Opinion ID: 1189026
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Aggravating Factor Issues

Text: A. Use of a Prior Felony Committed as a Juvenile. The jury found as an aggravating circumstance that Williams had committed a prior violent felony. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-604(3). One of the prior felonies the State urged in support of this factor was a prior conviction for a robbery Williams committed when he was fifteen years old. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), that the execution of a sixteen-year-old is unconstitutional, Williams argues that use of this conviction as an aggravating circumstance violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. As this claim was not presented to the state courts, the district court properly denied it as procedurally barred. Williams urges us to remand for a determination whether cause and prejudice excuse his procedural default, asserting that he can establish cause because Roper was not decided until after his state postconviction proceedings. Putting aside the obvious difference between executing a juvenile and considering conduct as a juvenile in determining whether an adult warrants the death penalty, cf. United States v. Jones, 574 F.3d 546, ___, 2009 WL 2194820, at  (8th Cir.2009), we conclude the contention that cause excuses his default is without merit. In 1988, years before Williams's criminal trial, a plurality of the Supreme Court wrote that execution of a fifteen-year-old would violate the Eighth Amendment. Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 838, 108 S.Ct. 2687, 101 L.Ed.2d 702 (1988). Thus, the argument Williams belatedly seeks to raise was not so novel that its legal basis [was] not reasonably available to him in state court. See Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1, 16, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984). B. The Pecuniary Gain Aggravator. Williams argues that this statutory aggravating factor unconstitutionally fails to narrow the class of death-eligible offenders because it merely duplicates an element of the underlying crime of felony murder during the course of a robbery. He asserts that Collins v. Lockhart, 754 F.2d 258, 264 (8th Cir.1985), was correctly decided and improperly overruled by Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 959, 110 S.Ct. 378, 107 L.Ed.2d 363 (1989), a question the Supreme Court noted but did not decide in Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 371 n. 4, 113 S.Ct. 838, 122 L.Ed.2d 180 (1993). As the district court correctly concluded, this argument is foreclosed by later decisions of this court, if not by Perry. See Wainwright v. Lockhart, 80 F.3d 1226, 1232 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 968, 117 S.Ct. 395, 136 L.Ed.2d 310 (1996). Moreover, the contention is without merit for another reason. The jury was instructed that the felony underlying the charge of capital murder by Williams was kidnapping, not robbery. See Ark. Code Ann. § 5-10-101(a)(1)(iii). Consistent with the statutory definition of kidnapping, the jury was instructed that it had to find Williams restrained Stacy Errickson with the purpose of inflicting physical injury upon her or engaging in sexual intercourse or sexual contact, or of committing aggravated robbery or any flight thereafter. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-11-102(a)(3)(5). After convicting Williams of capital murder, the jury found in the penalty phase that he committed the murder for pecuniary gain, consistent with § 5-4-604(6). There was no duplication, of constitutional dimension or otherwise. C. The Especially Cruel or Depraved Aggravator. The jury unanimously found as an aggravating circumstance that capital murder was committed in an especially cruel or depraved manner. Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-604(8)(A). Williams attacks this finding in two ways. First, he argues that it was not supported by constitutionally sufficient evidence. Consistent with Ark.Code Ann. § 5-4-604(8)(B), the jury was instructed: [A] capital murder is committed in an especially cruel manner when, as part of a course of conduct intended to inflict mental anguish, serious physical abuse, or torture upon the victim prior to the victim's death, mental anguish, serious physical abuse, or torture is inflicted. On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Arkansas concluded that the evidence supported the jury's finding of this aggravating circumstance: The State's evidence reflected Williams forcibly abducted Stacy Erri[c]kson, robbed her, raped her, and killed her. It further showed Erri[c]kson had a significant period of time to contemplate her fate. The physical evidence established a violent physical assault by appellant against the victim. Injuries to her head indicated deep bruising to her neck and to her face. The victim was bound with her hands behind her back. The medical testimony further indicated her death was by asphyxiation from strangulation. Williams I, 991 S.W.2d at 571. Even before AEDPA (and Williams cites no later cases), the scope of our review of this issue was extremely limitedapplying the standard adopted in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), we determine whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, a rational trier of fact could have found the existence of the aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. See Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 780-84, 110 S.Ct. 3092, 111 L.Ed.2d 606 (1990); Skillicorn v. Luebbers, 475 F.3d 965, 977 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 297, 169 L.Ed.2d 212 (2007). Williams argues that the evidence did not establish his intent to inflict mental anguish, serious physical abuse, or torture because there was no eyewitness to the murder or to his mental state after the murder, and his custodial statement did not reveal the requisite intent. [11] But the issue is whether a rational jury could find the requisite intent from circumstantial evidence in the record. [A] federal habeas corpus court faced with a record of historical facts that supports conflicting inferences must presumeeven if it does not affirmatively appear in the recordthat the trier of fact resolved any such conflicts in favor of the prosecution, and must defer to that resolution. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326, 99 S.Ct. 2781. The Supreme Court of Arkansas' determination was not an unreasonable application of Jeffers and Jackson. Second, Williams contends that this statutory aggravating circumstance is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. This contention is foreclosed by our recent decision in Johnson v. Norris, 537 F.3d 840, 849-50 (8th Cir.2008), cert denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1334, 173 L.Ed.2d 605 (2009).