Opinion ID: 2382857
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Methods of Selecting a Comparison Group of Similar Cases from the Catalog

Text: The next step in the process is to develop the methods of analysis, that is, the manner in which the Court must look at the electronic-index cards to find the similarities. The mathematical and statistical concepts that underlie the process are set forth in the Final Report and the Weisberg Report submitted by the Attorney General. Further background may be found in the Report of the National Center for State Courts or the works of Professor Baldus and his colleagues. See Baldus and Pulaski II, supra, 33 Stan.L.Rev. 1. We need give only a broad outline of the concepts and have enough familiarity with them ourselves so that the product of the analysis will enable us to accomplish our function of reviewing similarities to determine whether there has been a meaningful distinction in the imposition of the death penalty. As noted, there are two ways of approaching the data. Under the first method, using the index-card illustration (for example, the robbery-murders of police officers), the reviewing court will establish a priori (that is, before the fact) what it believes are the similar characteristics that influence the life/death decision. Under the second method, the reviewer assembles all the life/death verdicts and attempts to extract from those the distinguishing characteristics that appear to present a pattern of life/death decisions. One familiar with the scientific method of analysis will recognize that a pattern of decision will develop. The Court will not rely on either method exclusively. Rather, we will use each as a check on the other in reviewing the proportionality of Robert Marshall's sentence. As we have explained in Part II, supra at 124, 613 A. 2d at 1066, we believe, as does the United States Supreme Court (albeit in the more limited context of Eighth Amendment proportionality, see Coker, supra, 433 U.S. 584, 97 S.Ct. 2861, 53 L.Ed. 2d 982), that the charging decisions of prosecutors, as well as the sentencing decisions of juries, both representing society's interest in punishing crime, will demonstrate when a death sentence is excessive and thus should be factored into any analysis of relative disproportionality. Recognizing, for example, that rarely, if ever, will comparison crimes of offenders be on all fours ( e.g., no two convenience-store-holdup murders are exactly the same), a broader search for similarity is required. One method of evaluating substantive disproportionality, which allows the Court to broaden its base of similar cases, is that of blameworthiness, mentioned by Justice O'Connor in her dissenting opinion in Enmund. 458 U.S. at 823-25, 102 S.Ct. at 3390-91, 73 L.Ed. 2d at 1168-70. The concept of blameworthiness can serve in procedural disproportionality review as well. Building on that concept, the Master has sorted the index cards to measure similar cases in terms of objectively-verified measures of blameworthiness derived from comparing assumed and empiric characteristics with actual results in the implementation of New Jersey's death penalty. A thumbnail sketch of that process is: ------------------- | Similar Cases | ------------------- | | | --------------------------- | are defined in terms of | | Blameworthiness | | or | | Culpablity Levels | --------------------------- | | | --------------- | measured by | --------------- | | -----------------------|------------------------ | | | | | | | | | ------------------------ -------------------- ------------------------ | Levels of | | Levels of | | Levels of | | Blameworthiness | | Blameworthiness | | Blameworthiness | | derived from | | derived from | | derived from | | Factual | | Numerical | | Outcomes, | | Comparability, | | Preponderances | | e.g., the analysis | | e.g., serial killers | | of aggravating or | | of factors that seem | | with abused childhoods | | mitigating factors | | to influence | | | | | | prosecutors and juries | ------------------------ -------------------- ------------------------ | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Salient Factor | Numerical | Index of Outcomes | | Test | Preponderance Test | Test | | (Factual Comparability) | | | |--------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Similar Cases | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
That measure defines similar cases in terms of factual comparability. Final Report, supra, at 80. It is based on both a priori or assumed considerations ( e.g., that a murder by a defendant with a prior murder conviction will be more blameworthy than not), and by empirical considerations ( e.g., the data collected showed that factor is statistically and practically important in explaining the decisions of prosecutors and juries). Take, for example, the convenience-store-robbery murder by a previously-convicted murderer. Although in each case the crime is the same, experience in the form of actions of prosecutors and juries confirms the intuitive judgment that the first-time offender is less blameworthy. By sorting out those factual patterns (typologies) of cases in terms of statutory aggravating and mitigating factors, see N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4) & (5), as well as other non-statutory aggravating and mitigating circumstances that are important conceptually or statistically, Final Report, supra, at 84, the data cards are catalogued to rank cases in order of the predicted probability of receiving a death sentence. Those electronic-index cards arranged by weighted sorting yield a sample of similar cases in terms of factually-related blameworthiness.
Aside from the type of case, e.g., a rape-murder or robbery-murder, intuitively we are convinced that a case with more aggravating factors and fewer mitigating factors would be more likely to result in the imposition of a death sentence. A convenience-store robbery murder committed by a repeat killer to escape detection is more likely to produce a death sentence. Hence, these raw numbers may be used as a measure of blameworthiness. The Final Report has confirmed that intuition. For instance, the results of the Master's analysis reveal that in cases with a single aggravating factor, the death-sentencing rate declines sharply in the presence of one or more mitigating factors (the average rate among those cases is .10 (5/50)). Final Report, supra, at 90. Thus, the index of cards will yield samples of similar cases in terms of the numbers of factors. That is one method used by Pennsylvania. See Commonwealth v. Pirela, 510 Pa. 43, 507 A. 2d 23, 32 (1986). The problem with that analysis is that it assumes that prosecutors and juries weigh aggravating and mitigating factors equally. For example, the grave risk of death to another factor, c(4)(b), carries much less weight than the cop-killer factor, c(4)(h). Hence, the Master weighted the statutory factors to reflect what the data showed. Finally, he added non-statutory aggravating and mitigating factors, for example, victimization that falls short of the torture/depravity factor, c(4)(c), but which is characteristically found to influence prosecutors and juries. That produces the final method of sorting cases to determine the class of similar cases.
The Master refers to that as a logistic multiple-regression analysis. Final Report, supra, at 92. The index produced reflects the differential weights placed by jurors on the different statutory and nonstatutory aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Id. at 92-93. It adds to our a priori assumptions what experience has taught us  for example, that there is a penalty-trial death-sentencing rate of only .12 in the grave risk [to others] (4b) cases versus a rate of .67 in the pecuniary gain killer (4d) and police-victim (4h) cases. The impacts of the individual mitigating factors also vary. The defendant's age (5c) has the greatest mitigating effect, while in contrast, the (5b) factor, victim contribution to the homicide, may have an aggravating effect. [ Id. at 92.] Testing the weighted statutory and non-statutory aggravating and mitigating factors present in both penalty-trial cases and in all clearly death-eligible cases yielded a scale of overall defendant culpability as measured by the presence or absence in the cases of factors that appear to influence prosecutorial and jury decision-making. Id. at 93. The cluster of cases ranked near the subject case on the index yields a sample of cases that are similar in culpability. The end-product of the electronic sorting is a series of cases not unlike the series of index cards that we started with in our analogy.