Opinion ID: 1946348
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: instructions requiring enmund findings

Text: Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782, 102 S.Ct. 3368, 73 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1982) construed the Eighth Amendment to forbid imposition of the death penalty against one who neither took life, attempted to take life, nor intended to take life. Id. at 786, 102 S.Ct. at 3371. Gray claims that his death sentence must be set aside because there was neither a finding nor sufficient evidence to support a finding that he killed or intended to kill Wojcik in the course of the kidnapping. Gray's conviction occurred prior to the amendment of the Mississippi Death Penalty statute to require the jury to make Enmund findings. See Miss. Code Ann. § 99-19-101(7) (Supp. 1984). Instruction S-1 at the guilt phase required the jury to make Enmund findings because in order to find Gray guilty the jury had to believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Gray did unlawfully, wilfully, and feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder ... Ronald Wojcik, while engaged in the commission of the crime and felony of kidnapping. (emphasis added) Also, instruction S-3 told the jury that malice aforethought is a predetermination to commit an act without legal justification or excuse. Jordan v. Watkins, 681 F.2d 1067 (5th Cir.1982), holds that the intent to commit murder standard was met where identical instructions were given to those in the case sub judice. There the Court found that the charge to the jury that it could not convict appellant absent a finding that he intended to commit murder meant that the jury's verdict could be read only to reflect such a finding. Id. at 1076-77. The testimony of Gray reflected that Cannaday asked Gray to get some knives and come with her to help scare her ex-boy friend, Wojcik. Gray said that she asked him to kill Wojcik; he said he would help her scare Wojcik but would not kill him. Gray claimed that after he marched Wojcik at knifepoint into the woods, he was going to scare Wojcik and tell him to run. When they got into a fight, Gray punched Wojcik as hard as he could. Then, handing his butcher knife to Cannaday, Gray left. In Jones v. Thigpen, 741 F.2d 805 (5th Cir.1984), the Fifth Circuit reversed the defendant's conviction because there was no evidence indicating that the defendant killed or assisted his accomplice in killing the victim, or that he supplied the murder weapon, or even that he knew his accomplice intended that a killing occur. In that case, the Fifth Circuit said that, had the state introduced such evidence, the death penalty would not be disturbed. 741 F.2d at 817. In this case, Gray admitted that Cannaday told him she wanted Wojcik killed and that he, Gray, supplied Cannaday with the murder weapon after disabling the victim. This admission by Gray establishes the requisite personal culpability under Enmund v. Florida , and there is no merit to this assignment of error.