Opinion ID: 1935115
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Double-Counting of Evidence Supporting c(4)(f) and c(4)(g) Factors

Text: Defendant requests that the court reexamine its position, first set forth in Bey II, supra, 112 N.J. 123, 548 A. 2d 887, that a jury may use the same evidence to support more than one aggravating factor. In that case we considered the question in the context of both the c(4)(g) aggravating factor and the c(4)(c) factor which generally addresses concerns regarding the brutality of the murder. We concluded: [T]he appropriate resolution is to allow the prosecution to use the same evidence in seeking to prove multiple aggravating factors, provided the trial court advises the jury that it should not simply compare the number of aggravating factors against the number of mitigating factors, that it is considering the same facts more than once, and that it should be cognizant that the same facts are being used to prove more than one aggravating factor. This result permits the jury to consider the evidence relevant to each aggravating factor, and should prevent it from giving undue weight to the number of factors when one aspect of the defendant's conduct supports multiple aggravating factors. [ Id. at 176, 548 A. 2d 887.] We further analyzed the issue in Rose, supra, in the context of the c(4)(f) factor, also present here, and the c(4)(h) factor, which concerns the killing of a public official. See 112 N.J. at 524-27, 548 A. 2d 1058. We adopted the general principle announced in Bey II and concluded that the trial court had committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury that it not assign inordinate weight to the facts that support multiple factors. Id. at 527, 548 A. 2d 1058. We have maintained that position in cases involving use of the same evidence to support the c(4)(f) and c(4)(g) factors. See, e.g., McDougald, supra, 120 N.J. at 568-69, 577 A. 2d 419; Hightower, supra, 120 N.J. at 422, 577 A. 2d 99. We discern no basis in defendant's contentions to depart from our prior resolution of that issue.