, the majority misapplies the legal definition of inference. The term, contrary to the majority's analysis, is not interchangeable with assumption or speculation. The test applicable to a trier of fact in regard to drawing inferences is that the inferences drawn must be rationally related to the proven facts. State v. Johnson, 100 Wn.2d 607, 674 P.2d 145 (1983), overruled on other grounds in State v. Bergeron, 105 Wn.2d 1, 711 P.2d 1000 (1985); County Court of Ulster Cy. v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 60 L.Ed.2d 777, 99 S.Ct. 2213 (1979). An inference may be rationally related to the proven facts if that inference is more likely than not to flow from those facts. See County Court of Ulster Cy. v. Allen, supra . Certainly, a reviewing court logically cannot apply a different standard to its review of evidence than can a trier of fact. Thus, in this case we are allowed to draw only such inferences as are rationally related to the proven facts. The inferences drawn by the majority fail to meet even this minimal standard of rationality. Accordingly, the evidence here clearly fails to satisfy the Green test. No trier of fact, acting only on the evidence presented, could find that either aggravating factor exists beyond a reasonable doubt. I turn now to an examination of the evidence to support the two aggravating factors found by the jury.